Am I doing enough to rid duplicate content?
-
I'm in the middle of a massive cleanup effort of old duplicate content on my site, but trying to make sure I'm doing enough.
My main concern now is a large group of landing pages. For example:
http://www.boxerproperty.com/lease-office-space/office-space/dallas
http://www.boxerproperty.com/lease-office-space/executive-suites/dallas
http://www.boxerproperty.com/lease-office-space/medical-space/dallas
And these are just the tip of the iceberg. For now, I've put canonical tags on each sub-page to direct to the main market page (the second two both point to the first, http://www.boxerproperty.com/lease-office-space/office-space/dallas for example). However this situation is in many other cities as well, and each has a main page like the first one above. For instance:
http://www.boxerproperty.com/lease-office-space/office-space/atlanta
http://www.boxerproperty.com/lease-office-space/office-space/chicago
http://www.boxerproperty.com/lease-office-space/office-space/houston
Obviously the previous SEO was pretty heavy-handed with all of these, but my question for now is should I even bother with canonical tags for all of the sub-pages to the main pages (medical-space or executive-suites to office-space), or is the presence of all these pages problematic in itself? In other words, should http://www.boxerproperty.com/lease-office-space/office-space/chicago and http://www.boxerproperty.com/lease-office-space/office-space/houston and all the others have canonical tags pointing to just one page, or should a lot of these simply be deleted?
I'm continually finding more and more sub-pages that have used the same template, so I'm just not sure the best way to handle all of them. Looking back historically in Analytics, it appears many of these did drive significant organic traffic in the past, so I'm going to have a tough time justifying deleting a lot of them.
Any advice?
-
Heather,
I'm confused as to what the duplicate content is. The three Dallas pages you mentioned have different content. Sure there's a decent amount that's the same from the site-wide content (nav menus, etc.), but each has different text and information about different locations that are available. How is it duplicate?
Kurt Steinbrueck
OurChurch.Com -
Heather,
First things: 1. Are they still driving traffic? 2. Rel=canonicals are supposed to be used on identical pages or on a page whose content is a subset of the canonical version.
Those pages are very thin content and I certainly wouldn't leave them as they are. If they're still driving content, I'd keep them, but for fear of panda, I'd 302 them to the main pages while I work steadily on putting real content on them and then remove the redirects as the content goes on.
If they're not still driving traffic, it seems to me that it wouldn't be very hard to justifying their removal (or 301 redirection to their main pages). Panda is a tough penalty and you don't want to get caught in that.
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
-
Ecommerce SEO: Is it bad to link to product/category pages directly from content pages?
Hi ! In Moz' Whiteboard friday video Headline Writing and Title Tag SEO in a Clickbait World, Rand is talking about (among other things) best practices related to linking between search, clickbait and conversion pages. For a client of ours, a cosmetics and make-up retailer, we are planning to build content pages around related keywords, for example video, pictures and text about make-up and fashion in order to best target and capture search traffic related to make-up that is prevalent earlier in the costumer journey. Among other things, we plan to use these content pages to link directly to some of the products. For example a content piece about how to achieve full lashes will to link to particular mascaras and/or the mascara category) Things is, in the Whiteboard video Rand Says:
Algorithm Updates | | Inevo
_"..So your click-bait piece, a lot of times with click-bait pieces they're going to perform worse if you go over and try and link directly to your conversion page, because it looks like you're trying to sell people something. That's not what plays on Facebook, on Twitter, on social media in general. What plays is, "Hey, this is just entertainment, and I can just visit this piece and it's fun and funny and interesting." _ Does this mean linking directly to products pages (or category pages) from content pages is bad? Will Google think that, since we are also trying to sell something with the same piece of content, we do not deserve to rank that well on the content, and won't be considered that relevant for a search query where people are looking for make-up tips and make-up guides? Also.. is there any difference between linking from content to categories vs. products? ..I mean, a category page is not a conversion page the same way a products page is. Looking forward to your answers 🙂0 -
Are links from inside duplicate content on a 3rd party site pointing back to you worthwhile.
In our niche there are lots of specialist 'profile / portfolio' sites were we can upload content (usually project case studies. These are often quite big and active networks and can drive decent traffic and provide links from high ranking pages. The issue im a bit stuck on is - because they are profile / portfolio based usually its the same content uploaded to each site. But im beginning to get the feeling that these links from within duplicate content although from high ranking sites are not having an effect. Im about to embark on a campaign to re rewrite each of our portfolio items (each one c. 400 words c. 10 times) for each different site, but before i do i wandered if any one has had any experience / a point of view on with wether Google is not valuing links from within duplicate content (bare in mind these arnt spam sites, and are very reputable, mainly because once you submit the content it gets reviewed prior to going live). And wether a unique rewrite of the content solves this issue.
Algorithm Updates | | Sam-P0 -
Site has disappeared since Panda 4 despite quality content, help!
Our site www.physicalwellbeing.co.uk has lost over 20 first page rankings since the end of May. I assume this is because of Panda 4.0. All content on the site is high quality and 100% unique, so we did not expect to get penalised. Although I read somewhere that if Google can't read particular js anymore they don't rank you as high. The site has not been blacklisted as all pages are showing in Google's index and there are no messages on webmaster tools. We have not taken part in any link schemes and have disavowed all low quality links that were pointing there just in case (after the penalty). Can anybody see anything on www.physicalwellbeing.co.uk that may have cause Panda update to affect it so negatively? Would really appreciate any help.
Algorithm Updates | | search_shop0 -
How can I use Intuit without getting duplicate content issues
All of my Intuit site show duplicate content on the index pages. How can I avoid this
Algorithm Updates | | onestrohm0 -
Do links count in syndicated content?
If I write a press release that goes viral and is syndicated all over do each of those links to my site in the syndications of the press release count and pass page rank with Google? Or does Google only count the link in the original press release? I heard that Google counts all the links for a time then eventually counts only one link from the original content and discounting all the other links as duplicate content. Any truth to this? Thanks mozzers! Ron10
Algorithm Updates | | Ron100 -
Duplicate Content & www.3quarksdaily.com, why no penalty?
Does anyone have a theory as to why this site does not get hit with a DC penalty? The site is great, and the information is good but I just cannot understand the reason that this site does not get hit with a duplicate content penalty as all articles are posted elsewhere. Any theories would be greatly appreciated!
Algorithm Updates | | KMack0 -
Why is a website with lower content interest reaching higher in google
there is a website that i am competing with <cite>www.gastricbandhypnotherapy.net for the term gastric band hypnotherapy and for some reason it is now ranching higher than me.</cite> I have been number one in google with http://www.clairehegarty.co.uk/virtual-gastric-band-with-hypnotherapy for the term Gastric Band Hypnotherapy but for some reason in the past few days it has ranked number one and pushed me down to number three. i do not understand it as there is not much relevant content to gastric band hypnotherapy and also it does not have many links pointing into it can you please help with this question
Algorithm Updates | | ClaireH-1848860 -
Will google punish us for using formulaic keyword-rich content on different pages on our site?
We have 100 to 150 words of SEO text per page on www.storitz.com. Our challenge is that we are a storage property aggregator with hundreds of metros. We have to distinguish each city with relevant and umique text. If we use a modular approach where we mix and match pre-written (by us) content, demographic and location oriented text in an attempt to create relevant and unique text for multiple (hundreds) of pages on our site, will we be devalued by Google?
Algorithm Updates | | Storitz0