• majorAlexa

        See all notifications

        Skip to content
        Moz logo Menu open Menu close
        • Products
          • Moz Pro
          • Moz Pro Home
          • Moz Local
          • Moz Local Home
          • STAT
          • Moz API
          • Moz API Home
          • Compare SEO Products
          • Moz Data
        • Free SEO Tools
          • Domain Analysis
          • Keyword Explorer
          • Link Explorer
          • Competitive Research
          • MozBar
          • More Free SEO Tools
        • Learn SEO
          • Beginner's Guide to SEO
          • SEO Learning Center
          • Moz Academy
          • MozCon
          • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
        • Blog
        • Why Moz
          • Digital Marketers
          • Agency Solutions
          • Enterprise Solutions
          • Small Business Solutions
          • The Moz Story
          • New Releases
        • Log in
        • Log out
        • Products
          • Moz Pro

            Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

          • Moz Local

            Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

          • STAT

            SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

          • Moz API

            Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

          • Compare SEO Products

            See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

          • Moz Data

            Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

          Let your business shine with Listings AI
          Moz Local

          Let your business shine with Listings AI

          Learn more
        • Free SEO Tools
          • Domain Analysis

            Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

          • Keyword Explorer

            Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

          • Link Explorer

            Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

          • Competitive Research

            Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

          • MozBar

            See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

          • More Free SEO Tools

            Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

          NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
          Moz Pro

          NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

          Learn more
        • Learn SEO
          • Beginner's Guide to SEO

            The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

          • SEO Learning Center

            Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

          • On-Demand Webinars

            Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

          • How-To Guides

            Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

          • Moz Academy

            Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

          • MozCon

            Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

          Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
          Moz API

          Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

          Find your plan
        • Blog
        • Why Moz
          • Digital Marketers

            Simplify SEO tasks to save time and grow your traffic.

          • Small Business Solutions

            Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

          • Agency Solutions

            Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

          • Enterprise Solutions

            Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

          • The Moz Story

            Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

          • New Releases

            Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

          Surface actionable competitive intel
          New Feature

          Surface actionable competitive intel

          Learn More
        • Log in
          • Moz Pro
          • Moz Local
          • Moz Local Dashboard
          • Moz API
          • Moz API Dashboard
          • Moz Academy
        • Avatar
          • Moz Home
          • Notifications
          • Account & Billing
          • Manage Users
          • Community Profile
          • My Q&A
          • My Videos
          • Log Out

        The Moz Q&A Forum

        • Forum
        • Questions
        • My Q&A
        • Users
        • Ask the Community

        Welcome to the Q&A Forum

        Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

        1. Home
        2. SEO Tactics
        3. Intermediate & Advanced SEO
        4. Duplicate Content From Indexing of non- File Extension Page

        Moz Q&A is closed.

        After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.

        Duplicate Content From Indexing of non- File Extension Page

        Intermediate & Advanced SEO
        4
        22
        3387
        Loading More Posts
        • Watching

          Notify me of new replies.
          Show question in unread.

        • Not Watching

          Do not notify me of new replies.
          Show question in unread if category is not ignored.

        • Ignoring

          Do not notify me of new replies.
          Do not show question in unread.

        • Oldest to Newest
        • Newest to Oldest
        • Most Votes
        Reply
        • Reply as question
        Locked
        This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
        • WebbyNabler
          WebbyNabler last edited by

          Google somehow has indexed a page of mine without the .html extension.  so they indexed  www.samplepage.com/page, so I am showing duplicate content because Google also see's  www.samplepage.com/page.html   How can I force google or bing or whoever to only index and see the page including the .html extension?  I know people are saying not to use the file extension on pages, but I want to, so please anybody...HELP!!!

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • WebbyNabler
            WebbyNabler @Mike.Goracke last edited by

            Yeah I looked further into the URL removal, but I guess technically I did not meet the criteria....and honestly I am fearful other potential implications of removal....I guess I will just have to wait for the 301 to ick in.  I just cant believe there is not a simple .htaccess code to cause all URL's to show the .html extension.  I mean it is a simple thing to implement the reverse and have the extension dropped...I mean....good lord...

            Thanks for all your help though Mike, I truly appreciate the efforts!

