Does 301 Redirect solve many problems?

[waltergah]

Hi,

there are many problems with my site. I have a lot of duplicate page titles and a lot of missing meta tags. However, I think most of them are BECAUSE i have a lot of duplicate pages.

So I have read some articles and I will 301 redirect all the duplicated pages. Will this solve the problem with duplicate titles and missing meta tags as well?

For example, my homepage has like 10 duplicated pages. Since they are duplicated, they have the same titles and they are all missing meta tags. I am planning to fill in meta tags JUST for the canonical page and redirect all duplicated pages to that page. Is this a good practice?

Also, just curious, do different title tags and different meta tag description make the pages "not duplicated?" I assume it will still appear as duplicated....

Sorry if this was confusing...

[danatanseo]

Hi Kyu, Yes, you are on the right track with your approach to 301 redirects. The question you ask about having different Title tags and meta descriptiong completely solving a duplicate content problem is a very good one. For example, say you had to very similar products on an e-commerce site. You decide to use exactly the same on-page copy for the on-page description, but you write unique meta description and title tags. Let's say you went one step further, and even put canonical tags on each of these pages. From the viewpoint of GWT or SEOMoz's crawler, no, duplicate content wouldn't be identified. Googlebot, however, could see this differently and determine that it is indeed duplicate content. Matt Cutts has even gone as far to say that content that is "substantially similar" can be flagged as duplicate content. That being said, even if your content isn't showing as duplicate with some of the tools you can use, if you know it's duplicate, fix it and make it as unique as possible.

Hope that helps!

Dana

[waltergah]

Hi Dana!

Thanks for the fast and great response!

I had one more followup question.

So lets say I have ten duplicated pages of a homepage. They all have same duplicate title and all are missing meta tags. If I redirect all the duplicated pages, can i just

1. leave all the duplicated titles as is. Will Google see the redirect and not bother reading the duplicated title tags?

2. Just fill the meta tag for the main page to which all duplicated pages point to. Is there a point to filling in missing meta tags for duplicated pages?

Thanks!

[danatanseo]

Hi Kyu,

Yes and yes. However, one word of precaution, if it appears that you are trying to manipulate the page authority of your homepage by creating duplicates and then putting 301 redirects on them, Google may frown on this. I'm not suggesting that's the case here at all, but just in case other people read this thread and get any crazy ideas....just don't go there

Best of luck to you Kyu,

Dana

[waltergah]

Thanks for the warning!

Which leads me to another question. I have briefly read about people who do that, and I actually have no idea why (From an SEO perspective) they do and how they do it.

I am using Joomla and for some reason, pages have been created that I did not want and that is why I am going to redirect.

Sooo, is it possible to unintentionally manipulate google with this method? I just dont want to get in trouble...

Thanks!

[ORob]

Kyu,

In my working with several different CMS editors, on occasion there is a system solution to cut down on this kind of duplication. I would investigate that with whatever knowledge base or support is available. Perhaps there is a way to prevent the duplicates from existing.

I would not worry too much about penalties as long as the 301 or canonical tag (whichever you choose) is properly set up.

[danatanseo]

I think you should be fine, and Owen's comment below is excellent advice too. Following his suggestions may help prevent future problems too.