Correct use of Canonical link vs 301 redirect
-
Hi All,
Seeking yet more advice.
SEOMOZ tools have told me I have duplicate content on one of my sites and I am keen to clean this up. I am not to familiar with the following so thought I would ask.
The duplicate content is shown on :
Obviously I only see index.html when I check the code so what is the best method of resolving the duplicate content, Canonical or 301?
Can you give me an example
Thanks all
-
Thanks guys, exactly what I was looking for
-
Wayne,
A 301 is always preferred over a canonical when given the choice. You would use a canonical if you did not have access to your web server and did not have a better option.
The method of redirect depends on the hardware and software of your server. The most common shared servers use Apache and cPanel where there is a Redirect tool which allows you to perform this redirect. The Redirect tool writes the htaccess code for you.
You are also welcome to use the code Sean shared but if you have not modified your file before please understand any mistake can make your site inaccessible. Always back up the current file, make the change, and thoroughly test it.
-
Use a 301 Redirect with .htaccess. Use the following code in your 'htaccess file:
Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^./index.html
RewriteRule ^(.)index.html$ http://www.yoursite.com/$1 [R=301,L]
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
301 Redirects - Large .htaccess file question
We are moving about 5000 pages from root into different folders. We need to individually 301 each page because the are sitting at root level now: mysite.com/page.com We want to move them to: mysite.com/folder/page.html etc I dont think redirect match can works because of the different files names and folders they are being moved in to. Will 5000 entries in .htacess slow site loading? Any other suggestions how to handle?
On-Page Optimization | | leadforms0 -
How to 301 redirect, without access to .htaccess and to a new domain
There are few ways to do this and I would like to ask other Mozzers if they have found the best way. We have a site .co.uk and are moving it back to .com. However we do not have any access to the site folders for .co.uk. (We have to move it anyway as our provider is withdrawing their service). We have built our URL 301 redirect file and it is ready to go, but how to impliment it? We can repoint .co.uk to another site, and then redirect all traffic for each URL but this is quite messy, or just forget trying to 301 each page and just rediect the whole site.
On-Page Optimization | | BruceA
the .com has more authority already, but we ready do not want to frustrate visitors who are using a link to reach a product, only to find they hit our homepage and not the product. Your thoughts would be very welcome or other ideas Bruce0 -
Internal Linking From Blog to Website
Hi all, I'm just seeking opinions on something an external company have told us about linking from our blog to our website... Our website is; www.XYZ.com and our blog is www.XYZ.com/blog I add content to the blog on an almost daily basis and generally link on average 3 times from the blog (internally) to a various relevant pages on our website. Today I was told that by doing this I am 'diluting' the link juice which I understand but don't agree with... All I am doing is a form of internal linking which as far as I am aware is a good on-page technique? Just curious to learn other people's view on this... Many thanks Andy
On-Page Optimization | | TomKing0 -
Issue: Rel Canonical
My SEO Report shows issues: Rel Canonical I have a wordpress website each page has its content but I'm getting errors from my SEOMOZ report. I instaledl the yoast plug in to fix the issue but I'm still getting 29 errors. Wordpress 3.4.1
On-Page Optimization | | mobiledudes0 -
Canonical tag help
Hi, We have a product which is marketed by affiliates . Affiliates send referrals to our sale page by adding their affiliate IDs to our product page like http://www.mysite.com/products.php?ref= 12345. We want to avoid the content duplication impression to Google by using canonical tags but we are not clear about its use. Should we use it on http://www.mysite.com/products.php ( actual page) or we should create temporary pages for each referral id i.e http://www.mysite.com/products.php?ref= 12345 and then add canonical tags to all those pages linking to proper page i.e http://www.mysite.com/products.php ? Thanks, shaz
On-Page Optimization | | shaz_lhr0 -
Too many on-page links
Hi, My website - www.thepartyhouse.com.au is showing as having too many on-page links for over 4,000 pages. Take for example the homepage which is showing as 188 links, but I don't understand this because I've used SEO tools to display the links and I am showing around 90 links on this page. How can I see what all the links are? Thanks
On-Page Optimization | | Spyre0 -
Should I include my help desk link?
My website has a link to our help desk. I was considering a 'do not follow' since I don't think it should be included. However, are there any benefits to including it since there are A LOT of articles and pages on our help desk (though it's aimed at our curent customers, not new or potential customers)?
On-Page Optimization | | flightoffice0 -
Duplicate Links
Hello, I am entering sitewide navigation that will go to primary seo pages. This is really for usability, not for link juice. I'm wondering if I should still link to these very important pages in my index page's content. Or if I should consider those navigation links strong enough. If I did link in the content, then I would have more than one link to the same page on my home page. Thanks Tyler
On-Page Optimization | | tylerfraser0