Still a bit new at this so please go easy on me and I have tried searching for an answer but have been unable to find one that specifically helps me. I have a wordpress site that I have built a custom php page to deliver results from a database to display information and have manually inserted code to display the header and footer of my wordpress theme.
Also, in my .htaccess I have used the
rewriterule ^used-boats-for-sale/(.*)/(.*)/(.*)/(.*)/(.*)/$ /boatdetails.php?recordnumber=$5 [L]
to forward the friendly url so the php page can process the correct record number to process and display the results. This was the only way I could figure out how to do this in wordpress and bypass wordpress's subfolder killer.
My issue arises as google webmaster tools is telling me I have duplicate title tags and descriptions, even though I have added a canonical reference to the friendly url.
Examples of both can be seen here:
http://www.unitedyacht.com/used-boats-for-sale/hinckley/downeast/cruiser/2000/1807/
and
http://www.unitedyacht.com/boatdetails.php?recordnumber=1807
So with the canonical, why is google still showing it as a dupe and what can I do to correct it? If I put a r=301 in, it redirects the url completely and removes the friendly url from the browser.
Related
I need to convert old hosting site URL where they contain (pid) eg
/reviews/(pid)/*
where * is a 5 digit unknown number eg 88326
to
/reviews/
I tried
RewriteRule ^(.*)\/reviews\/\\(pid\\)\/(.*)$ \/reviews\/ [R=301,L]
It is a wordpress site so not sure if that is a reason its not working.
When mass changing URLs in WordPress, I often use this handy plugin.
Velvet Blues Update URLs
FEATURES:
Users can choose to update links embedded in content, excerpts, or custom fields
Users can choose whether to update links for attachments
View how many items were updated
USAGE:
Using this plugin is very simple. Once it has been activated, navigate
to Tools -> Update URLs and follow the instructions. Please Note:
Changes are irreversible. If you haven’t used this plugin before,
please backup your website before proceeding.
Example Screenshot:
I have a problem with a Wordpress based website. Something is creating strange URLs. I know about those URLs, because Google Webmaster Developer try to Crawl them and the Crawler gets a 404 error (Not found). I have that problem in different websites:
In the first one the URLs looks like spam:
http://xxxx.com/wp-content/w3tc/apple-iphone-3gs-8gb-black-manual
In the other website the URLs make sense based on the content, but they are not valid URLs:
http://xxxx.com/portfolio/pool-view-suite-bathroom/
In other website, it's creating URLs that looks like valid, but with a ".html" in the final
If you try to access those URLs, you will get a 404 error. Curiously, when you look the "Linked By" tan in Google Developer Tools, you will see that is linked by another strange URL o there is no linked from. And that URLs are not in the sitemap, I checked it.
Thank you!
the first one is a trojan without a doubt. Quite usually, you'll find them in index.php, footer.php, header.php . If in doubt, check with an online tool like Sucuri
Once you isolate it, it's very important to know how you have it. While most people thinks they have been "hacked", in most cases you uploaded it by yourself from your own computer, so be sure to scan it thoroughly.
About the other cases, sounds more like an htaccess issue, but based on the first case, quite probably it's caused by this trojan as well. Ask your host to check the site, it's in their best interest to do it so. But assuming it's just htaccess, try this: go to Settings --> Permalinks and change the permalinks structure to anything else than what you have now. Don't hit the submit button yet. In the meanwhile, BACKUP your htaccess file and then delete it. Hit submit on the permalinks page an a new .htaccess file will be created. Try your site now. If it works, it was just a simple htaccess issue. If not, something else, going from a trojan to a server misconfiguration to anything in between
Maybe the domain was used before and you are seeing past valid urls which are now 404, or maybe these are incorrect, inbound spammy links which you would want to be 404. Duff links can be found anywhere on the internet and so no reason to think your site is generating them.
So recently I updated my site from Joomla to Wordpress. (best decision of my life...seriously)
All of my old Joomla links were formatted with a ? right after my domain name like this: www.example.com/?blah
Now when I switched to Wordpress, I'm using pretty URLs that are formatted like this : www.example.com/blah
Now googles got all the old Joomla urls still indexed so when searched for it still gives you the old URLs. In my head those Joomla URLs should throw a 404 error. But they don't! They just display the homepage.
