Protecting Your Web Site from Duplicate Filtering

When you are trying to rank in the search engine results pages for any number of selected keywords, it helps to know that your Web master or Web site design firm is doing everything in their power on the back-end to make sure you can achieve the highest rankings possible.

Unfortunately, without the proper technical know-how, you as a specialized physician or cosmetic surgeon may be getting the wool pulled over your eyes regarding the marketing effectiveness of your medical practice Web site.

One of the most important issues on any search engine optimization check list is URL normalization - or canonicalization, for the tech-minded - which insists that every URL within your domain conforms to a standardized format and point to a unique document. Usually, before URL canonicalization is recognized as a problem, a Web site will typically be thought of by search engines as often times serving up three different versions of a single page.

You may be saying to yourself, “I know for a fact I only have one home page!” However, as far as a Web server is concerned: the paths that typically lead to your index page,

http://yourdomain.com
http://www.yourdomain.com
http://yourdomain.com/index.html
http://www.yourdomain/index.html

are actually very different.

If you type in each of these unique URLs into your browser address bar and see the URL dynamically change to one of the above four versions, well, congratulate yourself on passing a quick - although not comprehensive URL canonicalization test.

If each of these URLs remains in the address bar and takes you to the same, identical index page. I recommend you get on the telephone and call your Web master post-haste. If you no longer trust your Web master, you can call us instead - we don’t mind. In fact, we welcome you to do so.

Fixing such problems is best done via Web server redirection. For more information on how you can easily canonicalize your domain, contact cosmeticSEO.com. Making sure your Web site limits duplicate content to a minimum is just one of the specialized services we offer in our plastic surgery marketing kit.

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