Welcome to the Q&A Forum

Basically it is the same

I hope it helped,

Istvan

Hi Peter,

I answer this question with the same answer to a previous question of today from: http://www.seomoz.org/q/duplicate-content-32

The thing is that Search Engines are like little kids, therefore you should explain to them everything before they have the possibility to ask you Why? (Probably you love little kids asking those questions)

Now for Search Engines having two separate paths to a single page is creating duplicate content.

How to resolve this issue:

1. Canonical (Insert a rel="canonical" into the index.php file header to point out which one are you targeting)

2. 301 Redirect from index.php -> /

This should resolve your problem.

Gr.,Istvan

Egol no need to be cynical. I don't really have to much experience with this, but if that is a Brand name, such as "McKenzie's dry cleaners Birmingham", THEN I would use it.

That is a personal opinion.

If you don't agree then please give a response and maybe some advice where to read more about this matter. This is what TAGFEE is about, right?

Istvan

Hi Paul,

I would use it as "dry cleaners in Birmingham". It looks more natural for both visitor and search engine.

If you want to optimize it further for the "dry cleaners Birmingham", then just insert it as a hCard into footer of the site. It should do it's job.

Since you are a PRO member, you should check the latest webinar, there were some very good tips how to optimize locally.

Gr.,

Istvan

Hi Mark,

Usually you get 1 crawl / week. If the first report was on 8th then it will probably come tomorrow. (If it is set up as a campaign).

Gr.,

Istvan

I know, but you have underlined it, strengthen it in: "I tried to defend SEOmoz, but I guess it's worthless."

My reply to the conversation was made for all who think that seoMoz is not worth it while checking the cost-vs-benefit. It is not an attack addressed to you or noone, I hope I didn't make myself unclear with that message.

What I was trying to underline, is that people tend to check only the tools they get for an amount of money, and not the benefits they get from the whole community.

don't take it personal

Gr.,

Istvan

ConversionChamp,

Well, everyone has a right for his opinion, you can choose if you want to pay or not for a service like seoMoz. But, having more than 15000 people paying for this service (and I could name some big names from here) proves that seoMoz provides value.

Since the day I came to seoMoz community I had the chance to learn something new each day, develop myself... That is not because of the "tools", that came from people! And seoMoz is doing more than great in this part. Rand, even though he has a lot of work, he responds to emails if he gets 2 minutes time for it. Erica and Jen are working hard on the social networks, help team, etc. etc. And I just named a few of them, but there is a whole team behind the scenes providing valuable webinars, blog entries, new and new tools, working on getting Roger move faster and help him get to our websites...

Many thanks for this seoMozzers! (Since I don't want to name you one-by-one, just sending people to you, so they can know who is there: http://www.seomoz.org/about/team )

seoMoz is not only a tool, seoMoz is a community too, and it is great to get to know people from here.. and now if I want to quote something, then I rewrite the MasterCard advertisement: "fer everything else, there is..." seoMoz

Maybe you should consider this part too.

Gr.,

Istvan

P.S. "Rand is a very good marketer and SEOmoz sells only because of that."  - Are you really sure?

Hi Alec,

You will possible find SEO agencies which will create quality backlinks, I have no doubt regarding this. But will you find company which will do that cheap?  - I do not think so.

Still if interested I could point out a few people, who can deliver the quality job. Just hit me up with a Private message.

I hope you will find some great SEO agencies here (or maybe you could post it on the LinkedIn group also).

Gr.,

Istvan

The links that you have pointed up as example here are tend to be user friendly

But if you look at your initial example: fastbrazilvisas.com/brazil-tourist-visa it would make me close the tab and try to never get back to the page. Because it looks very superficial.

Gr.,

Istvan

Serge,

I really believe stuffing the URL with keywords is at least so bad from SEO point of view like stuffing the content with keywords. One day these will be punished, or at least should be, because they are not placed there to help the visitors, they just want to add more and more related keywords in the URL.

For ex.

if the keyword I am targeting on the page is coffee i wouldn't create a page with the following url:

www.example.com/coffee-Coffee-COFFEE-etc.etc.etc.

That is soo bad. (although a lot of coffee makes people smile in the morning).

Gr.,

Istvan

Hi Serge,

Personally I always go after a "clean" URL. So if it would be my decision, then I would go for fastbrazilvisas.com/tourist.

Don't stuff your URLs with keywords for search engines, make them simple and easier to share.

I hope that helped,

Istvan

Hi Tyler,

On what platform are you hosted?

Gr.,

Istvan

Hi DotlineSeo,

One possible solution to this issue could be the one Fredrik has pointed out.

An other solution is to tell search engines which URL are you targeting by adding a rel="canonical" to the header of the index page.

This way the one without the / will be targeted.

I hope that helped,

Istvan

Also if they link out to others and don't want to link to you, just ask them kindly why? You should get a straight feedback of the site ;-).

But let's hope that would not be an issue.

Istvan

Hi Waqid,

If I would be in your place, I would go for a telephone call. It is more personal, and I love to create relations with all my "link partners". The closer the connection is with them, the better it will be for future.

Also don't forget, that not placing any links can be caused by the news-channel linking policy.

I hope you will have success with it.

Istvan

Hi Shara,

The problem with E-Commerce websites is that usually you can get to several products in several paths, which can cause duplicate content (because the path is different, but products are the same).

With canonicals it could be solved, but on large websites, with several products and categories, playing with canonicals can really give you a headache.

What I would do is to let Search Engines index only one version of the products, the others could have noindex, follow or canonical (but as I said, canonicals can cause headaches if you don't manage it wisely).

As Francisco said, the answer to this issue is also effected by the content management system of your e-commerce website. If you know on what kind of platform you are using, then maybe we can offer you ideas of plugins to use to easy your job.

Good luck, I hope this helped a littlebit,

Istvan

Hi Gary,

Yes it will overwrite it. We have had clients with same situation and it has worked fine.

Greetings,

Istvan

Hi CP,

The fact is, that I wouldn't republish those articles that were already published to article directories. There are a lot of content scrappers which use these article directories. and you don't want to publish articles that have been copied many-many times.

This is only my opinion. Start building up new content, Query Deserves Freshness will just love it

Good luck!

Istvan

Hi Adrian,

with a 301 you lose aprox 15% of link juice (don't remember who gave that exact number, but i still have that in my mind )

So basically if you can change the links that you have control of, it will help. with other links... try to focus more on gaining new link partnerships. the 301 will lose some of the link juice, but new partners will push the link diversity and will help you more.

I hope it helped and good luck ;-),

Istvan

I would ask another question Andy, are you targeting different zones with the 4 e-commerce websites?

Istvan