Duplicate content issue. Delete index.html and replace with www.?

[bronxpad]

I have a duplicate content issue. On my site the home button goes to the index.html and not the www. If I change it to the www will it impact my SERPS? I don't think anyone links to the index.html.

[jgower]

You should have a 301 redirect setup so that everything goes to one address, ie. www.jeremygower.com....so that no matter if they type index.html or www.jeremygower.com/ or jeremygower.com it all goes to the same place.  Other than that, an easier method (and you should probably do both...just put a canonical tag on that page, then no matter what the main page will get the link juice.

And yes, it probably will - either way, you should fix it.

[mytouchoftech]

Just to follow up on this.  the meta tag for this is

[bronxpad]

Thank you, I am trying to figure out how to do the 301 redirect but when i asked yahoo they say that the php code is not a real 301 redirect when I asked them. And they only do the 301 redirect on the ecommerce hosting plans which I have no need for. Any insight? Thanks for your answer.

[bronxpad]

I should put the code in the head right? Thank you.

[jgower]

Well, 301 would be best...but I suppose in that situation what I'd do is use the canonical tags...but that's a pain as you'd need to do it for like every page...

In short, that's just whack...I'd find a new host.

Edit:  P.S. Why can't yahoo just die already?

[bronxpad]

Which hosting company do you prefer? Which one is best for seo purposes? And how do I transfer without impacting my SERPS or does it have no impact?

[bronxpad]

Also is using a php code a real 301 redirect or no? Do you have a sample php code that I could use? I'm still in learning mode.

[jgower]

header ('HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently');

header ('Location: http://www.whatever.com/whatever.php');

--------

As far as I know there's no difference...to Google a 301 is a 301 no matter where you tell it.  Would still be a pain in the butt, though - and I'm not sure 100% efficient....the best thing (i think) would be to have a canonical on every single page, then that will take care of it from the search engine standpoint.

However, I'd still go somewhere that allows rewrites...that's just crazy.  Even my godaddy shared hosting allows htaccess.  Dont go to Godaddy shared hosting - it's awful.  Not sure where to get cheap hosting with htaccess, but I'd venture to say that most hosts support it.  I'd look into a small orange, it's offered as a pro perk through SEOmoz for 3 months at half price and it looks like they offer $20/mo plans for business - or if you wanna try it $35/yr plan as well.

From my experience, as long as you do it correctly, changing hosts will not affect your SERPs.  We actually moved in January and saw nothing change.

[bronxpad]

I use dream weaver as my HTML editor, I templated out my site so I wonder if I can just put the code at the top of the template and have it update every page on my site. Now where in the head do I put the code? At the very beginning? Also I know yahoo, godaddy and others promote unlimited bandwidth and storage while others have a tiered plan. Isn't it better to have unlimited? I'm just asking since there is an up charge if you go over the bandwidth or storage on the other hosting plans. Thank you for your help.

[jgower]

Well the canonical will be different for every page...so if your page is:

www.jeremygower.com/contact/index.php

your canonical would be:

Basically, what that says is..."hey google, it doesn't matter what URL you think you're at, make sure that the only one in your search engine is the one in the canonical tag"...therefore, be very careful with it as well.  If you simply put www.jeremygower.com as the canonical for every page, google would de-index every other page of your site.

Anywhere in the head is good.

---

IMO, unlimited ends up being a bad thing...the way those things work is that godaddy (or whoever) puts a ton of websites on the same server, so think about the 500 or so other sites with 'unlimited' bandwidth using your server.  It makes it slow...for instance there's about 400 domains on the same server as my domain, and yes, it's slow a lot of the time...the cheap plan on a small orange I'm sure is similar but I'd expect better quality than godaddy.  (they dont have unlimited)

[Dr-Pete]

Remember, if you put this in the PHP code, it has to be conditional - you don't want to redirect your canonical version unnecessarily. Since your home-page is just one template, you'd be firing a 301 for every situation.

[Dr-Pete]

When you say "delete", do you mean delete it from the home button (and just use the root version), or delete the page? Keep in mind that the "index.html" page also drives the root version of the site ("www.example.com/"), so you definitely don't want to delete that file.

Whether you use 301-redirects or canonical tags (either should be ok, but it sounds like the canonical tag would be easier for you to implement), it is important to use a consistent path. So, you do need to change the button link to match the canonical version of the URL. Don't do this until after you've got either the 301 or canonical tag in place.