Is there an easier way from the server to prevent duplicate page content?

[brianhughes]

I know that using either 301 or 302 will fix the problem of duplicate page content. My question would be; is there an easier way of preventing duplicate page content when it's an issue with the URL. For example:

URL: http://example.com

URL: http://www.example.com

My guess would be like it says here, that it's a setting issue with the server.

If anyone has some pointers on how to prevent this from occurring, it would be greatly appreciated.

[Copstead]

You should definitely setup your site Canonicalization, and you should also utilize rel=canonical tags to help distinguish which page is the actual page.

For example, if you want to identify that www.example.com is the correct url, then you would use the following:

[AdoptionHelp]

Actually in cases like your example above its more an issue of an ambiguous URL rather than actual duplicate content.

The thing to do in the example above is to choose which version of your site you want (with www or without) to always use, and then set your server accordingly. In Apache this means using your .htaccess file.

If you decide to always display www (my preferred way) then this should be in your .htaccess:

<ifmodule mod_rewrite.c="">RewriteEngine on</ifmodule>

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www. [NC]
RewriteRule ^ http://www.%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [L,R=301]

If you want your URLS to not use www:

<ifmodule mod_rewrite.c="">RewriteEngine on</ifmodule>

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.(.+)$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^ http://%1%{REQUEST_URI} [L,R=301]

[SEOKeith]

Personally I would do the following:

• Set rel="canonical" as Brent says below
• 301 redirect the preferred URL, so if you are using www.example.com redirect example.com, that way if anyone points links at example.com "most" of the juice will pass over (this will probably fix the issue you have posted about)
• Set the referred URL in Google web master tools

If you are using  CMS like Wordpress rel="canonical" will probably already be taken care of for your website, you can check this by viewing the source or using SEO Moz's on-page keyword optimization tool.

[brianhughes]

Thank you Brent and kjay. Take a look at Ryan's answer, I think that is what I was shooting for. If I can eliminate the problem of an ambiguous URL at the server level then I will not need rel="canonical or 301/302. What do you guys think?

[brianhughes]

Thank you Ryan, that is exactly what I expected the problem to be but really couldn't figure out how to address it or solve it. You explained it very well and I appreciate the suggested code to use as well. I should be able to figure it out from here.

Thank you again!

[AdoptionHelp]

Rel Canonical is considered a best practice in SEO, so you should just always include it in your pages, even if they're the only copy of the content you know of. It will help prevent any scrapers from stealing your content down the road.

And re: you're sorta right. Technically speaking, what we're doing with that htaccess code is 301 redirecting every URL, either to the www or non-www version. So say you go with my method anyone going to http://example.com just gets 301'd over to http://www.example.com

[SEOKeith]

I always use rel="canonical"

[Copstead]

You should set up the correct Canonicalization rewrites at the server level with IIS or .htaccess.  (Not sure which one you have).  If you know what type of sever you are on, then you can find all the correct rewrites.  (www, non www, lowercase, trailing slash / , etc.)

For example, here is a great post if you have IIS. http://www.seomoz.org/blog/what-every-seo-should-know-about-iis

And you should also use rel=canonical tags.

[brianhughes]

Thanks a lot guys this is some great information. Let me get this straight.

Is solving this issue with the code below a bad practice?

<ifmodule mod_rewrite.c="">RewriteEngine on</ifmodule>

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www. [NC]
RewriteRule ^ http://www.%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [L,R=301]

If it's not a bad practice and I implement the code to stop the issue, you are saying I should still use a rel=canonical tag to prevent scraping?

[KeriMorgret]

Generally, if you can fix it with code, that tends to be a bit better than the canonical tag, from my understanding. I've emailed Dr. Pete and asked him to contribute to this thread as well, as he's an expert on canonical tags.

[brianhughes]

Thank you Keri, that's what I'm thinking but I want to make sure. Thank you for messaging Dr. Pete, I hope maybe he can expound on this.

[SEOKeith]

The rewrite rule above is not bad practice, it will fix the issue with your URL's

However it is good practice to use the rel=canonical tag on your site additionally to prevent any other duplicate content issues.

In short the rel=canonical tag tells Google which URL you wish to use, preventing Google from thinking you have duplicate content if multiple URL's exist for the same page.

[brianhughes]

Thank you SEOKeith! I definitely want to make sure I don't use any bad practices to fix this issue and thank you for clarifying that about the code.

So if I apply the code and fix the issue from the server by making the URL www.example.com

I would then add the rel=canonical tag to prevent scraping.

Would this be the correct URL to put in the tag?

[SEOKeith]

Brian, if you 301 the example.com to www.example.com that will get rid of the duplicate URL issue server side. (this will resolve your current duplicate content issue).

Additionally I recommend you add the rel=canonical it will prevent other potential duplicate content issues that may arise and is considered good practice to implement.

The tag looks correct, note the space after the domain in quotes:

Are you using a CMS ?

[brianhughes]

Thank you SEOKeith, what would be the difference between using a 301 in the .htaccess verses the code Ryan suggested <ifmodule mod_rewrite.c="">?</ifmodule>

Also if I use the 301 redirect in the .htaccess would it cover this issue site wide?

Okay so the space needs to be there.

No, I don't use a CMS?

[SEOKeith]

Brian, it's the same thing just a different method both 301.

No it would not cover the issues site wide only for the home page.

CMS = Content Management System (an example would be Wordpress or Drupal).

You should still do the rel="canonical" site wide (on each page).

All make sense ?

[brianhughes]

SEOKeith, the problem is sitewide, all 52 pages. I was hoping to solve the problem in the server and avoid coding each page. But from what I'm gathering is, even if I use the 301 redirect I should still add the rel="canonical" on each page to avoid scraping. This tells the SE that this page is the only page to index and crawl.

Lol, sorry I didn't recognize the acronym. Yes, I have a site that is through Wordpress and one that is through Joomla. The one that I'm having issues with is not through a CMS though.

[SEOKeith]

I recommend you update each page, note the rel canonical tag will be different for each page. And 50 pages should take you less than 15 mins

[brianhughes]

Thank you again SEOKeith, I understand what has to be done. I just wanted to make sure I was clear on what needed to be done. Yes, the rel canonical tag will reflect whatever the page is I'm adding it. Since I didn't get the errors for it I never added it to my other sites; so now I have to it for all of them. Fun...