Joomla SEO Mistake #3 - Not fixing duplicate content
Mistake number 3 is not fixing duplicate content on your Joomla site.
Joomla has two versions: one with a www prefix and the other without. So you can have a URL that looks like this:
www.ijoomla.com
and one that looks like this:
iJoomla.com
For search engines though, these are two different sites with the same content — a big no no for SEO.
You can fix duplicate content with a piece of code. Just place the lines below in your htaccess file.
If you'd like to redirect www to non-www, use this code:
# Redirect www to non-www:
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.yourdomain.com [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://yourdomain.com/$1 [L,R=301]
If you'd like to redirect non-www to www, use this code:
# Redirect non-www to www:
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^yourdomain.com [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.yourdomain.com/$1 [L,R=301]
Some SEF components have a feature that will do this for you, check that first.
# Redirect www to non-www:
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.yourdomain.com [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://yourdomain.com/$1 [L,R=301]
If you'd like to redirect non-www to www, use this code:
# Redirect non-www to www:
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^yourdomain.com [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.yourdomain.com/$1 [L,R=301]
Some SEF components have a feature that will do this for you, check that first.