Duplicate page content errors stemming from CMS

[taylor.craig]

Hello!

We've recently relaunched (and completely restructured) our website. All looks well except for some duplicate content issues. Our internal CMS (custom) adds a /content/ to each page. Our development team has also set-up URLs to work without /content/.

Is there a way I can tell Google that these are the same pages. I looked into the parameters tool, but that seemed more in-line with ecommerce and the like.

Am I missing anything else?

[MikeGeorge]

You need to use the rel=canonical tag.

All of the duplicate pages (content/pages) need a tag in the head (the canonical tag)-- which points to the original.

That will solve your duplicate content problem.

I don't know if you'll need to do this, but depending on the coding language, you may need to have an if/then statement in your PHP, ruby, ASP...whatever.

IF this page isn't the original page THEN

ELSE

Do Nothing

END

https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/139394?hl=en

[DougWalker]

I'd say before you utilize the canonical element It might be worth the dev time to choose one or the other and have the CMS configured to either drop the '/content/' in the urls or just stop creating the versions without '/content/'.

I'm sure you've already considered that, I'm just saying that is the way I'd go. Remember, the canonical element is just a suggestion so won't guarantee the results you are after. Better to just address it in the CMS or stop creating the duplicates. Good luck!

[crackingmedia]

From the look of the info you have given about all URLs having /content/ after the domain name, I think you may be using Drupal as your CMS. If it is, whilst I don't know a great deal about Drupal, it may be worth looking at what extensions Drupal has for dealing with duplicate page issues.

Peter

[taylor.craig]

Yeah, I actually requested that the canonical tag be added into the editable fields area when creating a page. Works like a charm — except when you're trying to add canonicals for /content/. Because it's automatically added in the CMS, I error when trying to create a canonical stack for:

mainsite.org

• mainsite.org/content
• mainsite.org/Content
• mainsite.org/content/index
• mainsite.org/Content/index

Your suggestion is definitely worth floating to the developers, though...thanks!