Wordpress permalink structure

I'm having an interesting duplicate content issue with a Wordpress blog that I've never encountered before, as a result of it I've basically over-optimised anchor text going to a money site, so I'm wondering if anyone else has seen this issue before.

The issue is that I'm getting duplicate homepage pages because pages with the url "mysite.com/?c=1" exist where the number after "c=" ranges from 1 to almost 100.

I know that typically Wordpress without custom permalinks activated uses a "mysite.com/?p=1" extension but this is something different. Does anyone know how to prevent the creation of these pages or what the "c" stands for? I assumed it was short for "category" however I have all category pages noindexed to prevent the duplicate content issue that I'm now faced with.

Cheers.

Strange. First, do a mass search in your wordpress folder using a text
editor for "?c=1" or its variations. Once you are able to trace where
these URLs are being handled then you will be in a better position to
debug this.

tiyowan said:

Strange. First, do a mass search in your wordpress folder using a text
editor for "?c=1" or its variations. Once you are able to trace where
these URLs are being handled then you will be in a better position to
debug this.

Click to expand...

Not following on how to do the search, how are you suggesting to open a folder with a text editor? Is there a specific file that you mean?

Okay I've come up with a custom solution to this bizarre problem that got me penguin slapped for the first time ever...

I uncovered this issue via Majestic which showed a massive amount of backlinks from one of my PBN sites, the solution is to alter your .htaccess file with a clever little rule that will redirect any URLs that contain 'c=' to your root domain...

RedirectMatch 301 ^(.*?/)c=(.*)$ $1$2

This trick will also work for other purposes and redirects by replacing the 'c=' part.

Use Sublime Text. As for the .htaccess, that will work fine, but if I were
you, I'd really try to find out just exactly -why- your WP install is set up
to handle ?=c links.

It could be a plugin or more worryingly, malicious code. Sorry if I seem
paranoid but it's always better to be safe rather than sorry when it comes
to WP sites.

If you're not a PHP programmer, don't worry about it. But I would still get
a friend who is to take a look at it if you can.

tiyowan said:

Use Sublime Text. As for the .htaccess, that will work fine, but if I were
you, I'd really try to find out just exactly -why- your WP install is set up
to handle ?=c links.

It could be a plugin or more worryingly, malicious code. Sorry if I seem
paranoid but it's always better to be safe rather than sorry when it comes
to WP sites.

If you're not a PHP programmer, don't worry about it. But I would still get
a friend who is to take a look at it if you can.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the help, appreciate it! You're right, I should find out why to prevent this happening again, I'm wondering whether it's theme related or more troublingly malicious as you point out, I've used the exact set-up across every other PBN site with no trouble. I'm not a PHP guy, Python is my thing but I get by with PHP code. I couldn't find anything database related anyway.

No worries. Cool, if Python is your thing you should be able to nail PHP
down pretty quickly. I really envy you Python bastids because of the
cleaner syntax and also because I've seen a lot less worse Python code
than I have PHP code.

Something you could try real quick if you have a local copy is:

1. Change to default theme and check whether ?c= links are handled.
2. Deactivate all plugins one by one and do the same check.

Wouldn't hurt to do a sanity test by check whether a fresh WP install
is to set up to handle ?c= links. I can't remember off the top of my
head right now.

Anyway, good luck - if you need anything, drop me a PM.

Haha yes, my love of Python knows no bounds my custom web-crawler is humming away nicely

Yes I changed the theme and discovered something interesting, any Wordpress site will handle that url addition. try yoursite.com/?c=1 and it should give you a result. So whatever it is, it's Wordpress related, as to why mine became suddenly indexable I really don't know.

Thanks, will do!