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18 votes
1 answer
6k views

Canonical URL for a home page and trailing slashes

My home page could be potentially linked as: http://example.com http://example.com/ http://example.com/?ref=1 http://example.com/index.html http://example.com/index.html?ref=2 (the same page is ...
serg's user avatar
  • 2,373
14 votes
1 answer
2k views

How to handle canonical url changes like Stack Overflow

Stack Overflow sites all have pretty urls which include the question title. In the HTML it also have canonical url for that page. I just found out that when I change the question title, the url is ...
lulalala's user avatar
  • 738
12 votes
3 answers
11k views

Should URL paths be case sensitive?

My website's URLs are currently case-insensitive. For example, both of the following links show the exact same page: http://example.com/about http://example.com/About However, taking a look at the ...
henrywright's user avatar
8 votes
3 answers
744 views

Why treat these as URLs with different path capitalization and trailing slash as different?

These are all strictly different urls: http://www.example.com/page http://www.example.com/pAge http://www.example.com/page/ http://www.example.com/paGE/ I get that it conforms to the strict ISO ...
Tom Gullen's user avatar
  • 2,400
8 votes
2 answers
314 views

When the canonical page itself changes URL

This is a continuation of the question: How to handle canonical URL changes like Stack Overflow. Say I have the canon URL: questions/11/car <---canonically-linked-from--- questions/11/ What will ...
lulalala's user avatar
  • 738
7 votes
3 answers
2k views

How to handle different images size and URL with SEO

I'm creating my own CMS, and I have to handle images with differentes sizes. I store all my image's information in a database. For every image, I have: a filename (with extension) a title an alt ...
Hugo H's user avatar
  • 213
6 votes
3 answers
2k views

Should an ID go at the beginning or end of the URL for SEO? [duplicate]

Says I have a link, which contains the ID = 19963307 Type 1 : http://stackoverflow.com/questions/19963307/how-to-install-asp-net-mvc-5-on-a-server Type 2 : http://stackoverflow.com/questions/how-...
NeedAnswers's user avatar
6 votes
2 answers
2k views

Does URL encoding create duplicate content?

An SEO expert was testing my site, and noticed that my URLs contained the special character :. He said that would create duplicate content, because google would interpret any url containing : as two ...
Harris's user avatar
  • 163
6 votes
3 answers
336 views

Should a canonical URL be search engine friendly?

I'm using Drupal with search engine friendly URLs. The way Drupal works is that there's two ways to reference a node with SEF URLS switched on: The SEF way, eg. http://example.com/blog/the-answer-to-...
Andy's user avatar
  • 1,481
5 votes
6 answers
436 views

Using subdomains or directories for main categories?

I have a website which references places to travel to in the world. Those places are (of course) grouped by countries. Here is an example of an actual URL of my website: http://awespot.org/country/...
Matthieu Napoli's user avatar
4 votes
2 answers
11k views

Do query string case differences affect whether a URL is Canonical?

If I have two URL's where the only difference is the case of the query string: http://example.com?param=TEST http://example.com?param=test Are they both considered equal by search engines? I know ...
Muhammad Rehan Saeed's user avatar
4 votes
4 answers
7k views

Is it OK to have a case insensitive URI?

If I have a URL like /writes/about/star-wars, and it is also accessible to users by /wRitEs/ABOUT/star-WARS, is that considered another page? Is a page allowed to have any combo of upper/lower-case ...
Xeoncross's user avatar
  • 141
4 votes
1 answer
2k views

URLs with "space", "%20", "+" are canonicals?

If I have a URL encoded and another does not, e.g. <a href="http://example.com/images/foo abc.jpg">Image</a> <a href="http://example.com/images/foo+abc.jpg">Image</a> <a ...
Korvo's user avatar
  • 235
4 votes
3 answers
281 views

Google ranking - difference between example.com and example.com/?ref=id

Does it impact a site's Google ranking if I link to the site with a "referrer" query-string? e.g: example.com/?ref=mysite instead of example.com ?
Michael's user avatar
  • 43
4 votes
3 answers
83 views

Support same URL in different forms

I have seen many websites supporting multiple forms of the same URL. For example consider www.example.com/question1/ OR www.example.com/Question1/ OR www.example.com/QUESTION1/ etc. all lead to one ...
Vikas Gulati's user avatar
4 votes
1 answer
274 views

Same page in different "locations" on same site - duplicate content? [duplicate]

Possible Duplicate: What is duplicate content and how can I avoid being penalized for it on my site? The same page, or rather the same content on a page is accessible from two very similar URLs, ...
MrWhite's user avatar
  • 43.1k
4 votes
2 answers
2k views

How to correctly remove MULTIPLE parameters from the Google index using htaccess and canonical / noindex?

I found a similar question with a great answer for removing a single URL parameter. However, what if I have 20+ URL parameters that I don't want indexed? Also, in the example solution below, it is ...
Bryan Earl's user avatar
3 votes
2 answers
455 views

Is it possible to check the case on Apache redirects or aliases?

