Duplicate Content Errors

[Dean0]

Hello all,

I have been trying to improve my sites recently and have been using free online tools to assist me, which have proven very helpful. However I keep getting the same Duplicate Content issue with all my sites. These issues are being reported as duplicate content on my sites with and without triple w. (I'm not allowed to type urls apparently)

Now each of these reports shows 301 redirects are working fine but these sites are all being indexed twice.

I do know that if my sites were on a apache server a simple .htaccess file would help but all my sites are on windows servers, probably because I have never looked into which is better.

I have very limited knowledge of everything website related so went for what I knew (who doesn't know Windows?).

I would really like some advice. Should I ask my hosting provider to swap my sites to apache servers and upload the quick fix .htaccess or ask them to edit the Windows servers IIS controls?

Is the change from windows to apache better in the long run? Anything really would be helpful. Cheers all and thanks for reading/replying.

 

[ServWise]

There should be no reason for swapping to Apache, most Windows hosts should support .htaccess just like Linux (we do using helicon Ape) which means the same .htaccess used on Linux would work the same on windows.

Even if your host does not support .htaccess if the server is IIS7 (windows server 2008+) then you can do much he same thing as .htaccess using a web.config file see http://knowledge.freshpromo.ca/seo-tools/301-redirect.php#web.config for an example.

If your host truly does not support any of these options (which would be quite unusual) then maybe a new host?

 

[Dan_Kesher]

The simpliest option if you are already using IIS is to install URL Rewrite (http://www.iis.net/downloads/microsoft/url-rewrite)

Then add the template rule called 'Canonical Domain Name' (Select this template to create a rule that you can use to redirect Web clients to a primary domain for the Web site.) Then you tell it that you want www.domain.com and whenever someone gets to your site using domain.com, they will be redirected to www.domain.com. Google will also see that and realise that you no longer treat 'domain.com' as a duplicate website.

....I forgot to add, Google Webmaster Tools has an option to select www.domain.com as your preferred choice. But that won't help other search engines.

I also recommend adding the 'Enforce Lowercase URLs' rule because Google thinks www.domain.com/HandBags and www.domain.com/handbags are totally separate pages and marks them as duplicates.

 

[ITsoldUK]

It doesn't make a difference which web server you use.

The simpliest option if you are already using IIS is to install URL Rewrite (http://www.iis.net/downloads/microsoft/url-rewrite)

Then add the template rule called 'Canonical Domain Name' (Select this template to create a rule that you can use to redirect Web clients to a primary domain for the Web site.) Then you tell it that you want www.domain.com and whenever someone gets to your site using domain.com, they will be redirected to www.domain.com. Google will also see that and realise that you no longer treat 'domain.com' as a duplicate website.

....I forgot to add, Google Webmaster Tools has an option to select www.domain.com as your preferred choice. But that won't help other search engines.

I also recommend adding the 'Enforce Lowercase URLs' rule because Google thinks www.domain.com/HandBags and www.domain.com/handbags are totally separate pages and marks them as duplicates.

Correct, but for those that do not know, you MUST verify both non and www. BEFORE it will allow this.

I only add this as I have just spent 30 minutes explaining this to someone...

 

[Dean0]

Thanks for posting and helping me with this, my host tells me simply that they are unable to assist with the iis controls,

In fact they responded to my support ticket with

"we would just like to take this opportunity to inform you that website development, scripting and any relative query, as long as you are not using our site building facility is already beyond the scope of our support as this is a very broad information. Though we may can extend our support only to the level which we have supporting documents on the back end."

Which leads me to believe that I should be looking elsewhere.

I have since moved one of my sites to a linux server (same host) and added my own .htaccess file with relevant information and my duplicate error has vanished.

ServWise. I did have the .htaccess file on the windows server but this wasn't recognised/implemented by the hosting company. As above I think I should change.