Duplicate Content & Rel Canonical Tag not working
-
I'm really questioning the legitimacy of the duplicate content flags with moz. I'm building a website that sells home decor products and a lot of the pages are similar in structure (As would be expected with a store that sells thousands of individual products). It seems a little overkill to me to flag the following pages as duplicate content. They have different urls, titles, h1, h2, and h3 tages, different meta tags, etc. Right now, it's saying that the following have duplicate page content:
http://www.countryporchhomedecor.com
http://countryporchhomedecor.com/park-designs/pillows/christmas-vacation-embroidered-pillow
http://www.countryporchhomedecor.com/donna-sharp/throws/camo-bear-throw
http://countryporchhomedecor.com/park-designs/teapots/wonderland-teapot
http://countryporchhomedecor.com/park-designs/rag-rugs/cambridge-rug-36x60
http://www.countryporchhomedecor.com/donna-sharp/lodge-quilts/king%2C-woodland
http://www.countryporchhomedecor.com/park-designs/rag-rugs/redmon-rag-rug-36x60
http://www.countryporchhomedecor.com/park-designs/valances/hearthside-valance-72x14
http://countryporchhomedecor.com/park-designs/valances/hearthside-valance-72x14
http://countryporchhomedecor.com/donna-sharp/lodge-quilts/king,-woodland
http://www.countryporchhomedecor.com/park-designs/teapots/wonderland-teapot
http://countryporchhomedecor.com/donna-sharp/throws/camo-bear-throw
http://countryporchhomedecor.com/park-designs/accessories/home-place-tumbler
http://www.countryporchhomedecor.com/donna-sharp/lodge-quilts/king,-woodland
http://www.countryporchhomedecor.com/park-designs/rag-rugs/cambridge-rug-36x60
http://www.countryporchhomedecor.com/park-designs/pillows/christmas-vacation-embroidered-pillow
http://www.countryporchhomedecor.com/donna-sharp/lodge-quilts/king%2C-woodland?pi=18
http://countryporchhomedecor.com/donna-sharp/lodge-quilts/king%2C-woodland
http://www.countryporchhomedecor.com/park-designs/accessories/home-place-tumbler
http://countryporchhomedecor.com/park-designs/rag-rugs/redmon-rag-rug-36x6Any ideas?
Also, it seems like it's not honoring the rel-canonical tag. It keeps saying that pages with a rel canonical tag are duplicates when some of the urls that it's flagging shouldn't even be indexed because of the canonical tag. The "pi" in the query string should not be indexed!
http://www.countryporchhomedecor.com/bedding-&-quilts/shams/standard-shams?pi=18&page=3
http://countryporchhomedecor.com/bedding-&-quilts/shams/standard-shams?page=6
http://www.countryporchhomedecor.com/bedding-&-quilts/shams/standard-shams?page=7
http://www.countryporchhomedecor.com/bedding-&-quilts/shams/standard-shams?pi=18&page=6
http://www.countryporchhomedecor.com/bedding-&-quilts/shams/standard-shams?page=10
http://www.countryporchhomedecor.com/bedding-&-quilts/shams/standard-shams?pi=18&page=8
http://www.countryporchhomedecor.com/bedding-&-quilts/shams/standard-shams?page=8
http://www.countryporchhomedecor.com/bedding-&-quilts/shams/standard-shams
http://countryporchhomedecor.com/bedding-&-quilts/shams/standard-shams?page=7
http://www.countryporchhomedecor.com/bedding-&-quilts/shams/standard-shams?pi=18&page=7
http://www.countryporchhomedecor.com/bedding-&-quilts/shams/standard-shams?page=1
http://countryporchhomedecor.com/bedding-&-quilts/shams/standard-shams?page=8
http://www.countryporchhomedecor.com/bedding-&-quilts/shams/standard-shams?pi=18&page=5
http://www.countryporchhomedecor.com/bedding-&-quilts/shams/standard-shams?pi=18&page=10
http://countryporchhomedecor.com/bedding-&-quilts/shams/standard-shams?page=3
http://countryporchhomedecor.com/bedding-&-quilts/shams/standard-shams
http://www.countryporchhomedecor.com/bedding-&-quilts/shams/standard-shams?page=5
http://www.countryporchhomedecor.com/bedding-&-quilts/shams/standard-shams?pi=18&page=4
http://www.countryporchhomedecor.com/bedding-&-quilts/shams/standard-shams?pi=18&page=9
http://www.countryporchhomedecor.com/bedding-%26-quilts/shams/standard-shams
http://www.countryporchhomedecor.com/bedding-&-quilts/shams/standard-shams?pi=18
http://www.countryporchhomedecor.com/bedding-&-quilts/shams/standard-shams?pi=18&page=1
http://www.countryporchhomedecor.com/bedding-&-quilts/shams/standard-shams?page=6
http://countryporchhomedecor.com/bedding-&-quilts/shams/standard-shams?page=1
http://countryporchhomedecor.com/bedding-&-quilts/shams/standard-shams?page=5
http://www.countryporchhomedecor.com/bedding-&-quilts/shams/standard-shams?page=2
http://www.countryporchhomedecor.com/bedding-&-quilts/shams/standard-shams?page=9
http://countryporchhomedecor.com/bedding-&-quilts/shams/standard-shams?page=4
http://www.countryporchhomedecor.com/bedding-&-quilts/shams/standard-shams?page=3
http://countryporchhomedecor.com/bedding-%26-quilts/shams/standard-shams
http://www.countryporchhomedecor.com/bedding-%26-quilts/shams/standard-shams?pi=18
http://countryporchhomedecor.com/bedding-&-quilts/shams/standard-shams?page=9
http://countryporchhomedecor.com/bedding-&-quilts/shams/standard-shams?page=10
http://www.countryporchhomedecor.com/bedding-&-quilts/shams/standard-shams?pi=18&page=2
http://countryporchhomedecor.com/bedding-&-quilts/shams/standard-shams?page=2
http://www.countryporchhomedecor.com/bedding-&-quilts/shams/standard-shams?page=4 -
No problem! Yes, same is true for HTTP and HTTPS
-
Is is the same way with https and non https pages? Should only one of those be accessible per page?
