Duplicate Content Issue

[blake-76624]

Hi Everyone,

I ran into a problem I didn't know I had (Thanks to the seomoz tool) regarding duplicate content.

my site is oxford ms homes.net and when I built the site, the web developer used php to build it.  After he was done I saw that the URL's looking like this "/blake_listings.php?page=0" and I wanted them like this "/blakes-listings"

He changed them with no problem and he did the same with all 300 pages or so that I have on the site.  I just found using the crawl diagnostics tool that I have like 3,000 duplicate content issues.

Is there an easy fix to this at all or does he have to go in and 301 Redirect EVERY SINGLE URL?

Thanks for any help you can give.

[RyanKent]

Is there an easy fix to this at all or does he have to go in and 301 Redirect EVERY SINGLE URL?

If many pages used the exact same format, a single expression can redirect many pages.Regex is the language used to perform redirects. You would need an expression written which says to truncate any page containing ".php?page=0" in the URL by redirecting it to the same URL without the ".php?page=0" ending.

[blake-76624]

Unfortunately i think there is a different URL for each. They are labeled by page=1,2,3,4,5,etc.

Also, Regex is the markup language used for ALL redirects?  Just for my knowledge to learn more about them is why I ask?

[RyanKent]

Regex is an expression language which is very useful for replacements. It is used for building dynamic strings whether they be for redirects, rss feeds, etc. I know Regex is used on *nix servers but I am not familiar with IIS redirects.

The bottom line, if you can verbally share a pattern of how the URLs should be redirected on your site, an expression can be created to represent that pattern. Even if that pattern only applied to 10% of the 3000 duplicate URLs, it is preferable compared to creating 300 individual redirects.

[blake-76624]

Thank you.  Very helpful, Ryan.