Help with duplicate pages

[SEODarren]

Hi there,

I have a client who's site I am currently reviewing prior to a SEO campaign. They still work with the development team who built the site (not my company). I have discovered 311 instances of duplicate content within the crawl report.

The duplicate content appears to either be 1, 2, or 3 versions of the same pages but with differing URL's. Example:

• http://www.sitename.com
• http://sitename.com
• http://sitename.com/index.php

And other pages follow a similar or same pattern. I suppose my question is mainly what could be causing this and how can I fix it? Or, is it something that will have to be fixed by the website developers?

Thanks in advance

Darren

[Andy.Drinkwater]

Hi Darren,

This is an easy fix via the .htaccess file. You just need to cluster all the URL types so they point to one main structure.

Add this and it should work a treat:

<code>RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www\.
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.%{HTTP_HOST}/$1 [R=301,L]

-Andy</code>

[SEODarren]

Thanks again Andy, I'll give it a go.

Is the code provided a universal fix all for this type of issue?

Can you recommend any further reading?

[Andy.Drinkwater]

Hi Darren,

That should fix all of your issues, but if you want a hand to confirm this when done, drop me a message here or PM me and I will be happy to take a look for you.

You could also have a look here for more information if you wish?

-Andy