Tuesday, August 02, 2011

Domino resolve URL with and without trailing as same URL, wrong?

We are faced with a problem (for us) with Domino. The problem is that Domino processes those 2 URL as similar same URL:

http://host/0/unid
http://host/0/unid/

the difference in 'trailing' (for those who thinks in same way as Domino :]). Well, it would be not a problem at all if you do internal staff, even very useful, problems start when we talk about SEO.

It actually affects our websites, as f.x. google 'eats' 2 URL (I mentioned above) as 2 different URL so their 'value' will be split on 2 part + 2 URL with same content also very bad as it is duplicate.

We should be able to either make 301's from the NOT CORRECT to the CORRECT URLs, or respond with a 404 (not found). Both options would be good.

Does anybody know ways how to do it?

[update from 28 October 2011] we've found solution with DSAPI filter, here you can read Solution to the trailing slash problem in Lotus Domino

3 comments :

Giuseppe Grasso said...

you may add a rel="canonical" link into your homepage and point it to the preferred version

Tue Skaarup said...

Dmytro, good point with the trailing "/" problem in Domino URLs.

@Giuseppe: Canonical tagging of pages would help, but it will not really solve the problem.

The problem is that incomming links will be divided between the 2 URLs. Even with a canonical tag on the wrong URL, you cannot count on that search engines will give the other page full link credits.

A solution is needed where we must be able to make 301 redirects from the one URL to the other. Or even better: Be able to make internal substitutions in Domino that solve this problem.

Unfortunatly, Domino cannot do this, because Domino do not care about the trailing "/" at all.

Denny Russell said...

Not sure if this will help, but I wrote this a long time ago...
http://customers.sherpasoftware.com/blogs/SherpaBlog.nsf/dx/03252008094615AMDRUJ6H.htm