For Example - if you go to www.example.com/blah it will throw a 404 error because that page doesn't exist, however if you go to www.example.com/?blah it will show that URL in the address bar, but display the homepage despite the fact that that page does not exist either.
So my questions are:
1) will google eventually dump those URLs in favor of my Wordpress ones? How will that hurt my SEO and page rank - does google still see that as a valid page and keep it in its index?
2) How do I force 404 errors for those URLs that don't exist anymore with a question mark.
(1) You'll have to get your sitemap redone and have GoogleBot reindex your site. Google Webmaster Tools should be the place to do that.
(2) You could redirect the invalid links to a 404 page using your .htaccess file
EDIT:
Yeah, so this problem is really unsolvable. Yahoo prevents access to .htaccess, even from WordPress itself trying to change it. I had to settle for writing a script on the default homepage that redirects browsers to "www.abc.com/index.php" if they go straight to "www.abc.com". You always have to deal with "index.php" being in the address bar but it's better than not having permalinks...
/EDIT
Yahoo! Small Business hosting seems specifically engineered to make WordPress difficult-- but it's my client's host and there's not much I can do about it. I'm trying to move WordPress into the root directory, and I'm sooo close to having it done.
I've read and read and read about how to get the Permalinks to work right, and since Yahoo! hosting doesn't let you modify htaccess I am pretty much up s*** creek. I'm using the simple permalink structure of "/%postname%/", which once I moved to the root, stopped working. I have changed it to "/index.php/%postname%/", which allows you to see the pages if you manually type in index.php before the page name or if you are logged into the admin area and "View Page". Also, the correct permalink shows on all of the pages in the editor.
However, WordPress doesn't let you change the permalink of the static page you use as the front page.
Long story short, if I go to "www.abc.com/index.php", the links in the menu all work fine. However, if I just got to "www.abc.com", the links don't pick up the "index.php" from the permalink structure. I need to fix this, so if anyone knows how to either:
Change the permalink of the static front page
Fix something in the database if I install PhpMyAdmin
Work around not having access to .htaccess
Put a small script somewhere on the index page to append "index.php" to the url
Any other suggestions
It seems it would work if I was NOT using a static front page but rather the blog, but this isn't an option. I've tried changing the "Tag base" setting to no avail, as well as deactivating the Yahoo! Custom Permalinks plugin (and reactivating it again after that failed...). Could really use some help!
Check out Giving Wordpress its own directory. I can see how this could solve your problem. Also make sure that you have done the obvious, and change your url for WordPress address (URL) Site address (URL) inside the general settings page. Perhaps the static homepage should be developed outside of wordpress, and then you can follow the steps provided in the link I provided. Hope this solves your issue.
Yahoo doesn't allow users access to the htaccess file which means that you can't the mod_rewrite rules needed for custom permlinks. The Only way around it that i've heard it works (never tried it myself) is to add /index.php/ to the beginning of your custom structure so: Go to Permalink Settings > Select Custom Structure. And set the value as /index.php/%postname%/ or what ever you want as long as you add /index.php/ before it.
Hope this helps.
I had a similar problem with this host (in 2018! 4 years after your question) that I finally solved by changing the permalink settings.
Settings > Permalink Settings > Custom Structure: /index.php/%postname%/
I wish there was a better solution but Yahoo Small Business still doesn't allow .htaccess files - after several frustrating rounds with customer service, I finally admitted defeat and used this work around.
My blog's been up for a year or so, and 90% of our traffic comes from Google, so I want to make sure that I'm handling this permalink change properly. I recently read on Wordpress' codex that including the numerical %post_id% at the beginning of your permalinks can greatly reduce the stress on your database, when a post or page is being fetched. So, I decided to change my permalink structure from /%postname%/ to /%post_id%/postname/.
Now, if I type in, or click on a link to my site in google that looks like this - http://blog.com/cool-post/, it seems to redirect to my new structure: http://blog.com/34424/cool-post/ without a hitch. I'm trying to figure out whether I need to use a 301 redirect plugin or not. I would like to think that search engines like Google will see the same "flawless" redirection that I'm seeing. There doesn't seem to be any broken links. Just looking to confirm that I'll be okay after this change.
Thanks
WordPress handles canonical redirects for you by sending 301 Moved Permanently status codes appropriately. That status code ensures Google will only index your posts by the new URLs (i.e. with the post IDs in your permalinks). I've not used a redirection plugin for a while and my sites have been indexed similarly just fine.