url domain seo

[foz1234]

Quick question regarding duplicate pages for seo,  i am still trying to get to the bottom of my problem,

i am assuming this is ok but wanted to ask, i have no landing page, the domain opens in to Cubecart, the url opens https://www.domain.com or https://www.domain.com/index.php is this correct?

i also noticed that the sitemap maps a page to the documents home page search engine seo url path so that would be 3 of the same page? although the sitemap does not map a page to just the domain url only the index.php extension

is this correct?

thanks for your input in advance

 

 

 

[havenswift-hosting]

23 minutes ago, foz1234 said:

the url opens https://www.domain.com or https://www.domain.com/index.php is this correct?

No that isn't correct.  You need to add 301 redirects to your .htaccess to stop https://www.domain.com/index.php

Assuming you have sorted out http to https redirect on all pages (or there is another 4 duplicate pages for the homepage), have you also checked https://domain.com and https://domain.com/index.php as those would be another two duplicate content pages !

[foz1234]

hi,  I've sorted the www redirect and changed from merge to replace globe meta with individual seo for each url.

surprised i needed to redirect the https://www.domain.com/index.php to https://www.domain.com/ thought that would have been included in the cubecart .htaccess ?

so its looking like i do have duplicate pages for the home page, this would point to my problem as i said before its only the home page seo i seem to struggle with.

i am confused about the url in the sitmap that also points to the home page? https://www.domain.com/Custom-SEO-URL-Path..html ?  

so i should really only end up with 1 home page?  just the domain or the Custom SEO URL Path in documents?

thanks

 

 

 

[havenswift-hosting]

18 minutes ago, foz1234 said:

so its looking like i do have duplicate pages for the home page, this would point to my problem as i said before its only the home page seo i seem to struggle with.

i am confused about the url in the sitmap that also points to the home page? https://www.domain.com/Custom-SEO-URL-Path..html ?  

so i should really only end up with 1 home page?  just the domain or the Custom SEO URL Path in documents?

You should definitely only ever have one url that points to each page - the homepage is the obvious one but the principle applies to all pages.  However, that by itself will probably only be having a relatively small influence on the overall SEO for the homepage. 

You need to find out where that custom url is being generated and remove it. 

[foz1234]

the custom url is created in - admin - dashboard - documents - site documents / home page - search engines tab - Custom SEO URL Path *

this is were i edit my home page

 

[havenswift-hosting]

Why would you ever want a custom url for the homepage document ??

[foz1234]

i am confused, does it not automatically generate one?

Custom SEO URL Path *

* This will be generated automatically if left empty?

I've also noticed it resolves to the same page with index.php?page=0 & index.php? as well as index.php

is this just me or am i missing something here

Edited April 3, 2017 by foz1234

[Dirty Butter]

I have our store name as the title on my homepage document. The seo_url for that document is automatically re-directed to the store sub-domain. I tried looking through all my .htaccess file, but I don't understand it well enough to know what code there tells it to re-direct to the store sub-domain.

[keat]

If you remove the custom URL from the search engine section of the home page, and save the changes, the cart does indeed recreate it.

[havenswift-hosting]

And if you cut and paste that url into a browser where does it go to ?  If it redirects to your selected domain url for the homepage then you dont have a duplicate url !

[keat]

Have we opened a can of worms here. ??

If I paste the custom url directly after my domain name, I get a 404 error.

www.cabletiesonline.co.uk/the-uk-s-lowest-priced-cable-ties

If I superceed this with .html www.cabletiesonline.co.uk/the-uk-s-lowest-priced-cable-ties.html, it takes me to index.php, which I guess is where I would expect it to. ??

[havenswift-hosting]

No can of worms, both working as expected and means you dont have duplicate content - well not at least from that "custom" url but you shouldnt be seeing the /index.php

[keat]

I'll never to profess understanding much of this, there's so much conflicting info out there.

RewriteRule ^index\.php$ "https\:\/\/www\.domain-name\.co\.uk\/" [R=301,L],

added to .htaccess directs index.php to the root

[foz1234]

the documents custom URL part was not about seo duplicate content really although the site map generated by cc creates an entry for that url in the sitemap is this correct? along with the https://www.domain.index.php

i noticed the currency creates 5 duplicate pages so i made an entered in robots text file, so now its this 

User-agent: *

Allow: /*page=all

Disallow: /?page=

Disallow: /*?seo_path=

Disallow: /*html?

Disallow: /*?set_currency

but these all resolve to my home page https://www.domain/  index.php?page=0 & index.php? as well as index.php

Edited April 5, 2017 by foz1234

[keat]

I think maybe i've uncovered a can of worms with one of mine.

