Woocommerce Duplicate Page Content Issue

[a_toohill]

Hi,

I'm receiving a duplicate content error.  It says that this url:

https://kidsinministry.org/childrens-ministry-curriculum/?option=com_content&task=view&id=20&Itemid=41

is a duplicate of this:

http://kidsinministry.org/childrens-ministry-curriculum

I'm using wordpress, woocommerce, and not really sure how to even address this.  I tried adding this to .htaccess but it didn't redirect the url:

301 Redirects

Redirect 301 https://kidsinministry.org/childrens-ministry-curriculum/?option=com_content&task=view&id=20&Itemid=41 http://kidsinministry.org/childrens-ministry-curriculum/

Anyone have any ideas?

Thanks!

[DirkC]

Hi,

The url https://kidsinministry.org/childrens-ministry-curriculum/?option=com_content&task=view&id=20&Itemid=41 has https://kidsinministry.org/childrens-ministry-curriculum  - however this canonical url doesn't exist - it's redirected to https://kidsinministry.org/childrens-ministry-curriculum/

If you update the canonical to https://kidsinministry.org/childrens-ministry-curriculum/ you should be fine, there is no need to redirect the url's.

rgds,

Dirk

[a_toohill]

Hi Dirk,

Thank-you for taking the time to respond.  I sure appreciate it.  I am fairly new with SEO and what you are saying is a little challenging for me to understand.  Can you please attempt to break this down a little more for me?  I would really appreciate it.

Sincerely,

Andrew

[DirkC]

Hi Andrew,

You use the Yoast e-commerce plugin - and I assume at some point you defined a canonical url for the page you mentioned.
In short - with a canonical url you ask Google not to index this page: https://kidsinministry.org/childrens-ministry-curriculum/?option=com_content&task=view&id=20&Itemid=41 but the url that you have put as canonical url which is this page: https://kidsinministry.org/childrens-ministry-curriculum

In order to respect this request - this url need to exist on your site. However - this url is redirected to https://kidsinministry.org/childrens-ministry-curriculum/ with a 301 redirect (basically stating: hey, this url doesn't exist anymore on this location, but you can find it here).

So, if you update the canonical url from https://kidsinministry.org/childrens-ministry-curriculum to https://kidsinministry.org/childrens-ministry-curriculum/ your problem is solved.

There is no need to redirect https://kidsinministry.org/childrens-ministry-curriculum/?option=com_content&task=view&id=20&Itemid=41  to https://kidsinministry.org/childrens-ministry-curriculum/ as the canonical is already taking care of the duplicate content.

More background info on canonical url's can be found here: https://moz.com/learn/seo/duplicate-content

Hope this clarifies, if not, let me know,

rgds,

Dirk

[a_toohill]

Hi Dirk,

Thank-you for your further clarification.

So, am I just needing to get the current canonical url on the homepage to have a forward slash at the end of the url then along with updating the "http" to "https"?

Currently, when I visit the homepage it says the canonical is this: http://kidsinministry.org/childrens-ministry-curriculum (no https and no forward slash at the end).

Thanks for your help!

Andrew

[DirkC]

Andrew,

Your canonical needs to exist - so for the page you mentioned you need to update the url to the one with the trailing slash. In fact - for all pages on your site you should check if the canonical exist (Screaming Frog can do miracles here)

The issue with the https is a bit different - you should not have both versions (http/https in parallel) - so if your https certificate is ok you should put your site in https & redirect the http version to https

This can be done by adding these lines to your htaccess:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTPS} off
RewriteRule (.*) https://%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI}

If you switch to https - you must make sure that all the resources you call on a page are also on HTTPS - if not, users could get a security warning. There is an article on how to migrate site to HTTPS on Yoast: https://yoast.com/move-website-https-ssl/

If your site is on https - your canonicals need to be in https as well. A tool like Screaming Frog can help you to check that both (https & canonicals are ok) - it's not free - but certainly worth the investment.

Hope this helps - don't hesitate to ask if it's not clear

Dirk