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • Mike.Goracke
              Mike.Goracke @WebbyNabler last edited by

              LAME! You may just want to let the 301 redirect you have in place take its course or remove the URL from Google's index since it was added by mistake anyway.

              Mike

              WebbyNabler 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • WebbyNabler
                WebbyNabler @TakeshiYoung last edited by

                Nope. .....good lord....

                Mike.Goracke 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • WebbyNabler
                  WebbyNabler @Mike.Goracke last edited by

                  Nope. 😞

                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • Mike.Goracke
                    Mike.Goracke @TakeshiYoung last edited by

                    If that does not work, give this a whirl:

                    RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !\.[a-zA-Z0-9]{3,4}

                    RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !/$

                    RewriteRule ^(.*)$ $1.html

                    WebbyNabler 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                    • TakeshiYoung
                      TakeshiYoung @WebbyNabler last edited by

                      Try:

                      RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
                      RewriteRule ^([^.]*[^./])$ /$1.html [R=301,L]

                      Mike.Goracke WebbyNabler 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
                      • WebbyNabler
                        WebbyNabler @TakeshiYoung last edited by

                        That caused the same "500 Internal Server Error" .......   😞

                        TakeshiYoung 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                        • TakeshiYoung
                          TakeshiYoung @WebbyNabler last edited by

                          Try my code without all the other redirects, and see if it works. If it does, then add back the other redirects one by one until everything works.

                          WebbyNabler 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                          • WebbyNabler
                            WebbyNabler @Mike.Goracke last edited by

                            Oh, and my site auditor is seeing it as a directory with a file in it???  Ugghhh....

                            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                            • WebbyNabler
                              WebbyNabler @Mike.Goracke last edited by

                              Nope.  Didn't work.  I am seriously about to lose my mind with this....

                              TakeshiYoung 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                              • Mike.Goracke
                                Mike.Goracke @WebbyNabler last edited by

                                Maybe give this a whirl:

                                If URL does not contain a period or end with a slash

                                RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !(.|/$)

                                append .html to requested URL

                                RewriteRule (.*) /$1.html [L]

                                WebbyNabler 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                • WebbyNabler
                                  WebbyNabler @TakeshiYoung last edited by

                                  I get a server error when I do this?  Sooo confused...  Here is the htaccess changes I made.  FYI...I have removed the code you told me to put in there temporarily so the site's not down.  I attached the server error screenshot too...

                                  Options +FollowSymlinks
                                  RewriteEngine On

                                  RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ! .html$
                                  RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ! /$
                                  RewriteRule ^(.*)$ $1.html

                                  RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^hanneganconstructionllc.com [NC]
                                  RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://hanneganremodeling.com/$1 [L,R=301]

                                  RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.hanneganconstructionllc.com [NC]
                                  RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://hanneganremodeling.com/$1 [L,R=301]

                                  RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^hremodeling.com [NC]
                                  RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://hanneganremodeling.com/$1 [L,R=301]

                                  RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.hremodeling.com [NC]
                                  RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://hanneganremodeling.com/$1 [L,R=301]

                                  RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^[A-Z]{3,9}\ /index.html\ HTTP/
                                  RewriteRule ^index.html$ http://www.hanneganremodeling.com/ [R=301,L]

                                  RewriteBase /
                                  RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^hanneganremodeling.com$ [NC]
                                  RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.hanneganremodeling.com/$1 [R=301,L]

                                  m9Kq8yJ

                                  Mike.Goracke 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                  • TakeshiYoung
                                    TakeshiYoung @WebbyNabler last edited by

                                    You repeat this code a few times, maybe that's the problem? Pretty sure you only need it once:

                                    RewriteEngine On
                                    Options +FollowSymlinks
                                    RewriteBase /

                                    The line:

                                    RewriteEngine On

                                    Also only needs to be included once in an htaccess file. You may want to remove all the other instances.

                                    Try adding this code at the very top, after the first "RewriteEngine On":

                                    RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ! .html$
                                    RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ! /$
                                    RewriteRule ^(.*)$ $1.html

                                    WebbyNabler 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                    • WebbyNabler
                                      WebbyNabler @Mike.Goracke last edited by

                                      Thanks Mike, you are awesome!  I actually was thinking to do that, but I was concerned that it might have some larger implications?

                                      I also just resubmitted a sitemap so hopefully that "might" speed up the crawl process...

