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Duplicate index.html pages

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Duplicate index.html pages
Having problems finding a duplicate index.html page on my site. Found out that I had one when using an automatic script to build a sitemap. Showed an error message stating duplicate content. I know that the search engines hate that kinda stuff so i'm trying to figure out where the duplicate page can be.

Using the Links SQL template home.html in my main template folder and also in the local, and one named index.html in the main directory on my server. All three pages have the exact same content, but if I remove the index.html one, site doesn't load in browser.

Question is - Does Links SQL need the home.html template or can it be remove and I can just use my index.html page. Perhaps this is a silly question but i'm kinda stumped - looked everywhere and can find a duplicate page of my index.html anywhere other than perhaps the home.html page.

Thanks in advance for any brilliant ideas you may have on helping me solve this problem.

Janx
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Re: [janx] Duplicate index.html pages In reply to
Hi,

Quote:
Question is - Does Links SQL need the home.html template or can it be remove and I can just use my index.html page.

Yes, you definatly don't want to be removing that template =)

Regarding your problem -

Quote:
Found out that I had one when using an automatic script to build a sitemap.

Mmm.. doesn't it tell you what the file is/where it is? :P

Cheers

Andy (mod)
andy@ultranerds.co.uk
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Re: [Andy] Duplicate index.html pages In reply to
Hi Andy - thanks for the reply. No it just stated duplicate content - no location. That's why I though it was having an index page and a home.html page with the exact content. First noticed the problem when I was checking for duplicate content - the result page showed this error message Default Page Check: FAILED
You have not standardized your default pages meaning the following versions of your url return a 200/OK Header, which may cause duplicate content issues. The following extensions work:
http://www.example.com/index.html
http://www.example.com/ Then I tried to create a site map using another online script and got the following message "Page http://www.example.com/index.html is duplicate" In my attempt to fix the problem I added the following code to my .htaccess RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^[A-Z]{3,9}\ /index\.html
RewriteRule ^index\.html$
http://www.example.com/ [R=301,L] That worked to get rid of the "Default Page Check: FAILED" error but created another problem - the sitemap script now stated that my actual domain was being considered a duplicate of http://www.example.com/index.com. My domain is what comes up in search engines so I didn't want to mess with that. As a test I added a few lines of text to my index.html (located in my main directory folder), and didn't modify the home.html template - what appeared in browser was the content of the index page. Is it possible that the scripts are seeing the home template as being a duplicate of the index page? SOOOOO confused - checked all files and cannot for the life of me find any duplicate of the index page. Perhaps it has something to do with how my server is setup, recognizing the index page instead of just replacing it with the domain like most servers do? Thanks Janx
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Re: [janx] Duplicate index.html pages In reply to
Posting this again - previous post wasn't read friendly (-:

Hi Andy - thanks for the reply.

No it just stated duplicate content - no location. That's why I though it was having an index page and a home.html page with the exact content.

First noticed the problem when I was checking for duplicate content - the result page showed this error message

Default Page Check: FAILED
You have not standardized your default pages meaning the following versions of your url return a 200/OK Header, which may cause duplicate content issues. The following extensions work:
http://www.example.com/index.html
http://www.example.com/

Then I tried to create a site map using another online script and got the following message
"Page http://www.example.com/index.html is duplicate"


In my attempt to fix the problem I added the following code to my .htaccess

RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^[A-Z]{3,9}\ /index\.html
RewriteRule ^index\.html$ http://www.example.com/ [R=301,L]

That worked to get rid of the "Default Page Check: FAILED" error but created another problem - the sitemap script now stated that my actual domain was being considered a duplicate of http://www.example.com/index.com. My domain is what comes up in search engines so I didn't want to mess with that.


As a test I added a few lines of text to my index.html (located in my main directory folder), and didn't modify the home.html template - what appeared in browser was the content of the index page.
Is it possible that the search engines are seeing the home template as being a duplicate of the index page?


SOOOOO confused. Perhaps it has something to do with how my server is setup, recognizing the index page instead of just replacing it with the domain like most servers do?

Thanks
Janx