Why do I get duplicate page title errors.
-
I keep getting duplicate page title errors on www.etraxc.com/ and www.etraxc.com/default.asp, which are both pointing to the same page. How do i resolve this and how bad is it hurting my SEO.
-
Just adding to previous comments, both a 301-redirect or canonical tag should work here. Traditionally, we tend to suggest a 301-redirect for critical pages, but the canonical can sweep up other variants of the home-page (and it's common to have variations, like tracking parameters, https: versions, etc.), so I've gradually moved that direction.
In your case, the trick is that you're driving other content off of "default.asp", such as:
http://www.etraxc.com/default.asp?demo=part
I'm not clear if that's a unique page or if it's also a partial duplicate. If those pages are unique and you use the canonical tag, you'd knock those pages out of the index, so it would probably be the wrong choice here. If those are unintentional duplicates or low-value, then canonical is probably a good bet.
Even if you fix your internal links (which is the right thing to do), it's still good to sweep up the bad copies in Google's index, so I'd implement one of the fixes.
-
You'll have to rewrite the URL's rather than just remove reference to the path generally unless your CMS can cater for the required alterations.
-
If you have backlinks pointing to www.etraxc.com/default.asp then using the canonical tag to point to www.etraxc.com/ instead should still be helpful. Or you can do a permanent redirect from the former to the latter.
-
Yeah that is what I meant...but I eliminated all references to "default.asp" so hopefully that will help.
-
I can see real applications for this in query string based pages. is there an advantage if I put that tag in my default page if I have removed any references to it throughout the site?
-
Add rel="canonical" href="http://www.etraxc.com/" /> to the header of default.asp.
But first, learn how the canonical tag works so you don't hurt yourself by mistake: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/canonical-url-tag-the-most-important-advancement-in-seo-practices-since-sitemaps
-
Based on the URL's you provided above, it's more than just a duplicate page title issue as the contents on the page are almost identical too.
Normally, 'default.asp' is used as a true path to the homepage, similar to how 'index.php' works. If this is the case, you need to 301 redirect (Apache) or IIS redirect (ASP) default.asp to the homepage (/).
If these variations of essentially the same page are not handled, they are seen by search engines as duplicate pages. Please learn how to implement the above here.
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
-
Why are my 301 redirects and duplicate pages (with canonicals) still showing up as duplicates in Webmaster Tools?
My guess is that in time Google will realize that my duplicate content is not actually duplicate content, but in the meantime I'd like to get your guys feedback. The reporting in Webmaster Tools looks something like this. Duplicates /url1.html /url2.html /url3.html /category/product/url.html /category2/product/url.html url3.html is the true canonical page in the list above._ url1.html,_ and url2.html are old URLs that 301 to url3.html. So, it seems my bases are covered there. _/category/product/url.html _and _/category2/product/url.html _ do not redirect. They are the same page as url3.html. Each of the category URLs has a canonical URL of url3.html in the header. So, it seems my bases are covered there as well. Can I expect Google to pick up on this? Why wouldn't it understand this already?
Technical SEO | | bearpaw0 -
When creating parent and child pages should key words be repeated in url and page title?
We are in the direct mail advertising business: PrintLabelAndMail.com Example: Parent:
Technical SEO | | JimDirectMailCoach
Postcard Direct Mail Children:
Postcard Mailings
Postcard Design
Postcard Samples
Postcard Pricing
Postcard Advantages should "postcard" be repeated in the URL and Page Title? and in this example should each of the 5 children link back directly to the parent or would it be better to "daisy chain" them using each as parent for the next?0 -
Why are my Duplicated Pages not being updated?
I've recently changed a bunch of duplicated pages from our site. I did get a slightly minimized amount of duplicated pages, however, some of the pages that I've already fixed are still unfixed according to MOZ. Whenever I check the back-end of each of these pages, I see that they've already been changed and non of them are the same in terms of Meta Tag Title is concern. Can anyone provide any suggestions on what I should do to get a more accurate result? Is there a process that I'm missing?
Technical SEO | | ckroaster0 -
Duplicate page issue in website
i found duplicate pages in my website. seomoz is showing duplicate web pages this is issue or not please tell me?
Technical SEO | | learningall0 -
Testing for duplicate content and title tags
Hi there, I have been getting both Duplicate Page content and Duplicate Title content warnings on my crawl diagnostics report for one of my campaigns. I did my research, and implemented the preferred domain setting in Webmaster Tools. This did not resolve the crawl diagnostics warnings, and upon further research I discovered the preferred domain would only be noted by Google and not other bots like Roger. My only issue was that when I ran an SEOmoz crawl test on the same domain, I saw none of the duplicate content or title warnings yet they still appear on my crawl diagnostics report. I have now implemented a fix in my .htaccess file to 301 redirect to the www. domain. I want to check if it's worked, but since the crawl test did not show the issue last time I don't think I can rely on that. Can you help please? Thanks, Claire
Technical SEO | | SEOvet0 -
Duplicated content on subcategory pages: how do I fix it?
Hello Everybody,
Technical SEO | | uMoR
I manage an e-commerce website and we have a duplicated content issue for subcategory. The scenario is like this: /category1/subcategory1
/category2/subcategory1
/category3/subcategory1 A single subcategory can fit multiple categories, so we have 3 different URL for the same subcategory with the same content (except of the navigation link). Which are the best practice to avoid this issue? Thank you!0 -
Getting a citation page indexed
Howdy mozzers, I have a citation on a .govt domain with 2 links pointing to my site. The page is not indexed by Google, bing or yahoo. URL; http://www.familyservices.govt.nz/directory/viewprovider.htm?id=17077 I have tried getting the paged indexed by building bookmark links to it. I have tweeted the url and gotten a few re-tweets for it. But no luck. The page has got no nofollow meta tag. Other listings have been indexed by google. Could someone please advise on means to help me get the page indexed? A strategy that I have not yet tried is submitting a sitemap that includes the external url as I am not sure if it is possible to include url's not part of my domain. Any advice, help would be greatly appreciated. viva le SEOmoz Thanks
Technical SEO | | ihms1 -
Duplicate titles OK if page don't need to rank well?
I know It is not a good idea to have duplicate titles across a website on pages as Google does not like this. Is it ok to have duplicate titles on pages that aren't being optimised with SERP's in mind? or could this have a negative effect on the pages that are being optimised?
Technical SEO | | iSenseWebSolutions0