How to avoid duplicate content on internal search results page?
-
Hi,
according to Webmaster Tools and Siteliner our website have an above-average amount of duplicate content.
Most of the pages are the search results pages, where it finds only one result. The only difference in this case are the TDK, H1 and the breadcrumbs. The rest of the layout is pretty static and similar.
Here is an example for two pages with "duplicate content":
https://soundbetter.com/search/Globo
https://soundbetter.com/search/Volvo
Edit: These are legitimate results that happen to have the same result. In this case we want users to be able to find the audio engineers by 'credits' (musicians they've worked with). Tags. We want users to rank for people searching for 'engineers who worked with'. And searching for two different artists (credit tags) returns this one service provider, with different urls (the tag being the search parameter) hence the duplicate content.
I guess every e-commerce/directory website faces this kind of issue.
What is the best practice to avoid duplicate content on search results page?
-
It really depends on your developers and your budget. I do development and SEO, so this is how I would handle it. On searches that are returning just one result, I would put something in place to see how many results are returned, if it is only one result returned, in the head of the page I would set the canonical url for the search page to the actual page that is being returned as the result.
If more result is being returned, you can handle that in many different ways. One way would be to create a pseudo category out of the results page. I would use this sparingly and only for popular search terms. But you could have an extension written for your site that can give you some on page control of the text, the url, the meta areas, and things like that. I wrote a module for a platform I use a couple of years ago that does something like it. http://blog.dh42.com/search-pages-landing-pages/ You can get the gist of the idea by reading about it there, but that is one good way to handle a limited number of them to get them to rank better. I would not do it with every search result though, you might get a penalty.
-
Sorry, I misread it. I think either or in regards to the robots or on page is applicable. I think the on page would make them fall out faster though.
-
I wouldn't do a no follow however
I agree. My solution was to use NOINDEX, FOLLOW.
-
Thanks Prestashop for your answer.
Is there another solution other than no-indexing all our search results?
Like many sites (yelp, tripadvisor and others) our search results help drive traffic. They aggregate the answer to questions that are asked in searches, such as 'recording studios in london'.
https://soundbetter.com/search/Recording Studio - Engineer/London, UK
-
I would add it to the robots.txt file. Depending on how your cms is set up, you can grab the search string from the current url and also use the presence of it to fire a no index as well. I wouldn't do a no follow however, there is nothing bad about following it, it is just the indexing of the search pages.
-
Hey Prestashop
To add a little more clarity - would you:
a.) add /search/ to robots.txt, like so:
Disallow: /search/or
b.) add noindex/nofollow at page level: like so:
in the search results page template.I would opt for option b, but it would be interested to hear your thoughts too and why.
Thanks,
-
No-index your search results. Most platforms do it by default to eliminate that error.
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
-
Internal duplicated content on articles, when is too much?
I have an automotive rental blog with articles that explain the pros of renting a specific model. So in this articles the advantages of rental versus the buying of a new model. This advantages are a list with bullets like this:
Technical SEO | | markovald
Rental | Buy new car
Rental:
Free car insurance
Free assistance
etc.
Buy new car
You have to pay insurance
You have to pay assistance
etc. etc. I want to do this because i want to make all articles like landing pages...
This "advantages box" have 100 characters. The general length of articles on my blog is 500/600 characters. So i have an average of 15/20% internal duplicated content on all my articles. Is this bad for seo? Any alternatives?0 -
How to remove the duplicate page title
Hi everyone, I saw many posts related to this query.But i couldnt find a solution for my error.. Here is my question I got 575 Duplicate page title & 600 duplicate page content errors. My site is related to realestate. I created a page title like same sentence differs with locality name Eg: Land for sale - kandy property Land for sale - Galle property Likewise Locality name only differs..I have created meta title & Content like this. Can anyone let me know how to solve this error ASAP ?
Technical SEO | | Rajesh.Chandran0 -
Duplicate pages
Hi Can anyone tell me why SEO MOZ thinks these paes are duplicates when they're clearly not? Thanks very much Kate http://www.katetooncopywriter.com.au/how-to-be-a-freelance-copywriter/picture-1-58/ http://www.katetooncopywriter.com.au/portfolio/clients/other/ http://www.katetooncopywriter.com.au/portfolio/clients/travel/ http://www.katetooncopywriter.com.au/webservices/what-i-do/blog-copywriter/
Technical SEO | | ToonyWoony0 -
Duplicate page error
SEO Moz gives me an duplicate page error as my homepage www.monteverdetours.com is the same as www.monteverdetours.com/index is this actually en error? And is google penalizing me for this?
Technical SEO | | Llanero0 -
Duplicate Content
Hello All, my first web crawl has come back with a duplicate content warning for www.simodal.com and www.simodal.com/index.htm slightly mystified! thanks paul
Technical SEO | | simodal0 -
Why was my homepage kicked out from results, but not my internal pages?
My domain's homepage has been ranking 1st position for an specific term for about 8 months. Our domain got hacked and it took just one day to make the website right again. A week after our homepage didn't appear anymore in Google results, it isn't even indexed. However the rest of our internal pages keep being indexed and ranking as usual. How can I make my homepage appear again in the results? Is there a way to speed up this process? Will it be in the same position as before, or will it have some sort of penalization for the hacking?
Technical SEO | | HerbalTechnologies0 -
Duplicate content?
I have a question regarding a warning that I got on one of my websites, it says Duplicate content. I'm canonical url:s and is also using blocking Google out from pages that you are warning me about. The pages are not indexed by Google, why do I get the warnings? Thanks for great seotools! 3M5AY.png
Technical SEO | | bnbjbbkb0 -
Duplicate content
This is just a quickie: On one of my campaigns in SEOmoz I have 151 duplicate page content issues! Ouch! On analysis the site in question has duplicated every URL with "en" e.g http://www.domainname.com/en/Fashion/Mulberry/SpringSummer-2010/ http://www.domainname.com/Fashion/Mulberry/SpringSummer-2010/ Personally my thoughts are that are rel = canonical will sort this issue, but before I ask our dev team to add this, and get various excuses why they can't I wanted to double check i am correct in my thinking? Thanks in advance for your time
Technical SEO | | Yozzer0