I have a big website (15,000 pages) with a log list of redirects (about 800) that have been used in marketing pieces for years. My Apache server has been running mod_rewrite for the past 10 years or ...
Cloudkiller's user avatar
3 votes
2 answers
3k views

Change web folders names with uppercase to lowercase or not?

I have web directories with upper case letters and site is on Apache server. Example: www.example.com/ServiceTools/page.htm I have read that using upper case letters in folder name is bad practice ...
user3101055's user avatar
3 votes
2 answers
156 views

Would the following URLs result in duplicate content if I only used one canonical link?

In your experience, have you ever had problems with duplicate content being caused by the following URLs: www.mysite.net www.mysite.net/ www.mysite.net/index.html Do you think that this could result ...
AlexB's user avatar
  • 133
3 votes
1 answer
199 views

Client's Website Was Hacked and 316K Fake URLs Submitted to GSC

First, I wish you all a pleasant weekend. I have a unique situation. My client's website was hacked before working with me, and now I'm trying to fix it to the best of my abilities. We started working ...
gfo95's user avatar
  • 41
3 votes
1 answer
137 views

Should extended Latin characters in urls (ü, ö, etc.) be percent-encoded as standard?

I'm putting together an English language site which contains its own German translation (don't worry, I've lived in Germany and I have a degree in Germanic and Slavonic Studies, it's proper German...)....
Rounin's user avatar
  • 2,365
3 votes
1 answer
253 views

How to construct the URL for search with multiple input?

I am having a home page where I can search on multiple tags. How should I construct the URL? Suppose I search for tag = test_1 and tag = test_2 Should I construct the url like http://www.example....
Harshit Agarwal's user avatar
3 votes
1 answer
54 views

Can canonical tags be used to make a single page rank for multiple keywords?

I have a website about 'Virtualization' and I want to rank for 'Virtualization, Desktop Virtualization, Server Virtualization and Network virtualization' keywords. I wrote a long article about these ...
Naderi's user avatar
  • 41
3 votes
1 answer
2k views

Should my canonical URL contain the language parameter?

As I understand correct a canonical URL should point to the original URL of the website. Our website provides different languages that can be switched with an URL parameter, instantly. Our website is ...
Martin Braun's user avatar
3 votes
3 answers
206 views

Which URL(s) do I choose for one product with different colours?

I read that it is best practices that if you have a product that comes in 3 colours to have one URL for the product, and then to have a dropdown with all the colours that it comes in? For example if ...
Brendan Vogt's user avatar
  • 1,115
3 votes
1 answer
687 views

Does a link to your site with a URL parameter pass link juice?

If I link to http://example.com/?id=344, will that still provide link juice to example.com? Or will it provide link juice only to http://example.com/?id=344, which might have a link to example.com ...
Source's user avatar
  • 393
3 votes
1 answer
90 views

How to optimize keywords in URLs for SEO?

Can I write slightly different URLs for the same page and rank "equally" for both? For example, I have a post URL like this: http://example.com/rio-de-janeiro/onetitle-... But I also would like to ...
lucaswxp's user avatar
  • 177
3 votes
2 answers
324 views

Clarify "canonical" word: Can someone please list the various uses of this word in SEO context, and point out correct or incorrect uses of it?

I think the authoritative use of the word "canonical" in the SEO discipline dates back to this 2006 blog post by Matt Cuts on cononicalization: http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/seo-advice-url-...
Chris Adragna's user avatar
3 votes
2 answers
2k views

Changing canonical URL impact on SEO

I have a website with multiple URLs to the same content: /dog/black/labrador /dog/brown/labrador ... whereas the /black/ or /brown/ hierarchy can be anything and will always show the same page and ...
Thibaut's user avatar
  • 33
3 votes
2 answers
2k views

Using an alias on my domain. How do I tell Google that I want it to only index the alias to avoid duplicate content?

I am starting a music blog at www.domain1.com. That URL is an alias shared with www.domain2.com which is just a domain I happen to have hosting with but is unused. In the future I may want to develop ...
codemonkey's user avatar
3 votes
1 answer
146 views

URL query variables and rel=canonical

I have 14 pages of products on my site. Each page has 10 products. The product pages are powered by Ajax, and I have a filter results feature which lets them only show products with higher ratings, ...
user21100's user avatar
  • 391
3 votes
2 answers
391 views

Multilingual website URL & SEO

For example, I see most of the Google's properties is using the hl query string, e.g. http://www.youtube.com/?hl=zh-TW and compare the above URL with http://www.youtube.com/zh-TW/.. From the SEO ...
Yoga's user avatar
  • 319
2 votes
1 answer
509 views

