Duplicate Pages a Mess!

[tushar123]

Hi All,

I am working on a website, which has duplicate pages.

The website is having pages abcxyz.com & abcxyz.com/. While the former one is having a good PR - 5, but is not cached, in fact not showing in the Google Cache's result; and the later one is Cached regularly but not having the PR.

Likewise there are other pages also which are duplicates, other than the home page.

My request is to please let me know, what can be done, and which pages can be removed.

Kindly, advise.

Thanks & Regards
TUSHARVICKKIE
My Complete Profile

[tushar123]

Hi All,

I didn't get any reply for this.

Recently, I checked the website, and too my utter surprise the ranking has gone down for the main keywords, for which the website was showing up within the top 5 in SERP.

Kindly, advise.

TUSHARVICKKIE
LinkedIn: Tushar Pant

[fernimac]

You should not have duplicate content. If you do, redirect 301 to the main page.

[robert47]

I have a question under this subject that I've been wrestling with for years!

I began my main website in 1999. Over the years I've changed hosts and found that some hosts didn't allow me to change the .htaccess file, so I had to create a index.htm file instead of a index.html file for the home page.

I noticed back in 2001 that different browsers would display different pages as the home page htm VS html.
Different search engines would link to one or the other as the home page.

Of course, years later I now have both the index.htm and index.html page for my home page, both with the same content.
Should I use a 301 redirect for one of the index pages instead of continuing to duplicate the content.
If yes, which one do I delete and redirect to the other?

Thanks for your consideration and replies.

[tushar123]

Hi,

I too have the same query, as to which pages should I use a 301 redirect?

The one with high rank or those with regular caching!

Thanks & Regards
TUSHARVICKKIE

[fernimac]

I would not care much about regular caching. Once you put the redirect Google will start caching the new page instead and you will benefit from the higher pagerank.

[tushar123]

Yup that's correct.

Once doing the redirect - a 301 one, your redirect page will be ranked better.