Duplicate title error in GWT over spelling in URL

[jessential]

Hi,

How do I resolve a duplicate title error in GWT over spelling in URL?

Ttile of Post: Minneapolis Median Home Sales Price Up 16 Percent

Not sure how this happened, but I have two URL versions show up. Even with a 301 redirect, the both remain an error in GWT.

/re​al-​est​ate​-bl​og/​Min​nea​pol​is-​med​ian​-ho​me-​sal​es-​pri​ce-​up-​16-​per​cen​t and /re​al-​est​ate​-bl​og/​min​nea​pol​is-​med​ian​-ho​me-​sal​es-​pri​ce-​up-​16-​per​cen​t

[ecommercebc]

Hi there,

I Googled the title you provided and looked up these on your live site - Hope you don't mind. I've checked the URLs you listed and it looks like they both return a 200, neither 301 redirect. If you like I can PM you the full URL I used, but by the looks if it, it doesn't seem like those redirects are working.

To fix this issue, you'd 301 one URL (probably the one with the uppercase M in Minneapolis to the lower case spelling). Alternatively, you could use the rel=canonical tag if that's easier for you.

[jessential]

Thank you for your answer. I have the rel=canonical tag in all web pages, but this is a blog post and in the BC platform, I don't believe I have that option (that I can find).

I cannot determine why the URL redirects weren't working. As you suggested, I redid them. Both time they show in the Adobe BC platform. I have waited hoping to see an updated correction populate through; however even now a week later the same error shows up in GWT. If, why, or which one could be a wrong reading - I don't know.

I have hundred's of 301 redirects and have no problem with the others. Is there simply a point where there are too many?

[ecommercebc]

Hi there,

I'm not hugely familiar with Adobe BC, but on slide 30 of this Adobe BC presentation it suggests there's a bit of a hack to implement rel="canonicals". There's also a bit of discussion here, but must admit I know Adobe Analytics better than I do Business Catalyst.

Unfortunately, as you suggest it doesn't look like those 301s are coming through; they're both returning a 200 status code. I don't really want to recommend using the URL removal tool in Google Webmaster Tools, as this is quite a severe solution and doesn't really address the underlying issue of these redirects not working.

When you implement 301s via htaccess, there's no rule of too many 301s; you can redirect entire sites with 1000s of pages with no problem. In fact, based on what you've suggested this sounds like this is an Adobe Business Catalyst issue. There's a discussion going on over in the Adobe forums about redirecting uppercase URLs to lowercase, and while I can't say I massively agree with their view of this not being an issue (it can be), they seem to be suggesting your best bet would be to implement rel="canonical". So, based on this, I'd have a look at using rel="canonical" within BC. It doesn't look like it's supported out of the box, but the Adobe Discussion team may be able to help you.

Sorry there's no hard and fast answer for this; it seems like the issue you're facing is a mix of Adobe BC, 301s behaving differently on the platform (compared to normal .htaccess) and the fact that canonical functionality isn't baked into the platform. I don't envy you with this one!

[jessential]

Hi,

Thanks for taking the time to do such thorough research and offer some avenues for me to check out.

To date, none of the above options work for me in Adobe BC. I can only get the hack to work in the blog layout (hack to implement rel="canonicals"). However the results tests out that every page renders the same - not to the individual post, but to the blog list of posts.

This leans me in the direction of moving all clients to another platform.