Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) - (101) Series URL Canonicalization

Url canonicalization is a bit of a tongue twister and a slip in the tongue when pronousing it can make you look very silly In most case canonicalization is centre around you home page Url , Dependant on how your home page is define and what language it is programmed in will change the possible combination of the problem. For this example we will assume that you site has been programmed in standard html and your home page is call index.html it is there for possible that your home will appear under the following urls

http://www.mysite.co.uk
http://mysite.co.uk
http://www.mysite.co.uk/index.html
http://mysite.co.uk/index.html

This is a byproduct of how the web work but when it comes to search engine optimization those 4 url will appear to the search engines as duplicate content and also cause major issues with your linking for example if you have two equal links I know this is unlikely but it make the example easier to understand. One link which goes to http://www.mysite.co.uk and another going to http://mysite.co.uk you will have split you link equity/authority between two separate pages thus half your link equity/authority between to pages.

How to solve Url canonicalization. The are a number of way to solve this annoying issues in most case you will either need control panel access to the server or ftp access you can define which is you preferred home page to Google though the use of web master tool this will take care of the duplicate content issues but it will still leave you with the linking problem. Therefore the best way to solve both problems is with a 301 (permanent) redirect, chose your preferred home page Url the best is properly http://www.mysite.co.uk and redirect all the other instances to it though uses of a htaccess file, sap rewrite or the server control panel dependant on the type of access you have and the language it is written in.

Other instance of Url canonicalization:

http://www.mysite.co.uk/default.asp
http://mysite.co.uk/default.asp
http://www.mysite.co.uk/index.php
http://mysite.co.uk/index.php