Duplicate content penalty
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when moz crawls my site they say I have 2x the pages that I really have & they say I am being penalized for duplicate content. I know years ago I had my old domain resolve over to my new domain. Its the only thing that makes sense as to the duplicate content but would search engines really penalize me for that? It is technically only on 1 site. My business took a significant sales hit starting early July 2013, I know google did and algorithm update that did have SEO aspects. I need to resolve the problem so I can stay in business
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Could you share more details?
What do the duplicate content examples look like? http vs https? www. vs non-www?
If the content is replicated on 2 domains, yes that is duplicate content and you should consolidate to one site via 301 redirects.
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+Really need more information
If you have URLs constructed dynamically depending on where the user navigates from this could also be an issue, but I would expect more than 2x the pages.
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Hi there,
This could definitely be a case of both non-www and www URLs resolving, but I'd like to echo the guys above me and ask for more information - if you could share the actual examples, either on here or in a private message, it would be easier to find why Moz has found twice the number of URLs your site should have.
Thanks,
Jane
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Thank you Oleg, Bryan, & Jane. I am a rookie when it comes to web development but my pages always ranked well because enough Moz tips sunk in. See the alert from last weeks crawl below.
Pages with High Priority Issues
98Duplicate Page Content24XX (Client Error)If we look at the home page, it has 3 URLs, see belowURLPage AuthorityLinking Root DomainsExternal Link CountInternal Link CountStatus CodeDuplicate URLsDownload Duplicates
cheaptubes.com the source for carbon nanotubes home page
http://www.cheaptubes.com3322611882003 duplicates
cheaptubes.com the source for carbon nanotubes home page
http://www.cheaptubes.com/default.htm2422622001 of 3 duplicates
cheaptubes.com the source for carbon nanotubes home page
http://cheaptubes.com2931502002 of 3 duplicates
cheaptubes.com the source for carbon nanotubes home page
http://cheaptubes.com/default.htm2410462003 of 3 duplicates Does this help?-Mike
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also on a page that moz ranks as an "F", I still rank high in organic results, see the results from when I searched for MWNTs below, I was 1st organic result. If long form, multi walled carbon nanotubes I fell to 6th or 7th but still on the first page.
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Hi again,
Yep - your non-www and www pages are both resolving... e.g. http://cheaptubes.com/ and http://www.cheaptubes.com/ bring up the same content. Also, http://cheaptubes.com/default.htm and http://www.cheaptubes.com/default.htm is also a duplicate of the home page.
Internally, I am seeing the same thing, e.g. http://www.cheaptubes.com/carbon-nanotubes-prices.htm and http://cheaptubes.com/carbon-nanotubes-prices.htm - same page, one on the www subdomain ("www." is a subdomain like any other, just with an extremely common name) and one just sitting on the root.
The solution here is either to 301 redirect the non-www version of the site to the www version for every page, or to use the canonical tag to point from the non-preferred versions to the "canonical" versions. More information on this is available here.
You also have a situation where upper-case URLs will resolve as well as lower case ones, e.g. http://www.cheaptubes.com/SWNTs.htm and http://www.cheaptubes.com/swnts.htm (as well as http://cheaptubes.com/swnts.htm!).
URLs should only be allowed to resolve with one case, preferably lower. The upper / mixed case should 301 redirect to the proper version.
Essentially, the "two versions of the site" issue is the biggest problem, with all pages being available on at least two URLs - one with www and one without. There are other tidiness issues like /default.htm bringing up the home page as well.
Does this make sense? Let me know if this is not clear.
Best,
Jane
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Hi Jane
Thank you so much. I am reviewing the link you provided. I don't think I can 301 redirect because it is done in front page, not apache. I have tried for years to find another platform but failed. I spent years trying to figure out drupal, even ordered several books but no luck. I tried concrete 5 and just using HTML 5 editor like coffee cup. I keep struggling with getting them to work. I've bought themes to use but can't get them operational.