2 URLs pointing to one website with a unique canonical URL

I have 2 domains submitted to Google that both point to my WordPress site. I am using Yoast SEO plugin to take care of the basic SEO metadata for the website. When I view the source for each URL I ...
user3574492's user avatar
2 votes
1 answer
108 views

Implementing Canonical URLs

I have a confusion in implementing canonical URLs; Client has shared a set of URLs like; http://example.com/eg/ http://example.com/eg/index?32312323 http://example.com/eg/index?54545545 http://...
Aamir Shahzad's user avatar
2 votes
1 answer
108 views

Canonical after updating to pretty urls

I just updated my site to use pretty URL structures. Old URL: https://digimoncard.io/deck/?deckid=1241 New URL: https://digimoncard.io/deck/green-otk-1241 I've set up my SEO like so: <meta ...
GenesisBits's user avatar
2 votes
1 answer
60 views

Redirecting /page/*/ to the home page in .htaccess

My problem is that my homepage exists on https://www.example.com/page/2/, /3/, /4/ and so on, it still exists on /1000/. Same duplicate page versions exists on /about and and /contact page of my site. ...
Eym Script's user avatar
2 votes
1 answer
752 views

Schemaless URLs in canonical tags

Is it a problem to put a schemaless URL in a canonical tag? Example: page URL is http://example.com while canonical tag is <link rel="canonical" href="//example.com" />.
user avatar
2 votes
1 answer
328 views

Google Webmaster Tools is showing duplicate URLs based on page title differences

I have 700+ title tag duplicates showing in WMT. Every first link in that picture is as duplicate link of second one. I don't know from where the first link got indexed by Google when that link ...
Praveen Govind's user avatar
2 votes
1 answer
2k views

UUID or SLUG first in the url for better ranking? Does it change with canonicals?

I'm faced with a decision with creating my paths and not sure which would have the best ranking approach. example.com/product/[slug]-[uuid] example.com/product/[uuid]-[slug] example.com/product/[slug]...
Justin.CR's user avatar
2 votes
1 answer
61 views

AWstats reports URLs appended to other canonical URLs, why?

I've been running a site for a while now and my AWstats page is starting to present pages with... some sort of endless stream of references to pages. It's a bit bizarre, I'm not sure what's happened.
user106781's user avatar
2 votes
2 answers
58 views

Is it correct to redirect the old site to the new domain and the further redirect for new URL capitalization?

I am wondering whether this setup is correct. I have a website running HTTP domain1.example and I redirect links to domain2.example using a 301 redirect. domain2 works fine but I decided to ...
mashup's user avatar
  • 185
2 votes
1 answer
208 views

How to prevent duplicate pages with different URL slugs on my Cold Fusion site?

My programer has made my website in Cold Fusion and the URLs are like http://www.example.com/article.cfm/articleid/12345/seo-keyword-title but the problem is the page opens even if the (seo-keyword-...
Nitin Gandhi's user avatar
2 votes
2 answers
216 views

Does rel=canonical and rel=alternate make sense on pictures?

I have a desktop and a mobile site and I use rel=canonical and rel=alternate as recommended by google to link the corresponding html based pages of each site together. I'm just wondering, because on ...
Mike -- No longer here's user avatar
2 votes
1 answer
108 views

How duplicate must two pages be in order for one to require rel=canonical?

I've been reading up on: <link rel="canonical" href="(original url)"> And one thing that I'm trying to figure out is the lowest percent of duplication must any two pages need to be in order ...
Mike -- No longer here's user avatar
2 votes
1 answer
3k views

How use a canonical link tag in a dynamic page?

<link rel="canonical" href="http://www.example.com/category/subcategory/example-product/product-id" /> I have a whole bunch of query string URLs (company products) that I have rewritten to ...
audrey83114's user avatar
2 votes
0 answers
157 views

invoke a URL Perl script silently, without changing URL visible to client

I've been fighting the Google canonical page algorithm bug for 2+ months. Following various forum advice and suggestions haven't solved it yet, although for sure they've made our website better. One ...
Jeff Brower's user avatar
2 votes
1 answer
44 views

Should I use a 301 redirect for inbound discount offer links?

We have discount links like example.com/alex10 that set a discount in the session and show the homepage as normal (with a tiny adjustment to say "£10 credit applied"). When we initially set this up ...
AlexHeeton's user avatar
1 vote
2 answers
1k views

What canonical URL should be used for sub-pages? The sub-page itself, the home page,or something else?

I was wondering what canonical url to use for my site's pages other than the home page. For example, if I have https://example.com/page-1, which should I use: https://example.com/page-1 https://...
Zebda's user avatar
  • 189
1 vote
4 answers
913 views

SEO: adding an unecessary description key in dynamic url is it good or not?

in the typical DB driven cms/ecommerce site you will have items pages at urls in some form similar to: http://www.domain.com/item.php?id=36 1) Is it good for SEO purpose to add a sort of description ...
Marco Demaio's user avatar
  • 6,500