Duplicate Page Content - Shopify
-
Moz reports that there are 1,600+ pages on my site (Sportiqe.com) that qualify as Duplicate Page Content. The website sells licensed apparel, causing shirts to go into multiple categories (ie - LA Lakers shirts would be categorized in three areas: Men's Shirts, LA Lakers Shirts and NBA Shirts)It looks like "tags" are the primary cause behind the duplicate content issues: // Collection Tags_Example: : http://www.sportiqe.com/collections/la-clippers-shirts (Preferred URL): http://www.sportiqe.com/collections/la-clippers-shirts/la-clippers (URL w/ tag): http://sportiqe.com/collections/la-clippers-shirts/la-clippers (URL w/ tag, w/o the www.): http://sportiqe.com/collections/all-products/clippers (Different collection, w/ tag and same content)// Blog Tags_Example: : http://www.sportiqe.com/blogs/sportiqe/7902801-dispatch-is-back: http://www.sportiqe.com/blogs/sportiqe/tagged/elias-fundWould it make sense to do 301 redirects for the collection tags and use the Parameter Tool in Webmaster Tools to exclude blog post tags from their crawl? Or, is there a possible solution with the rel=cannonical tag?Appreciate any insight from fellow Shopify users and the Moz community.
-
Hello Chris,
I saw that Brett added rel="canonical" to his product template in shopify but wouldn't that tell Google not to look at all the products now? (ignore them) What if you want the images and the content of your product pages indexed by Google and showing up in results?
Thank you!
-
Hi,
As I mentioned I'm still playing with it.
But as far as I can see, BigCommerce has a better solution (or at least handle the URLs better).Without getting into my store, I also have on my site many "collections" - special offers, recommended, etc etc.
The link to the product page is always the same link. It doesn't make sense to link to "store.com/special-offers/product" and then canonical it to "store.com/product"
Which is what Shopify does... After discussing with them on those matters the answers were that everything can be changed but it might be complicated.
-
Thanks again for your help Chris!
-
according to these, they will always show as duplicate in the report (but won't count against you in your search engine results).
-
Thanks Chris! I'm hoping that the issue falls under the Fixing Crawl Diagnostic Issues, in which case it sounds like there is no issue. But the Rogerbot answer confuses me, because Roger shouldn't count the canonical version of the page as duplicate content (which is the case)?
-
From the issue you described, the rel=canonical is still the right choice.
According to Moz Documentation on Fixing Crawl DIagnostic Issues: "Keep in mind that that canonicals will stop the pages from ranking against each other, but they will still show up as duplicate content from a UI perspective, so we will still count them as duplicate."
Also from Moz documentation on How does Rogerbot calculate duplicate content?: "Two documents are considered duplicates if they have a 95% overlap. Furthermore, we should not count duplicates across pages that specify one or the other as the canonical version. The canonical version should not recognize the other as a duplicate, and the other version should not recognize the canonical as a duplicate."
-
Chris, taking your advice I added this code into my Shopify theme:
{% if template == 'product' %}{% if collection %}
{% endif %}{% endif %}
This code was added July 9th, exactly two weeks ago and I haven't seen the Duplicate Content issue decrease at all according to the Moz Campaign tools. Does it typically take this long to see an impact?
Should I reconsider doing 301 redirects for all my t-shirt collections? Thanks for your advice. (If useful, I also found this article discussing duplicate content on Shopify with a rel=canonical solution.)
-
What's your store URL, and how would you suggest we categorize our shirts?
It's typical for apparel companies to have a shirt that fits into a gender category, as well as a collection category.
-
Hi Brett,
I'm new to Shopify and still playing with it. While I agree with Chris here, I believe that you may have organized your products / product collections badly on Shopify. Ideally, the links will always take you to the same location. Having the same product on many different URLs (even with canonical) is not a good solution.
http://www.sportiqe.com/collections/sportiqe-apparel/products/new-york-shirt-metro-collection
http://www.sportiqe.com/collections/mens-shirts/products/new-york-shirt-metro-collection -
Brett, this looks like the perfect application for rel=canonical--and in your description of the item be sure to use vocabulary that deals with all three of the categories.
