How to Fix Duplicate Page Content?
-
Our latest SEOmoz crawl reports 1138 instances of "duplicate page content."
I have long been aware that our duplicate page content is likely a major reason Google has de-valued our Web store.
Our duplicate page content is the result of the following:
1. We sell audio books and use the publisher's description (narrative) of the title. Google is likely recognizing the publisher as the owner / author of the description and our description as duplicate content.
2. Many audio book titles are published in more than one format (abridged, unabridged CD, and/or unabridged MP3) by the same publisher so the basic description on our site would be the same at our Web store for each format = more duplicate content at our Web store.
Here's are two examples (one abridged, one unabridged) of one title at our Web store.
How much would the body content of one of the above pages have to change so that a SEOmoz crawl does NOT say the content is duplicate?
-
Just wanted to add a note that our tools do not detect duplicates across domains or on other websites, so these warnings are completely tied to your own pages/URLs.
These are "near" duplicates in our view, and Takeshi is right - there are many possible solutions. I'm guessing you can't directly combine them, from an e-commerce standpoint, but I would suggest either making a "parent" page and using rel=canonical, or just making sure there's navigation between the formats/versions and then pointing rel=canonical to the most common version (i.e. that your customers buy).
Technically, this will remove one version from ranking consideration, but I think that's preferable to having 100s or 1000s of versions out there and diluting your ranking ability or even having Panda-related problems. It's one thing if you have Amazon's link profile, but the rest of us aren't so lucky.
-
Good question. The canonical tag may be part of our solution.
I am also planning on having a "main" product with the description and any variations (abridged, unabridged, CD, MP3 CD) as subproducts which would use the main products' description. I.E. There would only be one product page with the description, not multiple. This will still result in our main products' page having the same description as the publisher. We have 1000s of audio products. Paying someone or doing it ourselves to create enough unique content on these pages would be prohibitive. Some high ranking competitors of ours have the same description as the publisher so Google must be taking something else into consideration to value them much higher than us.
-
They are saying the pages on your site have duplicate content. Those two pages you linked are a perfect example. The content is exactly the same minus two words, which is more than enough for Google to register it as duplicate..
What I don't understand is what's wrong with a simple canonical tag in this instance? Do you really need both of these indexed?
-
When SEOmoz identifies pages at our Web store with duplicate content is SEOmoz saying one of both of the following:
1. More than one page at our Web store has the same content.
2. One or more pages at our Web store has the same content as another page on the Web.
-
Agreed with everything Takeshi just said, but only left out one thing. Once you combine pages, make sure to 301 redirect the old pages to the new url. If you don't want to combine remember to use rel=canonical to delineate which type of permalink has the authority.
Hope that helps.
-
There are no easy fixes here. Here are a few things that are common practice among etailers to reduce duplicate content:
- Combine similar pages into one. So abridged & unabridged would be on one page, with a drop-down menu to select the different versions of the product.
- Re-write the product descriptions, from scratch (you can hire people to do this).
- Add your own unique content in addition to the provided description, such editorial reviews, recommendations, historical information, product specs, etc.
- Add user reviews, so that users can generate unique content for you.
- Create a unique user experience that improves the shopping experience on your site. Why should a user shop at your store, and not Amazon? Why should Google rank your site above Amazon? What differentiates you?
Like I said, there are no quick fixes for unique content. You either have to re-write the descriptions, add your own unique content, or both.
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
-
Best strategy for duplicate content?
Hi everyone, We have a site where all product pages have more or less similar text (same printing techniques, etc.) The main differences are prices and images, text is highly similar. We have around 150 products in every language. Moz's algorithm tells me to do something about duplicate content, but I don't really know what we could do, since the descriptions can't be changed to be very different. We essentially have paper bags in different colors and and from different materials.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JaanMSonberg0 -
Is it OK to Delete a Page and Move Content to a Another Page without 301 re-direct
I have a page "A" that I want to completely delete and move the written content from A" to page "B". Since I am deleting "A" (not keeping page) is it OK to upload the content from "A" to page "B" and search engines will give "B" credit for the unique content? Or, since the content has already once been indexed on "A", "B" may struggle to get full credit for this new unique content, even though page "A" is deleted?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | khi50 -
Magento Duplicate Content Recovery
Hi, we switched platforms to Magento last year. Since then our SERPS rankings have declined considerably (no sudden drop on any Panda/Penguin date lines). After investigating, it appeared we neglected to No index, follow all our filter pages and our total indexed pages rose sevenfold in a matter of weeks. We have since fixed the no index issue and the pages indexed are now below what we had pre switch to Magento. We've seen some positive results in the last week. Any ideas when/if our rankings will return? Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Jonnygeeuk0 -
Duplicate Content Question
Hey Everyone, I have a question regarding duplicate content. If your site is penalized for duplicate content, is it just the pages with the content on it that are affected or is the whole site affected? Thanks 🙂
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | jhinchcliffe0 -
Duplicate Content / 301 redirect Ariticle issue
Hello, We've got some articles floating around on our site nlpca(dot)com like this article: http://www.nlpca.com/what-is-dynamic-spin-release.html that's is not linked to from anywhere else. The article exists how it's supposed to be here: http://www.dynamicspinrelease.com/what-is-dsr/ (our other website) Would it be safe in eyes of both google's algorithm (as much as you know) and with Panda to just 301 redirect from http://www.nlpca.com/what-is-dynamic-spin-release.html to http://www.dynamicspinrelease.com/what-is-dsr/ or would no-indexing be better? Thank you!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BobGW0 -
Duplicate page content and Duplicate page title errors
Hi, I'm new to SeoMoz and to this forum. I've started a new campaign on my site and got back loads of error. Most of them are Duplicate page content and Duplicate page title errors. I know I have some duplicate titles but I don't have any duplicate content. I'm not a web developer and not so expert but I have the impression that the crawler is following all my internal links (Infact I have also plenty of warnings saying "Too many on-page links". Do you think this is the cause of my errors? Should I implement the nofollow on all internal links? I'm working with Joomla. Thanks a lot for your help Marco
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | marcodublin0 -
Capitals in url creates duplicate content?
Hey Guys, I had a quick look around however I couldn't find a specific answer to this. Currently, the SEOmoz tools come back and show a heap of duplicate content on my site. And there's a fair bit of it. However, a heap of those errors are relating to random capitals in the urls. for example. "www.website.com.au/Home/information/Stuff" is being treated as duplicate content of "www.website.com.au/home/information/stuff" (Note the difference in capitals). Anyone have any recommendations as to how to fix this server side(keeping in mind it's not practical or possible to fix all of these links) or to tell Google to ignore the capitalisation? Any help is greatly appreciated. LM.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | CarlS0 -
Does a mobile site count as duplicate content?
Are there any specific guidelines that should be followed for setting up a mobile site to ensure it isn't counted as duplicate content?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | nicole.healthline0