301 Redirect & Duplicate Content
-
We currently have 16465 audiobook products presented at our Web store. 5411 of them are out-of-publication (OOP). Here's an example: Harry Potter Audiobook 2 : Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets - J.K. Rowling - cassette audiobook
Many of the 5411 OOP products are duplicates and triplicates of one title but were offered on a different medium (cassette, CD or MP3 CD) or were a different type (abridged, unabridged, dramatized). The description (story-line) is the same for all.
Because we know once a page gets on the Internet, it can live there for years, we decided to keep OOP product pages at our Web store to:
-
Let those who may have searched for the product and clicked on a link to an OOP product's page that it was no longer available.
-
Invite them to explore our Web store.
-
Let them know that although the product may not be available on cassette, CD or MP3 CD, that it might be available as a digital download.
We know that Google does NOT like duplicate content from one site to another and even within the same site.
If we redirect all the 5411 pages to one OOP page, will this eliminate this duplicate content issue? The OOP page would explain that the title they were looking for is no longer available but that it might be available as a digital download.
-
-
Stephanie Chang wrote a post at http://www.seomoz.org/blog/how-should-you-handle-expired-content that talks about handling expired content, that may help with some ideas for you.
-
We are working on a system to 301 to closest relevant product/category with a text box being displayed showing the reason to the redirect and some usefull general links.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
How do you find your ideas for content
Morning Mozzers, We have finally come to the point where we can start to focus on making good original content. We were wondering how you guys come up with ideas for your content. We are currently doing lots of keyword research to gather ideas and subject areas. But we are struggling with 'angles of attack'. Being an eCommerce site it is easy to do lots of "The 5 best products for this" type of content. But we feel there is limited value in these especially if we want to gain links to our articles in future as valued content. How do you come up with your ideas for more valuable and linkable content especially in very niche product areas. Thanks all.
Content Development | | ATP1 -
What is the Best Content Spinner to Use?
I'm looking for a good article spinner. I used to use Spin Doc but it's not as intuitive anymore.
Content Development | | 01023451 -
Content Syndication Strategies
Hi I'm currently doing some research into content syndication strategies for our new and existing client base. Does anyone on here have any case studies, better still, success stories that may help broaden my exposure within this topic? Many thanks Gary
Content Development | | GaryVictory0 -
How to solve copyright content ?
My website fill of copy paste content , how can i solve this problem?
Content Development | | engmtamous0 -
Content: Best Blogs Article
Hello, For an Ecommerce site, I think a good way to get known is to write a "Best X Blogs" article, where X is a topic in your industry, and then letting the people you link to know about the article. I got the idea from a Mozinar. My question is, how close does the X from above have to be in your niche? For example, if your product is running shoes can you write a "best athlete blogs" article? I'm worried about them reading the article, then leaving. In some smaller niches the topics closest to the product don't have much in the way of blogs out there. So how close to your niche does the Best X Blogs topic have to be?
Content Development | | BobGW0 -
Is this duplicate content?
I'm optimizing a Magento site and have a question regarding duplicate content. Currently, you can dig down to an individual product listings with URLs similar to this: (1) http://www.foo.com/category/sub-category/sub-sub-category/item.html However, we also have a "Top 50" area, with a link to the same page; however, the URL for that page is: (2) http://www.foo.com/item.html Both are dynamic, so a static page for (2) with different content is out of the question. I asked IT to have both (1) and (2) point to exactly the same page, within the same categor(ies), but they said I would have choose one or the other So, here are my questions: Will Google consider the pages to be duplicates of each other, and thus incur a penalty; If I were to choose one structure, which would be the "friendliest?" I've think I've come across questions similar to this in Q&A, but haven't been able to locate them; so, I'm sorry to be posting a "duplicate question." I've been busy writing completely different product descriptions, nice and deep and value-rich, for more than 300 items and categories and am only now starting to look at current SEO protocols; I'm hoping to ask Google for a site reevaluation in another 2 weeks or so. Thanks.
Content Development | | RScime250 -
Finding Good Content Writers
I have a small but growing SEO company. I don't have in house content writers...where is a good place to find good content writers? Please help! Thanks.
Content Development | | ClickIt0 -
Best strategy for content/articles. Individual pages or blog posts?
Hi all, Whilst adding content to one of my sites quite often I'm left deciding whether I should create an individual webpage for the content, or write it up as another blog post. More often I write it up as a static page so it fits in with the rest of my website more 'directly'. However I'm wondering if I'm missing out here as obviously I'm not taking advantage of the benefits of a blog, RSS, Tag Cloud, etc etc... Just wondering if others encounter the same quandary?
Content Development | | davebrown19750