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
-
Backup Server causing duplicate content flag?
Hi, Google is indexing pages from our backup server. Is this a duplicate content issue? There are essentially two versions of our entire domain indexed by Google. How do people typically handle this? Any thoughts are appreciated. Thanks, Yael
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | yaelslater0 -
Duplicate H1 Question & Landing Page help
Hi We have 2 H1's on this page http://www.key.co.uk/en/key/heavy-duty-shelving Our webmaster has put one as display:none - but isn't this just going to look like we're keyword spamming & trying to hide it? OK now I;m looking I am seeing more wrong with this page... The width buttons at the top as h2's...& they link to facet pages? Won't this just waste crawl budget? and every product title/user guide title etc are all H2's.... I just need to put a plan together to give to our dev team on what should be updated Any tips would be great. Becky
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BeckyKey0 -
I've got duplicate pages. For example, blog/page/2 is the same as author/admin/page/2\. Is this something I should just ignore, or should I create the author/admin/page2 and then 301 redirect?
I'm going through the crawl report and it says I've got duplicate pages. For example, blog/page/2 is the same as author/admin/page/2/ Now, the author/admin/page/2 I can't even find in WordPress, but it is the same thing as blog/page/2 nonetheless. Is this something I should just ignore, or should I create the author/admin/page2 and then 301 redirect it to blog/page/2?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | shift-inc0 -
Product Syndication and duplicate content
Hi, It's a duplicate content question. We sell products (vacation rental homes) on a number of websites as well as our own. Generally, these affiliate sites have a higher domain authority and much more traffic than our site. The product content (text, images, and often availability and rates) is pulled by our affiliates into their websites daily and is exactly the same as the content on our site, not including their page structure. We receive enquiries by email and any links from their domains to ours are nofollow. For example, all of the listing text on mysite.com/listing_id is identical to my-first-affiliate-site.com/listing_id and my-second-affiliate-site.com/listing_id. Does this count as duplicate content and, if so, can anyone suggest a strategy to make the best of the situation? Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | McCaldin0 -
How do I use public content without being penalized for duplication?
The NHTSA produces a list of all recalls for automobiles. In their "terms of use" it states that the information can be copied. I want to add that to our site, so there is an up-to-date list for our audience to see. However, I'm just copying and pasting. I'm allowed to according to NHTSA, but google will probably flag it right? Is there a way to do this without being penalized? Thanks, Ruben
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | KempRugeLawGroup1 -
How to avoid content canibalizm? How do I control which page is the landing page?
Hi All, To clarify my question I will give an example. Let's assume that I have a laptop e-commerce site and that one of my main categories is Samsung Laptops. The category page shows lots of laptops and a small section of text. On the other hand, in my article section I have a HUGE article about Samsung Laptops. If we consider the two word phrases each page is targeting then the answer is the same - Samsung Laptops. On the article i point to the category page using anchor such as "buy samsung laptops" or "samsung laptops" and on the category page (my wishful landing page) I point to the article with "learn about samsung laptops" or "samsung laptops pros and cons". Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BeytzNet0 -
Duplicate content that looks unique
OK, bit of an odd one. The SEOmoz crawler has flagged the following pages up as duplicate content. Does anyone have any idea what's going on? http://www.gear-zone.co.uk/blog/november-2011/gear$9zone-guide-to-winter-insulation http://www.gear-zone.co.uk/blog/september-2011/win-a-the-north-face-nuptse-2-jacket-with-gear-zone http://www.gear-zone.co.uk/blog/july-2011/telephone-issues-$9-2nd-july-2011 http://www.gear-zone.co.uk/blog/september-2011/gear$9zone-guide-to-nordic-walking-poles http://www.gear-zone.co.uk/blog/september-2011/win-a-the-north-face-nuptse-2-jacket-with-gear-zone https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/googlebot-fetch?hl=en&siteUrl=http://www.gear-zone.co.uk/
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | neooptic0 -
Duplicate Content Issue
Why do URL with .html or index.php at the end are annoying to the search engine? I heard it can create some duplicate content but I have no idea why? Could someone explain me why is that so? Thank you
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Ideas-Money-Art0