-
Ok thank you!
-
That is correct, you should be using rel=next/prev for markup on paginated sections. But after noticing the www and non-www issue, I don't think your problem is related to canonicals or prev/next.
Regardless of what you're doing with canonical tags or prev/next, you pages should never be accessible at both www and non-www versions. You're going to be at a duplicate content risk as long as both versions exist.
-
Thank you very much for your response! On the paginated pages I don't think you're supposed to use the canonical tag. Instead you're supposed to use the next/prev tag which is what I did. the next/prev tag points only to pages without query string values and those are the pages that are supposed to be indexed. So there shouldn't be individual pages that are separated by query string values right? They should all use non query string value pages.
Even though I do have both www and non www pages accessible, on all of the pages, I am either using the canonical tag or the next/prev tag on paginated pages. Shouldn't that tell search engines which to index??
-
Hi,
Regarding the first set of URLs: I took a look at a handful of those URLs, and it's entirely possible that you're getting duplicate notices on those. Rogerbot flags any 2 pages as duplicates if the source code of those URLs matches at 90% or more. So it's not identical, but not different enough that search engines can discern. Most of the products you've listed there have no content, or a very small amount, meaning that when you consider the rest of the code involved with that page, it mostly matches the homepage.
Regarding the second set: I ran those URLs through Screaming Frog and don't see any canonical tags. Keep in mind, just because URLs aren't indexed in search engines, doesn't mean Rogerbot doesn't have access to them.
*Update - on further digging, I think I found the source of all of your duplicate issues. Both www and non-www versions of your URLs are accessible. One of them should redirect to the other, doesn't matter which, but both should not render.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Duplicate Content Issue because of root domain and index.html
SEOMoz crawl diagnostics is suggesting that my root domain and the rootdomain/index.html are duplicate content. What can be done to ensure that both are considered as a single age only?
Moz Pro | | h1seo1 -
Duplicate content error?
I am getting a duplicate content error for the following pages: http://www.bluelinkerp.com/products/accounting/index.asp http://www.bluelinkerp.com/products/accounting/ But, of course, the 2nd link is just an automatic redirect to the index file, is it not? Why is it thinking it is a different URL? See image. NJfxA.png
Moz Pro | | BlueLinkERP0 -
Canonical for Mobile
Hi Guys, I am curious why in SEOMoz, our mobile site is showing to have the canonical tags used on the desktop site but when you double check the code of the mobile website it is showing m.domain.com Any thoughts on why we are seeing this? Also is there any lag in the code updates being reported through the SEOmoz toolset? Thanks for all your help! Cheers,
Moz Pro | | lwalker0 -
'Appropriate Use of Rel Canonical', Critical Factor but appears correct on page
Hi, Trying to get the following page ranked unsuccessfully.... http://www.joules.com/en-GB/2/Collections-Quilted-Jackets/c01c02.r16.1 Instead a product page is being ranked, shown below.... http://www.joules.com/en-GB/Womens-Quilted-Jacket/Navy/M_HAMPTON/ProductDetail.raction When I run the on page report card it advises that the Rel Canonical tag needs to point to that page, but we have checked and it looks to be doing that already. Has anyone else had an issue like this? Thanks, Martin
Moz Pro | | rockethot0 -
Title tag discrepancy - is this a Yoast or SEOMoz thing?
Just took on a WP site using Yoast - need help understanding the title tag. SEOMoz reports that the HP title tag is 159 characters, but there are only 60 characters entered in the plug-in field and GWT reports no "too long" title tags. Is this a Yoast thing? Wordpress: San Diego Plumbing, Heating and Air Conditioning Specialists (60) Google Webmaster Tools – reporting 0 titles too long SEO Moz: San Diego Plumbing, Heating and Air Conditioning Specialists | Anderson Plumbing Heating and Air » San Diego Plumbing, Heating and Air Conditioning Specialists (159)
Moz Pro | | vernonmack0 -
Is The Crawl Diagnostic tool working correctly?
The Crawl Diagnostic tool shows issues and displays a graph but they don't display the page specific results/suggestion like it used to. I get the "Congratulations, there are no pages affected by this issue!" message.
Moz Pro | | -PAUL-0 -
Crawl Diagnostics and missing meta tags on noindex blog pages
Hi Guys/Gals We do love the Crawl Diagnostics, but do find the missing meta tags ("Missing Meta Description" Tag in this case) somewhat spammy. We use the "All in One SEO Pack" for our blog and it does stick in noindex,follow (as it should) on the pages that is of no use to us. "2008/04/page/2/" and the likes. Maybe I'm wrong but should the Diagnostics tool not respect the noindex tag and just ignore any warnings, since it should really mean that these pages are NOT included in the search index. Meaning that the other meta tags are really useless. Any thoughts?
Moz Pro | | sfseo0