The homepage is the most important page and the crux of a website. It should be functional, relevant and engaging for the visitor. It should also be easy to identify over all other pages in a given site for the search engines that regularly crawl the web.
I work with websites of all variations and sizes, and it is surprising how many have multiple versions of their homepage being indexed. This sends a confusing signal to the search engines, and makes ranking high for relevant terms more difficult. The issue with multiple homepages is that it dilutes the value of the homepage by channeling links meant for the homepage to different versions of the page. The goal is to make each individual page unique and as authoritative as possible, so focusing these links will help boost homepage authority. The homepage authority can then be passed to your category and content pillar pages via navigation and content links from the homepage.
Here is a quick guide to check this fundamental SEO requirement off the list.
How to identify if more than one version of your homepage is being indexed
The most common confusion comes when there are multiple ways to access the homepage. This often happens when a content management system (CMS) has a default file it uses for the homepage (www.example/index.asp), which is different than what most people would normally link to (www.example.com). The following are all common versions that can appear for the same page:
- http://example.com
- http://www.example.com
- http://www.example.com/index
- http://www.example.com/index.asp
If you notice urls on your website similar to these examples that return the homepage, you may have an issue with multiple versions being indexed. RagePank is a tool that will help you identify if there is an issue quickly. The Pages Application within Optify is another resource to help you.
Why does it matter?
The primary risk of this scenario is being devalued or penalized by the search engines for duplicate content. Google and Bing favor unique web content, and identical duplication is an SEO no-no.
Other risks include diluting your website’s page rank and inbound links being split between the homepage versions. Remember, links are the currency of the internet and if you want to succeed, dividing up the links that point to one version of your homepage vs. the other links that point to another version of your homepage will lower your page authority, which is key to a powerful component of ranking algorithms.
How can you fix it?
First of all, stay calm. As I mentioned, this is very common on the web and a best practice that is commonly overlooked. Now that you’re calm, you’ll want to take action as soon as possible.
- Choose the right version to call home. My recommendation is to choose the version with the most inbound links, since that version will have the most page authority.
- Use a 301 redirect to point the secondary version to the new primary version. A 301 redirect passes most of the authority to the new page, ensuring you aren’t losing out on any link juice you had on the secondary version.
- Tell Google. Using Google Webmaster Tools, you can visit Site Configurations→Settings to select the primary version of your homepage. Note: The 301 redirect will work with all search engines; this is just an extra step to cover your bases with the search giant.
- Add a canonical rel tag to the homepage that tells the engines that the main homepage is the only one you want them to care about.
The homepage is the most valuable asset of a website. Ensuring one version is being properly indexed is key to getting the most page authority possible, and essential to a high performing website. Executing this best practice will lay the groundwork for long term SEO success.