Using a 301 checking tool online, it tells me that my site is redirecting to mydomain.co.uk/index.php.

So I copied the .htaccess file from another domain (which doesn't resolve to index.php), but it still resolves to index.php.

I can't for the life of me figure out why.

[foz1234]

it would be nice if someone could post how to stop this /index.php resolving to the same address as the domain

Keat does your site resolve theses /index.php?page=0 - /index.php? & /index.php.  to the same home page?

[Dirty Butter]

Our shop is in a subdomain. This section of the htaccess file seems to handle this. Ours redirects to plushcatalog, not index.php:

Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine On

#
# REDIRECT /folder/index.php to /folder/
RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^[A-Z]{3,9}\ /([^/]+/)*index\.php\ HTTP/
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/[0-9]+\..+\.cpaneldcv$
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/[A-F0-9]{32}\.txt(?:\ Comodo\ DCV)?$
RewriteRule ^(([^/]+/)*)index\.php$ https://dirtybutter.com/plushcatalog/$1 [R=301,L]
#

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www\.(([a-z0-9_]+\.)?dirtybutter\.com)$ [NC]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/[0-9]+\..+\.cpaneldcv$
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/[A-F0-9]{32}\.txt(?:\ Comodo\ DCV)?$
RewriteRule .? https://%1%{REQUEST_URI} [R=301,L]

RewriteBase /plushcatalog/

 

[keat]

37 minutes ago, foz1234 said:

it would be nice if someone could post how to stop this /index.php resolving to the same address as the domain

Keat does your site resolve theses /index.php?page=0 - /index.php? & /index.php.  to the same home page?

I've no idea what's resolving to where at the moment if I'm being honest.

If I type www.cabletiesonline.co.uk, it resolves to https://www.cabletiesonline.co.uk

If I use /index.php it resolves to index.php and if i use

/index.php?page=0 - /index.php?            it resolves to

/index.php?page=0 - /index.php?

 

When I use 301 checker tools they are telling me that http://www.cabletiesonline.co.uk has a 301 to https://www.cabletiesonline.co.uk/index.php

This is where I'm now getting confused.

[foz1234]

these are separate

/index.php?page=0 

/index.php?  

if i am honest all I've done is confused myself further, keep trying to get my seo on the home page rankings up within google but its no where to be seen yet its page 2 on bing same search so google penalising me for something for sure, yet as I've said above and in other thread the products are fine showing page 1 or 2 in google its just frustrating the hell out of me.

[keat]

This actually becomes more complicated with each try.

I renamed .htaccess so in effect it didn't exists.

Then using Cpanel redirect tool, I created only 2 redirects.

1. none https (with or without www), to https

and

url/index.php to url

 

Now i seem to be redirecting correctly, but at least one of the online checking tools is complaining of 19 redirects.

[ayz1]

There is no need to be redirecting away from index.php because in this situation Google DOES NOT have a duplicate content penalty. Duplicate content on a site is not grounds for action on that site unless it appears that the intent of the duplicate content is to be deceptive and manipulate search engine results.

[keat]

This is really more complex than it ought to be.

Using SEO checking tools and 301 redirect tools, theres a multitude of conflicting info.

One tools will say everything is OK, another will tell you there are too many redirects, then next will tell you something isn't redirecting.

 

Finding info on forums regarding .htaccess leads to web site unavailability, failures to login etc etc.

[ayz1]

Don't know why you are giving yourself so much grief. It's not that important. There are far more important SEO issues on the website than redirecting index.php. As I said in ealier post you will not be penalised anyway as it isn't classed as duplicate content. Google knows that domain.co.uk, domain.co.uk/ and domain.co.uk/index.php are all the same and not duplicates.

Edited April 6, 2017 by ayz1

[foz1234]

13 hours ago, ayz1 said:

There is no need to be redirecting away from index.php because in this situation Google DOES NOT have a duplicate content penalty. Duplicate content on a site is not grounds for action on that site unless it appears that the intent of the duplicate content is to be deceptive and manipulate search engine results.

This is somewhat contradictive, you say Google DOES NOT have a duplicate content penalty, yet if you intend duplicate content to manipulate search engine it does? who decides this? so i am assuming that it does have a duplicate content penalty but i think you are saying not in this case regarding the index.php

this also seems to go against what haven swift has said "You should definitely only ever have one url that points to each page"  

i am only asking because i am trying to understand.

 

[ayz1]

Google does not class domain.co.uk, domain.co.uk/ and domain.co.uk/index.php as duplicate content. Duplicate content is an entirely different thing altogether. Google looks for duplicate content that is trying to manipulate the search engine results and domain.co.uk or domain.co.uk/ or domain.co.uk/index.php clearly aren't trying to do that.