8 Different Pages and Still the Same

Did you know that when your website is incorrectly configured, it can have eight times more pages than it should?

Eight identical versions of the same page. The only difference is the URL address in the browser.

This type of issue can easily kill any website, even when it has great backlinks and content. It's time to talk one more time about how important it is to have a strong foundation for your house. Otherwise, you risk the building collapsing.

The same applies to websites. That foundation is technical SEO.

It's Not Instant Coffee to Have 8 in 1

Let's go straight to the issue. If I didn't set up the core redirects properly for my website, the blog could be accessible on all these URLs:

http://techseovitals.com/blog
http://techseovitals.com/blog/
http://www.techseovitals.com/blog
http://www.techseovitals.com/blog/
https://techseovitals.com/blog
https://techseovitals.com/blog/
https://www.techseovitals.com/blog
https://www.techseovitals.com/blog/

Without properly setting up canonical tags, it would be an SEO nightmare. Google wouldn't properly index it at all.

But even with a properly set up canonical, it's still a nightmare for crawl budget. There's a high chance that Google will crawl all eight versions. That's literally wasting Google's valuable time that was given to you.

Canonical as First Aid

As I outlined in the previous section, one of the easiest and fastest fixes is to properly set up the canonical tag in the head section of your HTML code.

My main URL format that I'm using on my website is https://www.techseovitals.com/blog/. Basically, HTTPS with WWW and a trailing slash at the end of the URL. So my canonical tag should be set up for this URL.

With this canonical tag setup, I explained to Googlebot and other crawlers that the only version it should be taken into account is HTTPS with WWW and a trailing slash at the end. All other versions would still be crawled but not indexed at all. We've directed Google to which version of the page is correct.

However, what can happen, and I often see it, is that each version of the URL has a canonical pointing to itself. In that case, you'll see it in Google Search Console as a page indexing issue.

Proper Handling of All Versions

The correct implementation should include a properly set up canonical tag, as I mentioned before. But mainly, you need properly set up redirects.

I chose as my main and only format the URL with HTTPS, WWW, and a trailing slash.

In that case, I have to simply set up permanent redirects. I use 301 redirects from HTTP to HTTPS, non-WWW to WWW, and also redirect the version without a trailing slash to the version with one.

Whether you do a single hop redirect or multiple ones is up to you. However, based on security standards, it should be done separately. Start with the redirect of HTTP to HTTPS and then the rest.

Besides the basic redirect, you should also set up HSTS for the domain to enhance security. This is especially valid for websites that handle sensitive information. HSTS will force the use of HTTPS, which significantly increases overall security.

Check It Now

When your website is small with dozens of pages, you probably won't see a big change if you've already properly set up the canonical tag.

A bigger website that faces the problem with four or eight copies of the same page should fix it ASAP.

Once the problem is fully fixed, you can expect organic search to literally skyrocket.

P.S. I know "skyrocket" is a lovely word of the AI. But I love that word too! 😅