Correct use of Canonical link vs 301 redirect
-
Hi All,
Seeking yet more advice.
SEOMOZ tools have told me I have duplicate content on one of my sites and I am keen to clean this up. I am not to familiar with the following so thought I would ask.
The duplicate content is shown on :
Obviously I only see index.html when I check the code so what is the best method of resolving the duplicate content, Canonical or 301?
Can you give me an example
Thanks all
-
Thanks guys, exactly what I was looking for
-
Wayne,
A 301 is always preferred over a canonical when given the choice. You would use a canonical if you did not have access to your web server and did not have a better option.
The method of redirect depends on the hardware and software of your server. The most common shared servers use Apache and cPanel where there is a Redirect tool which allows you to perform this redirect. The Redirect tool writes the htaccess code for you.
You are also welcome to use the code Sean shared but if you have not modified your file before please understand any mistake can make your site inaccessible. Always back up the current file, make the change, and thoroughly test it.
-
Use a 301 Redirect with .htaccess. Use the following code in your 'htaccess file:
Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^./index.html
RewriteRule ^(.)index.html$ http://www.yoursite.com/$1 [R=301,L]
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
-
After 301 redirection non-English keyword points to English language pages
We had multilingual website on .co.uk domain and somewhere in April, we've done 301 redirection from domain1.co.uk pages which were in Polish language to domain2.com/pl domain and now for some Polish keywords Google SERP sometimes shows English pages (.com) and sometimes polish pages (.com/pl). Previously co.uk/en had English content and that got redirected to .com. What could be the reason? Thank you for all responses.
On-Page Optimization | | Optimal_Strategies0 -
Canonical: Same content but different countries
I'm building a website that has content made for specific countries. The url format is: MyWebsite.com/<country name="">/</country> Some of the pages for <specific url="">are the same for different countries, the <specific url="">would be the same as well. The only difference would be the <country name="">.</country></specific></specific> How do I deal with canonical issues to avoid Google thinking I'm presenting the same content?
On-Page Optimization | | newbyguy0 -
Correct .htaccess settings for canonical url?
I want to forward all urls to http:www.mysite.com but am a little confuse because I am getting duplicate content error: Pages with Duplicate Page Content as of Jan 15http://titanappliancerepair.com/ 1 duplicatehttp://titanappliancerepair.com 1 duplicatehttp://titanappliancerepair.com/index.html 1 duplicate*****************************************************************What should I put ion htaccess file so I can forwardhttp://titanappliancerepair.com/index.htmlhttp://titanappliancerepair.comhttp://titanappliancerepair.com/to http://www.titanappliancerepair.comor what is the correct way to do it?I'm confused because when I enter http://titanappliancerepair.com/ in browser it showshttp://titanappliancerepair.com so how can it be considered duplicate content?.Can someone help?I have godaddy and they have gave me this code to put RewriteEngine on
On-Page Optimization | | webbutler13
rewritecond %{http_host} ^coolexample.com [nc]
rewriterule ^(.)$ http://www.coolexample.com/$1 [r=301,nc]What is correct?0 -
Redirecting to homepage ok?
I deleted a bunch of category pages (renamed mostly actually and thought they'd be auto redirected like my blog posts are but they weren't) so I used a plugin that reroutes any 404 page to the homepage. Is that the best thing to do in this situation? Google Webmasters says there are about 84 404-errors and this should get rid of those right? Is there anything SEO BAD about doing it this way?
