7 replies to this topic

[neilwuk3]

Hi, wonder if anyone can help?

We have just changed our site which was hosted on IIS and the page url's were like this ( example.co.uk/Default.aspx?pagename=About-Us ). The new page url is example.co.uk/About-Us/ and is using Apache.

The 301's our developer told us to use was in this format:

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^/Default\.aspx$
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} ^pagename=About-Us$
RewriteRule ^(.*)$  http://www.domain.co.uk/About-Us/ [R=301,L]

This seemed to work from a 301 point of view; however it also seemed to allow both of the below URL's to give the same page!

example.co.uk/About-Us/?pagename=About-Us

example.co.uk/About-Us/

Webmaster Tools has now picked up on this and is seeing it a duplicate content.

Can anyone help why it would be doing this please. I'm not totally clued up and our host/ developer cant understand it too.

Many Thanks

Edited by Jill, 18 September 2012 - 11:42 AM.

[Tiggerito]

If I remember correctly (I'm not at my computer) the redirect you set up will append the query string and cause that first url to be indexed.

This may fix it:

RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.domain.co.uk/About-Us/? [R=301,L]

Use an http header checker to see how the redirect is working.

You may also want to add canonical tags to those pages. That will also stop the double indexing.

[neilwuk3]

Thanks for the reply. I'll try and and see if that works.

So a "?" is just needed at the end of the new URL?

[neilwuk3]

Hi Tiggerito,

I used the tool in your footer which gave me:


RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} ^pagename=Price-Guarantee$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^Default\.aspx$ /about-us/price-guarantee/? [R=301,NE,NC,L]

However both www.example.com/about-us/price-guarantee/ and www.example.com/about-us/price-guarantee/?pagename=Price-Guarantee work!

The 301's are working correctly, but we just have this duplicate issue.

Any ideas?

[Jill]

Then the 301's are not working properly.

[Tiggerito]

Hi Tiggerito,

I used the tool in your footer which gave me:


RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} ^pagename=Price-Guarantee$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^Default\.aspx$ /about-us/price-guarantee/? [R=301,NE,NC,L]

However both www.example.com/about-us/price-guarantee/ and www.example.com/about-us/price-guarantee/?pagename=Price-Guarantee work!

The 301's are working correctly, but we just have this duplicate issue.

Any ideas?

What do you mean by work? What do they do?
How do you determine the 301 is working correctly?
How are you determining that you have a duplicate issue?

[chrishirst]

However both www.example.com/about-us/price-guarantee/ and www.example.com/about-us/price-guarantee/?pagename=Price-Guarantee work!

If they are, the redirect is NOT working.


To test? use WebBug or one of the many "Header Checkers" there are around.

Edited by chrishirst, 20 September 2012 - 11:22 AM.

[neilwuk3]

Thanks for all the help guys. I think its all working now. Google was listing in its search results example.co.uk/About-Us/?pagename=About-Us, but its now correct and shows example.co.uk/About-Us/.

I think there was some kind of issue, but in using Tiggerito's tool it may have fixed it.

All the best.