                                      Thanks again!

                                      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                      • Mike.Goracke
                                        Mike.Goracke @WebbyNabler last edited by

                                        "I accidentally manually submitted the url to google and manually in submitted it to index and that when this issue began...."

                                        It sounds like you accidently added this URL to the index. You can follow the procedure outlined below to request Google remove the specific URL from the index:

                                        https://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=59819

                                        I checked your site's structure using Screaming Frog and it does not appear that you are linking to any non-.html versions. If I perform a scan using one of your non-.html pages, it appears that it only links to itself.

                                        Since you have the 301 redirect in place, you can choose to wait it out and Google should correct things eventually; otherwise, requesting Google remove the URL is a faster... PERMANENT process.

                                        Good luck.

                                        Mike

                                        WebbyNabler 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                                        • WebbyNabler
                                          WebbyNabler @NakulGoyal last edited by

                                          No it's not a wordpress, it was created with Dreamweaver.  I didn't make sample and sample.html same page, but google is treating it that way....  I have implemented the 301, so I guess I just have to wait for a crawl

                                          Mike.Goracke 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                          • WebbyNabler
                                            WebbyNabler @TakeshiYoung last edited by

                                            Thank you very for your input!  When I implement into my .htacces what you suggested I get a "Internet 500 Server Error" ?   Maybe it would help if I list what I currently have in my .htaccess  I had to redirect some old domains and did canonical redirects and default non .index....I hope this help, I am at my wit's end...  I also attached a screenshot of the webmaster warning... THANKS!!!

                                            Options +FollowSymlinks
                                            RewriteEngine On

                                            RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^hanneganconstructionllc.com [NC]
                                            RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://hanneganremodeling.com/$1 [L,R=301]

                                            RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.hanneganconstructionllc.com [NC]
                                            RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://hanneganremodeling.com/$1 [L,R=301]

                                            RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^hremodeling.com [NC]
                                            RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://hanneganremodeling.com/$1 [L,R=301]

                                            RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.hremodeling.com [NC]
                                            RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://hanneganremodeling.com/$1 [L,R=301]

                                            RewriteEngine on
                                            RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^[A-Z]{3,9}\ /index.html\ HTTP/
                                            RewriteRule ^index.html$ http://www.hanneganremodeling.com/ [R=301,L]

                                            RewriteEngine On
                                            Options +FollowSymlinks
                                            RewriteBase /
                                            RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^hanneganremodeling.com$ [NC]
                                            RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.hanneganremodeling.com/$1 [R=301,L]

                                            Options +FollowSymLinks
                                            RewriteEngine On
                                            RewriteBase /

                                            u1YvXLR

                                            TakeshiYoung 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                            • NakulGoyal
                                              NakulGoyal @WebbyNabler last edited by

                                              Is this a wordpress based site ? What CMS are you using ? How were you able to get domain.com/sample and domain.com/sample.html be the same page ? Either way, canonical tag is the correct solution in this case. There's no need for a 301 and if you do 301 redirects, you are not really fixing the issue caused by your CMS System.

                                              I would therefore strongly advise to use the canonical tag. That's the intended use of that tag.

                                              WebbyNabler 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                                              • TakeshiYoung
                                                TakeshiYoung @WebbyNabler last edited by

                                                A canonical tag won't physically redirect you when you visit the page, it just lets the search engines know which is the right page to index.

                                                If you want to actually redirect using .htaccess, try using this code

                                                RewriteEngine On

                                                RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ! .html$

                                                RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ! /$

                                                RewriteRule ^(.*)$ $1.html

                                                WebbyNabler 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                                • WebbyNabler
                                                  WebbyNabler @TakeshiYoung last edited by

                                                  I tried the canonical and when I enter the url without the .html, it doesn't resolve to the url with the .html extension.  I tried an .htaccess reirect...I am stumped, I can't get it to redirect automatically the the .html  I accidentally manually submitted the url to google and manually in submitted it to index and that when this issue began....

                                                  TakeshiYoung NakulGoyal 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                                  • TakeshiYoung
                                                    TakeshiYoung last edited by

                                                    Add a canonical tag to your header so that Google/Bing knows which version of your page they should be indexing.

                                                    You can also try looking into where the link to the non-html page is coming from. If it's an internal link, just change it so that Google doesn't continue to crawl it.