On-Page Optimization | | dealblogger0 -
Internal and Link Juice Analysis - Too Many Links Error
Howdy! I have an analysis question related to internal links/link juice. Here is the general link set up of our site: 1. All Site Pages (Including Home Page): We have drop down "mega" menus in the header of everypage linking to various sub-categories on the site. So, because of this, in our header, we have a few hundred links to various pages on our site and these show up on every page of the site. 2. Product Pages: Header pages as mentioned above, but on top of that, we list out the keywords for that particular product and each keyword is linked back to our search results pages for that particular keyword. In General Moz is telling us we are having between 200-300 links on each product page. Currently, our Search Results pages are ranking higher and showing up in search more than our actual product pages. So, based on the above info, here are some thoughts: 1. Should we ajax in the Header links so that they aren't showing up for the search engines? Or, should we ajax them in only on all pages that are not the Home Page? 2. Should we get rid of the keyword links back to the Search Results pages that are on the product pages? What effect would these changes "actually" have? Does this just improve crawling? Or are there other positive results that would come of changes like these? We have hundreds of thousands of products, so if we were to make changes like these, could we experience negative results? Thanks for your help! Craig
On-Page Optimization | | TheCraig0 -
Too Many On-Page Links
Hello. So, my SEO team has worked very hard to finally resolve RogerBot/GoogleBot specific Crawl Errors either manually or programmatically can be fixed for our Budget Blinds USA Pro Campaign. We've done a good job even if a lot of it came from Robots.txt file entries as this was the most efficient way our client chose to do it. Good news is most of it is CMS configuration and not bad site architecture. That being said our next big volume of Crawl Errors is "Too Many On-Page Links". Our Moz DomainRank is 61. Our client, on this new version of the website, added a large nav-based footer which has duplicate links from the Header Main Navigation. I believe our solution is to put in No-Follow Metatags at the Footer Link Level, so we don't zap Page Authority by over-dividing as you recommend. Is this the best way to resolve this? Is there any risk in this? Or is a 61 DomainRank high enough for RogerBot and GoogleBot to crawl these anyway? Please advise,
On-Page Optimization | | Aviatech0 -
Temporary redirections
Hi all, after crawling my website the SEOMOZ software has warned me about temporary redirections like these: What should I do? What consequences could it have in the SERPSs? Thanks. http://www.tarifakitesurfcamp.com/campamento-bilingue-para-ninos/
On-Page Optimization | | juanmiguelcr
http://www.tarifakitesurfcamp.com/campamento-bilingue-para-ninos/
http://www.tarifakitesurfcamp.com/error-404 http://www.tarifakitesurfcamp.com/campamento-de-kitesurf/
http://www.tarifakitesurfcamp.com/campamento-de-kitesurf/
http://www.tarifakitesurfcamp.com/error-404/ http://www.tarifakitesurfcamp.com/condiciones-generales/www.tarifakitesurfcamp.com
http://www.tarifakitesurfcamp.com/condiciones-generales/www.tarifakitesurfcamp.com
http://www.tarifakitesurfcamp.com/error-404/ http://www.tarifakitesurfcamp.com/en/about-tks/www.giselapulidoprocenter.com
http://www.tarifakitesurfcamp.com/en/about-tks/www.giselapulidoprocenter.com
http://www.tarifakitesurfcamp.com/en/page-not-found/ http://www.tarifakitesurfcamp.com/gisela-pulido-escuela/www.giselapulidoprocenter.com
http://www.tarifakitesurfcamp.com/gisela-pulido-escuela/www.giselapulidoprocenter.com
http://www.tarifakitesurfcamp.com/error-404/ http://www.tarifakitesurfcamp.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/ENCLAVE_3.jpg
http://www.tarifakitesurfcamp.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/ENCLAVE_3.jpg
http://www.tarifakitesurfcamp.com/error-404/ http://www.tarifakitesurfcamp.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/MATERIAL_KITE_3.jpg
http://www.tarifakitesurfcamp.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/MATERIAL_KITE_3.jpg
http://www.tarifakitesurfcamp.com/error-404/ http://www.tarifakitesurfcamp.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/campamento-kitesurf-orca.jpg
http://www.tarifakitesurfcamp.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/campamento-kitesurf-orca.jpg
http://www.tarifakitesurfcamp.com/error-404/ http://www.tarifakitesurfcamp.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/expertos2.jpg
http://www.tarifakitesurfcamp.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/expertos2.jpg
http://www.tarifakitesurfcamp.com/error-404/ http://www.tarifakitesurfcamp.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/gisela.jpg
http://www.tarifakitesurfcamp.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/gisela.jpg
http://www.tarifakitesurfcamp.com/error-404/0 -
Doubt about correct no. of categories on my blog
I have site wide 25 categories on my blog but I dont know whether I should keep few categories only like 6-8 or having 25 categories is ok? Plz help
On-Page Optimization | | ksbnok0