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.
404 Error Pages being picked up as duplicate content
-
Hi,
I recently noticed an increase in duplicate content, but all of the pages are 404 error pages.
For instance, Moz site crawl says this page: https://www.allconnect.com/sc-internet/internet.html has 43 duplicates and all the duplicates are also 404 pages (https://www.allconnect.com/Coxstatic.html for instance is a duplicate of this page).
Looking for insight on how to fix this issue, do I add an rel=canonical tag to these 60 error pages that points to the original error page?
Thanks!
-
I just did a check and you're right, even though these pages are showing up as errors to the user they are actually showing up as 200 OK, which is causing the duplicate content issue.
Thank you!
-
kfallconnect, if the 404 errors are being picked up as duplicate content, then most likely they're not actually showing up as 404 error pages. It's quite possible that it's a 404 error on the site (that's what the user sees) but, in fact, the server header is not displaying a 404 error. It could be showing up as a "200 OK".
First, I would identify the pages. If the user sees an error on the page, then that's fine. Use a server header check tool to see what the response code is when someone goes to the page. You can use something like Rex Swain's HTTP header tool to check it: http://www.rexswain.com/httpview.html . If the page shows a 404 error then you should be fine, it's not duplicate content.
If the page is showing a "200 OK" then it most likely IS duplicate content. If the page is showing an error to users but showing a '200 OK' in the server header, then that needs to be fixed.
But if the page is showing actual content (and not an error to visitors) then you need to look at potentially using the canonical tag or removing the content on the site completely (which is preferred).
-
I have not used Drupal for a couple of years, but there used to be a plugin called Fast 404 for some versions. Need to check whether suitable and if it weighs downs page speed. Zach is right if you can manually handle it do so, but if not perhaps research a plugin and research side effects.
-
We run on Drupal so I'm not sure if there is a 404 plug in
-
I had some issues with 404 errors as well.
Not sure how your site is set up but I just added permanent redirects on all the 404 duplicates I was having. I didn't have as many as you so it was pretty easy to do. I'm not sure if this is the 100% correct way of doing it but it fixed my issue.
Hope it helps!
-
I am not sure of the site is wordpress but have you considered 'smart 404' plugin. Could consider adding to the site, a solution.
Hope that assists.
Regards
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.
Related Questions
-
Does anyone know the linking of hashtags on Wix sites does it negatively or postively impact SEO. It is coming up as an error in site crawls 'Pages with 404 errors' Anyone got any experience please?
Does anyone know the linking of hashtags on Wix sites does it negatively or positively impact SEO. It is coming up as an error in site crawls 'Pages with 404 errors' Anyone got any experience please? For example at the bottom of this blog post https://www.poppyandperle.com/post/face-painting-a-global-language the hashtags are linked, but they don't go to a page, they go to search results of all other blogs using that hashtag. Seems a bit of a strange approach to me.
Technical SEO | | Mediaholix0 -
Duplicate Content on a Page Due to Responsive Version
What are the implications if a web designer codes the content of the site twice into the page in order to make the site responsive? I can't add the url I'm afraid but the H1 and the content appear twice in the code in order to produce both a responsive version and a desktop version. This is a Wordpress site. Is Google clever enough to distinguish between the 2 versions and treat them individually? Or will Google really think that the content has been repeated on the same page?
Technical SEO | | Wagada0 -
:443 - 404 error
I get strange :443 errors in my 404 monitor on Wordpress https://www.compleetverkleed.nl:443/hoed-al-capone-panter-8713647758068-2/
Technical SEO | | Happy-SEO
https://www.compleetverkleed.nl:443/cart/www.compleetverkleed.nl/feestkleding
https://www.compleetverkleed.nl:443/maskers/ I have no idea where these come from :S2 -
Can iFrames count as duplicate content on either page?
Hi All Basically what we are wanting to do is insert an iframe with some text on onto a lot of different pages on one website. Does google crawl the content that is in an iFrame? Thanks
Technical SEO | | cttgroup0 -
Duplicate Content
We have a ton of duplicate content/title errors on our reports, many of them showing errors of: http://www.mysite.com/(page title) and http://mysite.com/(page title) Our site has been set up so that mysite.com 301 redirects to www.mysite.com (we did this a couple years ago). Is it possible that I set up my campaign the wrong way in SEOMoz? I'm thinking it must be a user error when I set up the campaign since we already have the 301 Redirect. Any advice is appreciated!
Technical SEO | | Ditigal_Taylor0 -
404 error - but I can't find any broken links on the referrer pages
Hi, My crawl has diagnosed a client's site with eight 404 errors. In my CSV download of the crawl, I have checked the source code of the 'referrer' pages, but can't find where the link to the 404 error page is. Could there be another reason for getting 404 errors? Thanks for your help. Katharine.
Technical SEO | | PooleyK0 -
We have set up 301 redirects for pages from an old domain, but they aren't working and we are having duplicate content problems - Can you help?
We have several old domains. One is http://www.ccisound.com - Our "real" site is http://www.ccisolutions.com The 301 redirect from the old domain to the new domain works. However, the 301-redirects for interior pages, like: http://www.ccisolund.com/StoreFront/category/cd-duplicators do not work. This URL should redirect to http://www.ccisolutions.com/StoreFront/category/cd-duplicators but as you can see it does not. Our IT director supplied me with this code from the HT Access file in hopes that someone can help point us in the right direction and suggest how we might fix the problem: RewriteCond%{HTTP_HOST} ccisound.com$ [NC] RewriteRule^(.*)$ http://www.ccisolutions.com/$1 [R=301,L] Any ideas on why the 301 redirect isn't happening? Thanks all!
Technical SEO | | danatanseo0 -
Squarespace Duplicate Content Issues
My site is built through squarespace and when I ran the campaign in SEOmoz...its come up with all these errors saying duplicate content and duplicate page title for my blog portion. I've heard that canonical tags help with this but with squarespace its hard to add code to page level...only site wide is possible. Was curious if there's someone experienced in squarespace and SEO out there that can give some suggestions on how to resolve this problem? thanks
Technical SEO | | cmjolley0