                                                    WebbyNabler 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                                    • 1 / 1
                                                    • First post
                                                      Last post

                                                    Browse Questions

                                                    Explore more categories

                                                    • Moz Tools

                                                      Chat with the community about the Moz tools.

                                                    • SEO Tactics

                                                      Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers

                                                    • Community

                                                      Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!

                                                    • Digital Marketing

                                                      Chat about tactics outside of SEO

                                                    • Research & Trends

                                                      Dive into research and trends in the search industry.

                                                    • Support

                                                      Connect on product support and feature requests.

                                                    • See all categories

                                                    Related Questions

                                                    • Caro-O

                                                      Home page suddenly dropped from index!!

                                                      A client's home page, which has always done very well, has just dropped out of Google's index overnight!
                                                      Webmaster tools does not show any problem. The page doesn't even show up if we Google the company name. The Robot.txt contains: Default Flywheel robots file User-agent: * Disallow: /calendar/action:posterboard/
                                                      Disallow: /events/action~posterboard/ The only unusual thing I'm aware of is some A/B testing of the page done with 'Optimizely' - it redirects visitors to a test page, but it's not a 'real' redirect in that redirect checker tools still see the page as a 200. Also, other pages that are being tested this way are not having the same problem. Other recent activity over the last few weeks/months includes linking to the page from some of our blog posts using the page topic as anchor text. Any thoughts would be appreciated.
                                                      Caro

                                                      Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Caro-O
                                                      0
                                                    • abhihan

                                                      Google indexing only 1 page out of 2 similar pages made for different cities

                                                      We have created two category pages, in which we are showing products which could be delivered in separate cities. Both pages are related to cake delivery in that city. But out of these two category pages only 1 got indexed in google and other has not. Its been around 1 month but still only Bangalore category page got indexed. We have submitted sitemap and google is not giving any crawl error. We have also submitted for indexing from "Fetch as google" option in webmasters. www.winni.in/c/4/cakes (Indexed - Bangalore page - http://www.winni.in/sitemap/sitemap_blr_cakes.xml) 2. http://www.winni.in/hyderabad/cakes/c/4 (Not indexed - Hyderabad page - http://www.winni.in/sitemap/sitemap_hyd_cakes.xml) I tried searching for "hyderabad site:www.winni.in" in google but there also http://www.winni.in/hyderabad/cakes/c/4 this link is not coming, instead of this only www.winni.in/c/4/cakes is coming. Can anyone please let me know what could be the possible issue with this?

                                                      Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | abhihan
                                                      0
                                                    • marcandre

                                                      Woocommerce SEO & Duplicate content?

                                                      Hi Moz fellows, I'm new to Woocommerce and couldn't find help on Google about certain SEO-related things. All my past projects were simple 5 pages websites + a blog, so I would just no-index categories, tags and archives to eliminate duplicate content errors. But with Woocommerce Product categories and tags, I've noticed that many e-Commerce websites with a high domain authority actually rank for certain keywords just by having their category/tags indexed. For example keyword 'hippie clothes' = etsy.com/category/hippie-clothes (fictional example) The problem is that if I have 100 products and 10 categories & tags on my site it creates THOUSANDS of duplicate content errors, but If I 'non index' categories and tags they will never rank well once my domain authority rises... Anyone has experience/comments about this? I use SEO by Yoast plugin. Your help is greatly appreciated! Thank you in advance. -Marc

                                                      Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | marcandre
                                                      1
                                                    • cre8

                                                      How important is the number of indexed pages?

                                                      I'm considering making a change to using AJAX filtered navigation on my e-commerce site.  If I do this, the user experience will be significantly improved but the number of pages that Google finds on my site will go down significantly (in the 10,000's). It feels to me like our filtered navigation has grown out of control and we spend too much time worrying about the url structure of it - in some ways it's paralyzing us.  I'd like to be able to focus on pages that matter (explicit Category and Sub-Category) pages and then just let ajax take care of filtering products below these levels. For customer usability this is smart.  From the perspective of manageable code and long term design this also seems very smart -we can't continue to worry so much about filtered navigation. My concern is that losing so many indexed pages will have a large negative effect (however, we will reduce duplicate content and be able provide much better category and sub-category pages). We probably should have thought about this a year ago before Google indexed everything :-).  Does anybody have any experience with this or insight on what to do? Thanks, -Jason

                                                      Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | cre8
                                                      0
                                                    • YNWA

                                                      Duplicate Content on Press Release?

