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    4. Index.php + external site added to end of URL

    Index.php + external site added to end of URL

    On-Page / Site Optimization
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    • drkevinhogan
      drkevinhogan last edited by

      Good day, I have a domain http://www.ecofriendlylink.com.  I am trying to resolve the Crawl Diagnostic errors on it.   I have several  Duplicate Page Content errors.

      Example 1:

      (The domain happynewyou is not mine, some Comments from them have been placed on my site.    Ecoshop.php is a page on my site).

      URL:    http://www.ecofriendlylink.com

      Duplicate Page Content:  http://www.ecofriendlylink.com/www./happynewyou.com/ecoshop.php

      Referrer:   None.

      Example 2:

      URL:    http://ecofriendlylink.com/index.php

      Duplicate Page Content:  http://www.ecofriendlylink.com/index.php http://www.ecofriendlylink.com/www./happynewyou.com/index.php

      Referrer:   http://ecofriendlylink.com/

      Example 3:  is a different problem, but still a Dup Page Error.

      URL:  http://ecofriendlylink.com/water.php

      Duplicate Page Content:  http://www.ecofriendlylink.com/water.php

      Referrer:  http://ecofriendlylink.com/

      water.php is a page on my main domain.  The www version and the non-www version, if this a problem and something I need to overcome?

      So please can you advise what I need to do to get rid of this strange external domain name + index.php (as per examples 1 + 2), and explain what I'm doing wrong with Ex 3.

      Thank you!

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • JaredMumford
        JaredMumford last edited by

        Example 1: Your 404 page is not defined, so whenever an incorrect link is typed, the server returns a 200 OK and it just loads the home page. Somewhere on your site there is a bad link, so when the crawl followed it and returned  a 200 OK , it recorded it as a real page and since it simply loads your home page, it is a duplicate. You need to define a 404 page in htaccess so this does not happen.

        Example 2 + 3: the crawler is counting the following pages as your home page:

        http://ecofriendlylink.com/

        http://ecofriendlylink.com/index.php

        http://www.ecofriendlylink.com/

        http://wwwecofriendlylink.com/index.php

        Thats because your home page can legitimately be loaded all 4 ways. This is a little different than Example 1 since these variations are normal. I suggest adding a non-www to www redirect in htaccess, as well as a redirect that forces a removal of the index.php.

        However - before you do that! You should:

        a) check to see where a majority of your external links point to (use www.opensiteexplorer.com). If the majority of them point to the non-www version then you may consider redirecting www to non-www.  Also, check your internal links. If you redirect www to non-www or if you remove the index.php with a redirect, make sure that all internal links pointing home point to the proper URL. (so if you did a non-www to www redirect, and removed the index.php with a redirect, make sure all of your internal links point to http://www.ecofriendlylink.com/)

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • drkevinhogan
          drkevinhogan last edited by

          Thank you very much for your prompt response!

          I shall Google defining the 404 page in .htaccess, I'm sure I'll have these errors fixed in no time, and that makes sense re the home page.

          Thank you!

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