I thought default.htm was supposed to be the home page, is that incorrect?
Mike
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does the 2 versions problem help to explain why my sales started dropping significantly after the google july 4th update? I know there were some SEO penalties in that update. I also know a friendly competitor who saw a similar drop starting in early July.
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To sum up...
- 301 redirect all non-www urls to www versions (since it has a higher page authority) and add canonicals to all pages with the www version of the url
- For all lower case / upper case page duplicates... pick one, set a canonical tag and 301 to the chosen case, make sure all your links point to the correct url case.
- 301 redirect default.htm to your root domain - http://www.cheaptubes.com
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Thanks Oleg
I can't 301 because I'm not using apache, still on frontpage. I know its old, getting out my abacus now : )
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It certainly could. Google sees the www. version as a 2nd website, so essentially you're splitting your 'ranking authority' between 2 webpages.
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so how do I use the canonical tag since i can't 301 it?
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Hi Jane
How do I change to canonical url's if I can't do a 301?
Mike
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Hi Jane, Oleg, & Bryan
I checked with the woman who designed my theme (she is awesome). She offered the following suggestions which seem like the way to go for me. Are there any negatives that I'm not aware of with the options below?
Since you are still using FrontPage, just open your site, locate the appropriate pages, and type the following into the head area:
If you are on a Windows server, your web host can do the 301 redirect for you. You will tell them the name of the old pages and the name of the new pages and they will do the rest.
An easy alternate is for you to do the redirect yourself with an easy tag that goes into the head area of the old pages. This tag is called a redirect and redirects from the old page to the new one.
URL="http://www.newsite.com/newurl.html">
Google, Bing, and Yahoo all recognize the meta tag for the redirect and will adjust their indexing accordingly. I will usually leave an old page on the server for about 3 months to give the search engines time to catch up. Then I can delete the page.
You can, of course, get more "bang for your buck" by using both the canonical link and the meta refresh at the same time.
URL="http://www.newsite.com/newurl.html">
I like the last one, am going to try that unless you think its a flawed strategy.
Thanks for your help
Mike
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Hi there,
I'll answer these one at a time as there are a few responses to go through.
default.htm is the home page as created by the CMS, but you want to either use that URL or www.cheaptubes.com as the home page, not both.
The solution is a 301 or the canonical tag so that home page content does not appear on both URLs.
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Hi again,
The canonical tag sounds like the right way to go for you.
Regarding the meta refresh method of redirection - this works perfectly for users... it was always the case that search engines did not honour this as a redirect though. This may have changed in the recent past (and realistically, it should have - a lot of people used this tactic for redirection and Google should understand that it shows a moved page). However, it is generally thought that the meta refresh does not pass all authority (as noted here), and this thread shows a Googler advising against it (this is a post from 2010 though).
Honestly, with the canonical tag, you don't need to do the refresh / redirection - this will take care of the issue
Cheers,
Jane
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Hi,
Hard to say, but it definitely won't have helped. As Bryan says, you've split authority between over twice the number of pages the site should have, and Google can take action against sites that produce a large amount of duplicate content. I'd get the canonical tags in place (and thoroughly check they're set up right, as it can be a mess if they're implemented incorrectly) and check on progress over two or three weeks. If you see nothing happen, I'd say your reason for dropping could be something else.
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Thx Jane
The problem is I can't simply 301 it because I'm not on apache. I can do the canonical tag. Of course I've already gone in and changed it over to the tag + refresh but server is down so it won't publish right now. I was trying to get it done ahead of moz crawling my site today. Is there a way to get moz to recrawl it after the changes are updated or do I need to wait another week?
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Hi,
You don't need to redirect at all (with a 301 or otherwise) if the canonical tag is in place. So don't worry about that at all - both URLs can load together if the canonical tag points Google from the "duplicate" to the "correct / canonical" one. Sorry if that wasn't clear.
I am not sure the frequency of Moz's crawling or if you can force a refresh, I'm sorry.
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