Templated content = duplicate content?
-
I'm curious where the line is drawn for "duplicate content" by the search engines. Obviously the same article, or even the same article with minor edits, can and should be detected as duplicate.
I have a use case where there is a database of similar, but not duplicate, content that changes as time passes. I want to serve this content up via html template but don't want the 1000 pages to be considered duplicates of each other.
Example: Imagine local weather. You could create a template for city name, longitude, latitude, altitude, and current weather conditions. The values for all fields would be different for each of the 1000 database entries (cities) and one of the "current weather conditions" would change frequently (hourly, let's say).
Now, if I have a nice heirarchical index pages (first one maybe points to 50 state sub-pages, and each state page points to 20 city pages) that point to the 1000 city-specific pages, would the city-specific pages be considered 'duplicate' since they are based on the same HTML template but all have different values in key areas? Does the answer change based on the % of the template (or visible text) that changes for each city?
My goal is to get these 1000 subpages as part of my site, have them indexable, and have them each flow a little bit of link juice to my home page.
Best practices? What should I be careful of?
Thanks!
-
I'd like to know the answer too...
Our page is an e-commerce site, and Google sometimes gives the duplicate content reports for pages that don't match, but haven't got much of unique content. Thought maybe you solved the problem?
-
Don't you get any duplicate content messages at Google webmaster tools?
-
Hi Mike,
I'm wondering what you decided to do here, and if you have any interesting results that you'd be willing to share with the Q&A community. Thanks!
-
Figured it wasn't weather based... just sticking with the theme.
How's that saying go... "The good thing about the internet is that you can always test it, the bad thing is that you are always testing."
-
It's a single site. It's not a weather app; I was using weather as an example. I have another (non-weather) data set that has similar characteristics -- 6 or 8 unique data points per item (a couple of which are dynamic and change as time passes). And several thousand of these items. I want to display them via template.
I guess I'll try it and see if Webmaster tools complains about dup content. Thanks for the ideas, guys...
-
Often wondered myself
i think google makke the right choice. they would of thought about this and i am sure they get it right.i have much the same thing on one of my sites, and they rank quite well, so i dont think they are seen as duplicates.
-
Excellent point. The more unique the content the higher the value.
-
Hi Mike,
This is an interesting question. Depending on the nature of the content, you might want to try to get user generated content on those pages to make them more unique and valuable.
Best regards,
Guillaume Voyer. -
If you are running this on a single site then I would say per your example that you have enough unique variables that it wouldn't be considered duplicate content on your website. Giving each City, State, Weather, on a page should solve your problem. As long as the titles and headers of the pages are not all the same. But the only real way to know would be to test it. Validate it with webmaster tools, it will tell you if your pages are too similar.And if you do pull this off let me know. I am always interested in GEO specific content for our pest control service areas.
The problem I see you running into is creating enough unique content so that it's not duplicate content from other weather sites. Maybe run it against a copyscape.com query. That should let you know if the weather info is unique enough. I would test this on a small scale prior to launching the entire project. Just hand create 10 pages and run it against copyscape.
Now if you are trying to create a content generator for mulitple websites based on this same data set then you may run into duplicate content issues. ...But there may still be some value in this.
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
-
Does embedded content (from my site) help seo
hi i am creating a new accommodation site and will have some great videos on it (fly bys of local beaches and virtual tours of hotels etc). from an seo perspective i have two questions: 1. should i host on my own site or youtube/vimeo - its a new site but in the long run i want my site to get the credit 2. i will be giving the hotels the chance to embed and video content i have on their own sites. does this help my own seo juice and if so is there a particular way it should be done. there will be around 90 well established local hotels in total so figured it should add up.
Link Building | | neilhenderson0 -
Content Marketing and how it effects Rankings
Hi there everyone! I have what I think is a simple question, but one I can't fully understand the answer to. If I had a homepage that I wanted to optimize for the keyword, e.g. "Second Hand Cars", so I add the keyword in the page title and text etc etc. But I still don't rank well for it. So I turn to content marketing and create some content on my site's blog about new cars, sports cars, and of course second hand cars, with some great content and anchor text pointing back to the home page. Now here's my question, how does creating that content on a blog, or on someone's blog/website help my homepage rank higher for my chosen keyword? Surely it would just help the blog post rank higher? And if someone were to search for "Buy Secondhand cars", wouldn't my hypothetical blog post (with more shares and links than my home page) rank higher than the home page itself? If anyone can clear this up for me I'd be eternally grateful! Thanks in advance Cheers
Link Building | | CD_20160 -
How can a site with no content, non SEO optimized or any value rank better?
I understand there are many more variables to rank #1, but this site is currently #1 for one of our top keywords and I really don't understand what they Competior site barely has 200 words on any given page, very few content other than images with no ALT tags, titles, No H1 tags. in other words the website is not SEO optimized. My site has content, product descriptions, images, relevant titles, and definitely more optimized than competitor. My site VS competitor Total pages: 246 (me) vs 49 (them) Page Authority: 34 vs 26 MozRank: 5.3 vs 4.5 MozTrust: 5.7 vs 5.4 Domain Authority: 22 vs 17 External Links: 65 vs 7 Internal Links 152 vs 1 Followed Links 14 vs 5 More C-Blocks 14 vs 4 Total Social Shares: 127 vs 4
Link Building | | Droidman860 -
Link Building Template
Hi all, I am looking to find an actionable, easy to use, link building template to be used by myself as well as across office/clients. Key subject areas for link building have been defined but I am keen to apply a template to past and future link building opportunities as I build on the link building tactics I have a number of link building targets e.g. form competitor analysis, existing links from websites and looking to reach out to amend their anchor text, prospect websites Does anyone have a good insight into categorising the different link building targets by sector? Many thanks Simon
Link Building | | simonsw0 -
Auto Blog Content
Hi i was thinking about to build auto blog website that will post about twice a day auto generated content related to my keywords that im trying to rank for. and for inbound linking, i will write original articles with a keyword anchor text, and will link to auto generated content for that keyword? so my question is: is it good idea to link from original content to auto generated?will it help my rankings ? Thanks
Link Building | | xverticle0 -
How to Add Content to a Product-Focused Site
I recently took over management of the SEO work for the following site: http://www.grovercorp.com/rings-and-seals/. I want to do link building, but don't have a ton of experience with it. From what I've read, offering linkable content is the best way to get links. However, this site -- like many in industrial B-2-B -- is focused primarily on promoting their products. I'd like tto offer an article or add an infographic, but am not sure where I would put it? It doesn't seem like the architecture offers a good place to add linkable content. Anyone have thoughts or suggestions?
Link Building | | EricVallee340 -
Site content creation
I have a new customer that wants to build a comprehensive website to provide dental health information. However, he's a busy dentist and can't develop all the content himself. He particularly likes what mercola.com (http://articles.mercola.com/sites/current.aspx or http://blogs.mercola.com/sites/vitalvotes/default.aspx) is doing to provide content from other sources. At first I thought this could be a good thing and that we could setup some Google Alerts that would alert us to new content related to specific topic areas and then post excerpts and links to the original source of the content. But now I'm concerned that we'll get penalized for this. Can you give me some advice on how to go about getting new/fresh content on a new website that doesn't require someone to write it all themselves? Thank you!
Link Building | | ChristiMcGinley0 -
Is publishing content on multiple platforms like Tumblr, Blogger, Posterous, etc. a legit way to build backlinks?
My client has a fishing report that is published weekly on his blog. Would it be wise to syndicate that content on these other services with backlinks baked into each one? Any thoughts?
Link Building | | AaronParrish1