Duplicate pages

Pages are considered duplicate if they're available at different URLs, but have the same content. In this case, the robot groups such pages as duplicates. Only one of the pages is listed in the search results.

Duplicate pages appear for a variety of reasons:

Natural reasons (for example, if a page with a product description is available in several categories of an online store).
Issues related to incorrect site structure.

To find out whether there're duplicates on your site, check Indexing → Pages in search in Yandex.Webmaster. The duplicate address is displayed in the list of excluded pages.

To have the right page in the search results, indicate it for the Yandex robot. There are several ways to do this.


Difference in page URL	Example	What should I do?
The URL itself differs	http://example.com and http://example.com/index.php/ http://example.com/page/ and http://example.com/page	Set up a 301 redirect from one duplicate page to another. In this case, the target of the redirect will be included in the search results. Specify the preferred (canonical) URL for the page to be included in the search.
Different query parameters	http://example.com/page/, http://example.com/page?id=1, and http://example.com/page?id=2	Add the Clean-param directive to the robots.txt file so that the robot ignores the parameters in the URL. Specify the preferred (canonical) URL for the page to be included in the search.


Difference in page URL	Example	What should I do?
The URL itself differs	http://example.com and http://example.com/index.php/ http://example.com/page/ and http://example.com/page	Set up a 301 redirect from one duplicate page to another. In this case, the target of the redirect will be included in the search results. Specify the preferred (canonical) URL for the page to be included in the search.
Different query parameters	http://example.com/page/, http://example.com/page?id=1, and http://example.com/page?id=2	Add the Clean-param directive to the robots.txt file so that the robot ignores the parameters in the URL. Specify the preferred (canonical) URL for the page to be included in the search.

The robot learns about changes the next time it visits your site. As soon as that happens, the page that shouldn't be included in the search will be excluded from it within three weeks. If the site has many pages, this may take longer.

You can check that the changes have come into effect in the Pages in search section of Yandex.Webmaster.

If you followed the above recommendations but the changes didn't affect the search results after three weeks, fill out the form below. In the form, specify the sample pages.