mysite.com & mysite.com/index.cfm duplication - best way to fix?

[besnette]

I think this is probably a pretty common question and issue, and probably multiple ways to do it, but I want to make sure that

www.mysite.com

and

www.mysite.com/index.cfm

isn't resulting in a duplicate page/content issue.
They are both, obviously the same page.

my www.mysite.com/index.cfm has a lot of links to it so it is being counted as it's own page

Should I do a 301 to just have it switch to the root if someone types in the ../index.cfm part, or is using a caonical meta tag best, or perhaps both?

Thank you for any feedback or suggestions. Just trying to learn what the 'best practices' are on this issue.

[tedster]

I'd say do both. The 301 is the most important, because it allows full technical responsibility on your server. With the canonical link tag, its effectiveness is up to the search engines and whenever possible, it pays to take as much responsibility for yourself as you can - but the canonical tag is a good backup or "safety factor."

[enigma1]

My opinion is to make sure your pages do not display the www.mysite.com/index.cfm but only www.mysite.com whenever you need to link to your home page internally. You don't need a redirect in this case.

And it won't do any good to redirect if your pages that return 200, expose links that lead to 301s.

[besnette]

Thank you for your replies.

@enigma1 - over the years, I have linked to my site to the /index.cfm page (this was before I understood the dupe content issue, problem) - so I am trying to fix those.

@tedster - to further my question - google would not look at a 301 as a slimy redirect in any way as long as that is indeed the homepage, and although I do link to that page from other places (internally and externally)? I just don't want G to think I am doing anything tricky - just trying to remove a dupe content issue.

Thanks for both of your replies. I really appreciate it!

[tedster]

No - there's nothing deceptive about such a 301 redirect at all. It's just "good server hygiene."