Duplicate Content Issues Between domain.com and index.php...

[stretch dog]

We have a commerce site that has been totally screwed by googe recently... i know, welcome to the club.

It shows only the home page (www.domain.com), index/php and some 900 plus shopping cart related pages with caches from mid last year (over a thousand product, content and article pages have simply vanished)... sound familiar?

My question though is to do with the www.domain.com and www.domain.com/index.php.

Google is seeing them as two distinctly different pages, with different cache dates (may 26th and may 30) and different pr (4 and 3 respectively).

My server admin says you cannot do a 301 redirect of the /index.php to the www.domain.com without creating an endless loop.

So my question is what to do about the duplicate content issue and the splitting of the PR... ?

Any suggestions or input please... or even a link to a previous thread discussing this issue (i took a quick look and couldn't find anything current enough)...

SD

[Pascal77]

We have a commerce site that has been totally screwed by googe recently... i know, welcome to the club.

It shows only the home page (www.domain.com) and some 900 plus shopping cart related pages with caches from mid last year... sound familiar?

My question though is to do with the www.domain.com and www.domain.com/index.php.

Google is seeing them as two distinctly different pages, with different cache dates (may 26th and may 30) and different pr (4 and 3 respectively).

My server admin says you cannot do a 301 redirect of the /index.php to the www.domain.com without creating an endless loop.

So my question is what to do about the duplicate content issue and the splitting of the PR... ?

Any suggestions or input please...

SD

If not domain(domain/index)
then redirect to domain(domain)
(i did this with a javascript redirect)

If it's not possible with a redirect perhaps it's possible with a url rewrite.
Don't know or you end this way in an endless loop.

To be more precise about the javascript :
<script language="Javascript">
<!--
if (window.location!="http://domain.xx/")
{
window.location="http://domain.xx/";
}
// -->
</script>

[stretch dog]

Tried both the redirect you suggest and a rewrite and both cause a loop... but maybe if i have the admin rename the directory index and try redirecting to that... but then i dont think we'll be able to recover the PR that is currently assigned to the index.php page.

No one else care to contribute their thoughts on how to properly deal with this issue?

... or maybe its not really an issue at all.

... perhaps there is no potential "duplicate content" issue under these circumstances and maybe the "splitting of PR" is not what it appears to be.

SD

[Pascal77]

Tried both the redirect you suggest and a rewrite and both cause a loop... but maybe if i have the admin rename the directory index and try redirecting to that... but then i dont think we'll be able to recover the PR that is currently assigned to the index.php page.

No one else care to contribute their thoughts on how to properly deal with this issue?

... or maybe its not really an issue at all.

... perhaps there is no potential "duplicate content" issue under these circumstances and maybe the "splitting of PR" is not what it appears to be.

SD

I just tried it again and it works for me
putted it on a page for you :)
http://vakantie.e-aanbiedingen.nl/index.html

i think you forgot a slash or something. I do remeber ending in a loop by forgetting that

[stretch dog]

i see it in your code and will pass your post on to the admin to try again... thanks and i will let you know if it works.

SD

[stretch dog]

K, the script causes all the pages that are designated within the database as "subcategory" pages to loop back to home page... has something to do with the way those particular pages are "rewritten"... so i guess its particular to our sites (two of them...).

The /index.php is not indexed by either msn or yahoo... but for some reason google seems to have both versions.

Why is it that google, the biggest of the bunch, is the one search engine that seems to have trouble dealing with things like canonicalization and the different versions of a home page being seen as duplicate content?

Can anyone out there advise me as to whether this issue really is a problem or not. Because if it is, we can fix it... but its a lot of work to do if its not necessary to do it... anyone?

SD