Could you use a robots.txt file to disalow a duplicate content page from being crawled?
-
A website has duplicate content pages to make it easier for users to find the information from a couple spots in the site navigation. Site owner would like to keep it this way without hurting SEO.
I've thought of using the robots.txt file to disallow search engines from crawling one of the pages. Would you think this is a workable/acceptable solution?
-
Yeah, sorry for the confusion. I put the tag on all the pages (Original and Duplicate). I sent you a PM with another good article on Rel canonical tag
-
Peter, Thanks for the clarification.
-
Generally agree, although I'd just add that Robots.txt also isn't so great at removing content that's already been indexed (it's better at prevention). So, I find that it's not just not ideal - it sometimes doesn't even work in these cases.
Rel-canonical is generally a good bet, and it should go on the duplicate (you can actually put it on both, although it's not necessary).
-
Next time I'll read the reference links better
Thank you!
-
per google webmaster tools:
If Google knows that these pages have the same content, we may index only one version for our search results. Our algorithms select the page we think best answers the user's query. Now, however, users can specify a canonical page to search engines by adding a element with the attribute
rel="canonical"
to the section of the non-canonical version of the page. Adding this link and attribute lets site owners identify sets of identical content and suggest to Google: "Of all these pages with identical content, this page is the most useful. Please prioritize it in search results." -
Thanks Kyle. Anthony had a similar view on using the rel canonical tag. I'm just curious about adding it to both the original page or duplicate page? Or both?
Thanks,
Greg
-
Anthony, Thanks for your response. See Kyle, he also felt using the rel canonical tag was the best thing to do. However he seemed to think you'd put it on the original page - the one you want to rank for. And you're suggesting putting on the duplicate page. Should it be added to both while specifying which page is the 'original'?
Thanks!
Greg
-
I'm not sure I understand why the site owner seems to think that the duplicate content is necessary?
If I was in your situation I would be trying to convince the client to remove the duplicate content from their site, rather than trying to find a way around it.
If the information is difficult to find then this may be due to a problem with the site architecture. If the site does not flow well enough for visitors to find the information they need, then perhaps a site redesign is necessary.
-
Well, the answer would be yes and no. A robots.txt file would stop the bots from indexing the page, but links from other pages in site to that non indexed page could therefor make it crawlable and then indexed. AS posted in google webmaster tools here:
"You need a robots.txt file only if your site includes content that you don't want search engines to index. If you want search engines to index everything in your site, you don't need a robots.txt file (not even an empty one).
While Google won't crawl or index the content of pages blocked by robots.txt, we may still index the URLs if we find them on other pages on the web. As a result, the URL of the page and, potentially, other publicly available information such as anchor text in links to the site, or the title from the Open Directory Project (www.dmoz.org), can appear in Google search results."
I think the best way to avoid any conflict is applying the rel="canonical" tag to each duplicate page that you don't want indexed.
You can find more info on rel canonical here
Hope this helps out some.
-
The best way would be to use the Rel canonical tag
On the page you would like to rank for put the Rel canonical tag in
This lets google know that this is the original page.
Check out this link posted by Rand about the Rel canonical tag [http://www.seomoz.org/blog/canonical-url-tag-the-most-important-advancement-in-seo-practices-since-sitemaps](http://www.seomoz.org/blog/canonical-url-tag-the-most-important-advancement-in-seo-practices-since-sitemaps)
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
-
Duplicate content. Competing for rank.
Scenario: An automotive dealer lists cars for sale on their website. The descriptions are very good and in depth at 1,200 words per car. However chunks of the copy are copied from car review websites and weaved into their original copy. Q1: This is flagged in copyscape - how much of an issue is this for Google? Q2: The same stock with the same copy is fed into a popular car listing website - the dealer's website and the classifieds website often rank in the top two positions (sometimes the dealer on top other times the classifieds site). Is this a good or a bad thing? Are you risking being seen as duplicating/scraping content? Thank you.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Bee1590 -
Identifying Duplicate Content
Hi looking for tools (beside Copyscape or Grammarly) which can scan a list of URLs (e.g. 100 pages) and find duplicate content quite quickly. Specifically, small batches of duplicate content, see attached image as an example. Does anyone have any suggestions? Cheers. 5v591k.jpg
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | jayoliverwright0 -
Need help with Robots.txt
An eCommerce site built with Modx CMS. I found lots of auto generated duplicate page issue on that site. Now I need to disallow some pages from that category. Here is the actual product page url looks like
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Nahid
product_listing.php?cat=6857 And here is the auto generated url structure
product_listing.php?cat=6857&cPath=dropship&size=19 Can any one suggest how to disallow this specific category through robots.txt. I am not so familiar with Modx and this kind of link structure. Your help will be appreciated. Thanks1 -
Duplicate Pages #!
Hi guys, Currently have duplicate pages accross a website e.g. https://archierose.com.au/shop/cart**#!** https://archierose.com.au/shop/cart The only difference is the URL 1 has a hashtag and exclamation tag. Everything else is the same. We were thinking of adding rel canonical tags on the #! versions of the page to the correct URLs. But Google doens't seem to be indexing the #! versions anyway. Does anyone know why this is the case? If Google is not indexing them, is there any point adding rel canonical tags? Cheers, Chris https://archierose.com.au/shop/cart#!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | jayoliverwright0 -
My landing page changed in google's serp. I used to have a product page now I have a pdf?
I have been optimizing this page for a few weeks now and and have seen our page for up from 23rd to 11th on the serp's. I come to work today and not only have I dropped to 15 but I've also had my relevant product page replaced by this page . Not to mention the second page is a pdf! I am not sure what happened here but any advice on how I could fix this would be great. My site is www.mynaturalmarket.com and the keyword I'm working on is Zyflamend.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | KenyonManu3-SEOSEM0 -
Get Duplicate Page content for same page with different extension ?
I have added a campaign like "Bannerbuzz" in SEOMOZ Pro account and before 2 or 3 days i got errors related to duplicate page content . they are showing me same page with different extension. As i mentioned below http://www.bannerbuzz.com/outdoor-vinyl-banners.html
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | CommercePundit
&
http://www.bannerbuzz.com/outdoor_vinyl_banner.php We checked our whole source files but we didn't define php related urls in our source code. we want to catch only our .html related urls. so, Can you please guide us to solve this issue ? Thanks <colgroup><col width="857"></colgroup>
| http://www.bannerbuzz.com/outdoor-vinyl-banners.html |0 -
Should we deindex duplicate pages?
I work on an education website. We offer programs that are offered up to 6 times per year. At the moment, we have a webpage for each instance of the program, but that's causing duplicate content issues. We're reworking the pages so the majority of the content will be on one page, but we'll still have to keep the application details as separate pages. 90% of the time, application details are going to be nearly identical, so I'm worried that these pages will still be seen as duplicate content. My question is, should we deindex these pages? We don't particularly want people landing on our application page without seeing the other details of the program anyway. But, is there problem with deindexing such a large chunk of your site that I'm not thinking of? Thanks, everyone!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | UWPCE0 -
I have a duplicate content problem
The website guy that made the website for my business Premier Martial Arts Austin disappeared and didn't set up that www. was to begin each URL, so I now have a duplicate content problem and don't want to be penalized for it. I tried to show in Webmaster tools the preferred setup but can't get it to OK that I'm the website owner. Any idea as what to do?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | OhYeahSteve0