                                                      Hi, We recently held a charity night in store. And had a few local celebs turn up etc... We created a press release to send out to various media outlets, within the press release were hyperlinks to our site and links on certain keywords to specific brands on our site. My question is, should we be sending a different press release to each outlet to stop the duplicate content thing, or is sending the same release out to everyone ok? We will be sending approx 20 of these out, some going online and some not. So far had one local paper website, a massive football website and a local magazine site. All pretty much same content and a few pics. Any help, hints or tips on how to go about this if I am going to be sending out to a load of other sites/blogs? Cheers

                                                      Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | YNWA
                                                      0
                                                    • Creode

                                                      Duplicate content on ecommerce sites

                                                      duplicate content

                                                      I just want to confirm something about duplicate content. On an eCommerce site, if the meta-titles, meta-descriptions and product descriptions are all unique, yet a big chunk at the bottom (featuring "why buy with us" etc) is copied across all product pages, would each page be penalised, or not indexed, for duplicate content? Does the whole page need to be a duplicate to be worried about this, or would this large chunk of text, bigger than the product description, have an effect on the page. If this would be a problem, what are some ways around it? Because the content is quite powerful, and is relavent to all products... Cheers,

                                                      Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Creode
                                                      0
                                                    • CarlS

                                                      Capitals in url creates duplicate content?

                                                      Hey Guys, I had a quick look around however I couldn't find a specific answer to this. Currently, the SEOmoz tools come back and show a heap of duplicate content on my site. And there's a fair bit of it. However, a heap of those errors are relating to random capitals in the urls. for example. "www.website.com.au/Home/information/Stuff" is being treated as duplicate content of "www.website.com.au/home/information/stuff" (Note the difference in capitals). Anyone have any recommendations as to how to fix this server side(keeping in mind it's not practical or possible to fix all of these links) or to tell Google to ignore the capitalisation? Any help is greatly appreciated. LM.

                                                      Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | CarlS
                                                      0
                                                    • ContentWriterMicky

                                                      How to resolve Duplicate Page Content issue for root domain & index.html?

                                                      SEOMoz returns a Duplicate Page Content error for a website's index page, with both domain.com and domain.com/index.html isted seperately. We had a rewrite in the htacess file, but for some reason this has not had an impact and we have since removed it. What's the best way (in an HTML website) to ensure all index.html links are automatically redirected to the root domain and these aren't seen as two separate pages?

                                                      Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ContentWriterMicky
                                                      0

                                                    Get started with Moz Pro!

                                                    Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

                                                    Start my free trial
                                                    Products
                                                    • Moz Pro
                                                    • Moz Local
                                                    • Moz API
                                                    • Moz Data
                                                    • STAT
                                                    • Product Updates
                                                    Moz Solutions
                                                    • SMB Solutions
                                                    • Agency Solutions
                                                    • Enterprise Solutions
                                                    • Digital Marketers
                                                    Free SEO Tools
                                                    • Domain Authority Checker
                                                    • Link Explorer
                                                    • Keyword Explorer
                                                    • Competitive Research
                                                    • Brand Authority Checker
                                                    • Local Citation Checker
                                                    • MozBar Extension
                                                    • MozCast
                                                    Resources
                                                    • Blog
                                                    • SEO Learning Center
                                                    • Help Hub
                                                    • Beginner's Guide to SEO
                                                    • How-to Guides
                                                    • Moz Academy
                                                    • API Docs
                                                    About Moz
                                                    • About
                                                    • Team
                                                    • Careers
                                                    • Contact
                                                    Why Moz
                                                    • Case Studies
                                                    • Testimonials
                                                    Get Involved
                                                    • Become an Affiliate
                                                    • MozCon
                                                    • Webinars
                                                    • Practical Marketer Series
                                                    • MozPod
                                                    Connect with us

                                                    Contact the Help team

                                                    Join our newsletter
                                                    Moz logo
                                                    © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
                                                    • Accessibility
                                                    • Terms of Use
                                                    • Privacy

                                                    Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.