Is this a serious SEO problem?

[Nick-UK]

Dear All,

I would very much value your opinions and thoughts on a bit of a dilemma I am facing.

I work as an SEO for an agency and am looking after a client who has a large database driven informational site.

They use .ASP and URL's exist in the format of:

http://www.domainname.com/productfa...ype/product.asp

So far so good.

However, I noticed that in their Site Map they have URL's in a different format than that used in the main navigation of the site.

For example, a link on their Site Map could be:

http://www.domainname.com/PRODUCTFA...ype/product.asp

and a link to the same page from the main navigation of the site could be:

http://www.domainname.com/productfa...ype/product.asp

So, the site contains a mixture of different internal links to the same page - some in upper-case, some in lower-case and some using a mixture of the two.

Now, my problem is that Google has indexed a mixture of these pages - some with upper-case URLs, some with lower-case URLs.

I have suggested to my client that this is a serious problem because it could cause potential duplicate content issues in Google.

I have recommended that they give thought to implementing a "fix" on their Microsoft Internet server that makes sure all URLs are either in lower-case or upper-case throughout the site.

My colleagues at work disagree this is a serious problem.

My question is, do I go ahead and recommend the change or leave as is?

I look forward to your thoughts and perhaps reasons for going ahead and reasons for leaving the situations as is.

Kind regards,

Nick (UK)

[debarati]

Nick, I had also faced the same problem. But as it was an inhouse site, i have changed the site structure and file names.

Pointing to your issue, I do think Google will take it up as an duplication. But before Google finds it, you will need to keep the site structure and file names perfect.

If you have optimized a page and google crawls another one, then it would be a problem.

Moreove we SEOs have still many things to finalize and get a clear picture of search engines. Till today we have to try and test - itsn't it?

[Nick-UK]

Hi again,

I have noticed something odd on Google this morning - it seems to have picked up both URL's!

If I type into Google:

http://www.domainname.com/productfa...ype/product.asp

it will find and display the details but below this the following text is displayed:
"In order to show you the most relevant results, we have omitted some entries very similar to the 1 already displayed.
If you like, you can repeat the search with the omitted results included."

-if you click on this I was amazed to see the following:

http://www.domainname.com/productfa...ype/product.asp
description of company, etc, etc

http://www.domainname.com/PRODUCTFA...ype/product.asp
description of company, etc, etc


So, it appears that Google has recognised that two existing URL's exist on the site but link to the exact same page.

Can I assume from this that Google is ok with the situation and I don't need to worry anymore about upper/lower case issues and the like?

[debarati]

As per my openion amy be Google Algo index both the pages and considers as two diff urls but we as a Human beings understand the problem within.

Hence, I would suggest you to change to one link becoz this is a "Ethical SEO" process.

Before the Google manually find it to be duplicate and penalize the site, it is better to rectify the error.

[bj]

Why don't you post this as a comment on Matt Cutts' blog? You just might get an answer.

[Conficio]

It all depends on if your webserver is case sensitive. It used to be most servers where not. However more modern servers are. In consequence Google will treat both URL's as different ones. By the way DNS - your domain name - is not case sensitive)

I would not be much concerned with duplicate content. Google does not bark at a few duplicates. They are after hundreds and thousands of duplicates like in affiliate schemes.

I would be more concerned with the dilution of your back-links. Assume one directory uses the upper case form of the URL another the lower case and a third uses the mixed case form. You end up having not three back links but one each. Which off course is not what you want.

To remedy the situation I'd go and install permanent (301) redirects for all upper case and mixed case URLs to their lower case forms. Then update your sitemap accordingly (I assume you are talking about a Google sitemap as opposed to a sitemap.asp page). As last step go and clean up your links in the site. The last step can be done during usual updates, as it only imposes a small extra work on all visitors (performed by their browser).

I hope this is helpful to you

K<o>

[Orion]

my favourite MicroSoft pet peeve!!!

Windows is NOT case sensitive...

Unix (both linux and mac are unix based systems) is TOTALLY case SenSiTivE.

good coding practices (what they call best practices) state that you need to be consistant!!!

If your company is professional... and you don't have that consistancy then you're showing me as a potential client that you don't care, are sloppy, not reliable, don't pay attention to details (no offense meant), why would I want to do business with a company like that?

Standards say that all file names should be in lower case and contain no spaces.

xHTML won't like it.

and of course yes one link in caps will get indexed by google and another link to the same page in non-caps will also be indexed as unix systems identify these as two different pages...

if the file itself is caps and the link doesn't match exactly the case letter for letter I'll get a 404 error on that link depending on which OS / browser I'm using...

Bottom line there's a million reasons to fix it and none not to fix it.

[cvos]

yes, i echo Orion. you must be consistent or other larger problems will develop. I suspect there are other related items that are dragging your website down.

How can you expect a robot search engine to list your page if you humans cant even agree what the name is? Do you want to leave search spiders to *guess* what your filenames are?

oh well, i *guess* i will rank them #67

[Manpasand]

Hence, I would suggest you to change to one link becoz this is a "Ethical SEO" process.

I completely agree with "debarati".

[TrafficProducer]

As stated:-

Windows is NOT case sensitive...

Unix (both linux and mac are unix based systems) is TOTALLY case SenSiTivE.

therefore; I would say, (mainly), use lowercase only,

Also, if you do, don't uses spaces e.g.

Don't use: /web page.html (Some search & sitemaps find these problematic)

Use: /web_page.html