URL Rewrite, Duplicate Penalty?

[dizzle]

Hey all,
I have successfully used ISAPI Rewrite to rewrite my catalog pages on a test server. It works beautifully! But, I am worried about when SE's spider the new links, will they pick them up as duplicates of the "real" pages? My initial solution would be to redirect the "real" to the rewritten if the real is used... but I don't want to go through that hassle if it's not necessary. Does anybody have experience with this? Thanks a bunch.

[pageoneresults]

But, I am worried about when SE's spider the new links, will they pick them up as duplicates of the "real" pages?Yes, that is a strong possibility.

My initial solution would be to redirect the "real" to the rewritten if the real is used... but I don't want to go through that hassle if it's not necessary.The above process will be necessary if you want a clean quick permanent solution. I've been working with ISAPI_Rewrite for a few years now and in the beginning, we had the same questions.

Anytime you perform a rewrite on an existing site, the goal is to capture as much of that old stuff as possible. The only true and tried method that I am aware of is to load that httpd.ini file with these...

RewriteRule /old-page.asp http://www.example.com/new-page.asp [I,O,RP,L]

[dizzle]

I won't get into any trouble by having 2 rules that are basically inverses of each other?

Originally I had ASP detect if it was a non-rewritten page, and if so it would 301 redirect to the rewritten page, but it was very slow, as if there were some kind of overhead loop going on.

I can catch all the internal links going to non-written pages, but obviously outside links are going to be a problem. Keep in mind I am doing this on a catalog of pages that all run from 1 single ASP script, but it's a lot of pages.

Thanks for the quick reply!

[seomike]

Once you switch to the new urls the links go out on the old ones and they get pushed to the supplimental results. Now if you have inbound links to your catalog with the old urls just use my trick here http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/showthread.php?t=3925

It shouldn't be to hard to translate the rules and conditions into the ISAPI Rewrite syntax. It probably will transfer right over.


In the event that your static url has variables in it that the dynamic string didn't have then you can use this tip starting at post 13 http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/showthread.php?t=4494

It's kind of tricky but it's search engine friendly and full proof assuming you understand the php. If not here are the steps

1. We rewrite all the dynamic versions of your urls that are being requested to a page that a. queries the database b. creates the proper new string.

2. When the new string is created we send the visitor via 301 redirect to that page.

page.asp?... >> reads as >> redirect-query-buildingpage.asp >> 301 redirect to >> corect url

works the same as
page.asp?.. >> 301 redirect >> correct url

So instead of setting up 1000's of rules we make 1.