Welcome back to my series on fixing un-canonical URLs. To date, we’ve looked at a variety of areas that could potentially cause the same content to be accessible from multiple URLs on your site, which is very problematic from a search engine perspective:

1. Protocols (http and https)
2. Domain and subdomain names (sometimes referred to as host names)
3. URL paths
4. File names
5. Case sensitivity (when myPage.html is handled differently than MYPage.HTML)
6. Query strings

Let’s talk about the last item in my list:

      7.  Combinations of any or all of the above

It is possible, for example, to have the same content accessible from both protocols (http and https) as well as both the www- version and the non-www- version. This scenario provides four URLs that display the same exact content:

• http://www.example.com
• https://www.example.com
• http://example.com
• https:// example.com

Any combination of the issues (numbers 1 - 6) may be lurking on your site. In addition, one section of your site may be suffering from one combination of these issues while other sections may be suffering from another combination of issues. I usually find that the simplest way to fix a combination of issues is to first test for one issue and fix it and then move on to the next issue.

All of the six potential problem areas I discussed were caused by efforts to make the internet easier, more forgiving to use and reduce the amount of work a web visitor or web site administrators had to do. The underlying design of web servers was created before search engines like Google or Live existed and before duplicate content issues were a problem. Since web servers weren’t really designed with search engines in mind, you should keep in mind the above list as you comb your site for canonical URL issues.

Perhaps the easiest way to avoid un-canonical URLs is to build your site (or section of your site) from the ground up with these potential problem areas in mind. Granted, that may be easier said than done.

I also suggest that any new pages/files/URLs you create on your site have a file extension appropriate to the scripting language on your sever (.php, .asp, .aspx, .cfm, etc.) as opposed to .html or .htm (which are normally assumed to be file extensions of a “static” page). The reason is that if you need to redirect, for instance, from example.com/mypage.html to www.example.com/my-new-page.html and your web server limits or doesn’t support the use of tools like URL rewriting, you may have to take an SEO hit after renaming the file. This is because an html file normally cannot run scripts. (Redirecting to another page is a script function.) So essentially, creating new files on your website with “dynamic file extensions” allows much more flexibility in the future.

What’s even better is to build your site or section using a CMS that was designed to be SEO friendly.

Remember to watch out for misspellings in your URLs, that includes the path name (the part of the URL starting with the first forward slash up to, but not including the question mark or fragment) and the query string. Also keep in mind that everything in the URL except the fragment can affect canonical URL/duplicate content issues. Another point is that a phone call or email to your hosting company may be able to resolve some canonical URL issues when you can’t seem to resolve a particular issue yourself.

Also, be on the lookout for the new anything-goes top level domains (the “police” in traffic.police would be an anything-goes top level domain, for example, while edu, com and org are traditional top level domains) which could offer a few more URL canonicalization challenges in the near future.

I hope this series was helpful, time saving and useful. Best wishes to you and yours on all your URL canonicalization efforts!

Whether the reasoning behind a redesign of your website is to increase the overall usability and functionality or just to update the look and feel of the site, this is an important time to bring search engine optimization (SEO) into the mix. Ensuring that your site is SEO friendly is critical in achieving high positions in the search engine results pages (SERPs). Below are just a few things to address during the redesign process that can impact the SEO friendliness of your newly designed website.

One of the first questions to ask yourself; will your new site be on the same domain? If possible, keep the same domain from the original site to the newly designed site.  This is because the search engines place a lot of weight on the age of a domain.  The older the domain, the more trust the search engines have with the particular website.  Also, by keeping the same domain you will retain the inbound links to the site and these inbound links are an important component of good positions in the SEPRs.  However, if it’s necessary to start with a brand new domain, note that there will likely be a drop in traffic until the new domain is established.

Take the time to do keyword research. This process can help with the architecture and navigation of the site as it can provide insight into the different ways people are searching for the information, products, or services that you offer. Keyword research will also help you to identify the best phrases to focus your optimization efforts.  The key phrases that you thought were ideal to optimize pages of the site around may not be what people are actually using to search.

Make sure that the design allows for enough content on the pages and that you are writing the content for your visitor and not the search engines. Even though you should work the targeted keyword phrase throughout the content to help the search engines determine what the website or page is about, you do not want it to sound unnatural or as though you have written only for the search engines. Additionally, creating great content from the start will make your site more link-worthy, encouraging others to link to your site.

The crawl-ability of the site is very important for SEO.  JavaScript links and menus as well as graphics and Flash can be difficult for the search engines to crawl.  This isn’t to say that these elements cannot be used, but it is something to take into consideration. Make sure that there is a balance and that the pages of your site contain ample room for index-able content. 

The anchor text of the links to internal pages on your site should be crawl-able by the search engines. Use descriptive anchor text to tell the visitors and search engines what the topic of that page they are about to visit is about. Quite often, the keyword for the destination page can be used in the anchor text.

Another (and maybe the most important) thing to take into consideration is how the old site will transition to the new site.  If the URLs are changing, how will this be approached? As mentioned above, the best case scenario is for the URLs to remain the same, however, if they change due to a reorganization of sub-folders, moving to a different platform (such as from .php to .asp), a new naming convention is adopted, or for business reasons, you will need to develop an SEO friendly transition strategy. This strategy will vary site by site, but make sure that you have a strategy in place.

Search Engine Optimization should be looked at from a long term perspective. One should always ask themselves, “How am I going to benefit from SEO over the next few years?” as opposed to “If I optimize my site today, will it be number one in search engine rankings tomorrow?” Patience is the key to SEO and with the economy in its current state, increasing your website’s visibility by organic means can be beneficial. If implemented correctly, over time, you will start to see your hard work pay off.

For instance, the real estate market is most definitely in disarray from a seller’s point of view. What does someone working in real estate do if their other (more expensive) marketing budgets are drying up? As opposed to gaining the quick satisfaction of alternate marketing techniques, SEO could afford you the luxury of sustaining your presence if your highly optimized website is already ranking well in the search engines and is already getting a nice flow of traffic. SEO, over time, is much more advantageous than most other common advertising strategies (newspapers, magazines etc.). It can also be a lot cheaper too.

No serious Internet business can afford to be without SEO today. It targets consumers who are already searching for what you are offering. Is there any other form of advertising that can be that targeted as cost effectively? Ongoing and highly focused SEO of a website is crucial as the algorithms are extremely volatile. Keeping the content fresh by tweaking your pages will inspire potential returning visitors to spread the word and get you that nice flow of traffic. The future of SEO seems bright indeed as this harsh economic spell will dictate people’s advertising habits. Even though SEO needs constant attention, it still out-weighs the expensive disadvantages of the more expensive marketing campaigns.

So, while performing search engine optimization on your site will never be the “quick-fix” solution, over time it will give you that edge over the SEO-less competitor and that’s no small feat. Developing a good linking strategy, building out new content and making sure that the pages are targeted correctly for its key phrase should deliver desired results in the long run.