Is Noindex Enough To Solve My Duplicate Content Issue?
-
Hello SEO Gurus!
I have a client who runs 7 web properties. 6 of them are satellite websites, and 7th is his company's main website. For a long while, my company has, among other things, blogged on a hosted blog at www.hismainwebsite.com/blog, and when we were optimizing for one of the other satellite websites, we would simply link to it in the article.
Now, however, the client has gone ahead and set up separate blogs on every one of the satellite websites as well, and he has a nifty plug-in set up on the main website's blog that pipes in articles that we write to their corresponding satellite blog as well.
My concern is duplicate content.
In a sense, this is like autoblogging -- the only thing that doesn't make it heinous is that the client is autoblogging himself. He thinks that it will be a great feature for giving users to his satellite websites some great fresh content to read -- which I agree, as I think the combination of publishing and e-commerce is a thing of the future -- but I really want to avoid the duplicate content issue and a possible SEO/SERP hit.
I am thinking that a noindexing of each of the satellite websites' blog pages might suffice. But I'd like to hear from all of you if you think that even this may not be a foolproof solution.
Thanks in advance!
Kind Regards,
Mike
-
Definitely deal with the security issues! Good find there...
Regarding the client who wants to republish the same article on multiple sites, I think that noindexing it on all but the original site is perfectly fine.
Or, alternatively, place a canonical tag on the duplicate sites to let Google know where the true source lies.
-
Good thread and I agree with everything Brian has already said. One additional option that hasn't been mentioned is possibly using Repost.us . If your client's blogs are on WordPress, there is a nifty Repost.Us plugin, very easy to install. He could then use this to repost the content on his main blogs, without having duplicate content issues or problems for his SEO. It would get the content where he wants it, preserve authorship plus give a link back to his main site. He would also have the opportunity of monetizing his posts if that was something he wanted to do. Hope this is helpful!
Dana
-
Wow, that's new! Yes, I wouldn't be surprised if the plug-in is at fault.
Well, as usual, issues compound into new issues.
My many thanks for your help and insight, Brian.
Kind Regards,
Mike
-
Wasn't able to visit the site, got this warning, attached.
Kinda poignant that this warning from the Fiji site gave me a warning referencing the Pacific site, which is exactly the kind of thing we're talking about.
Wonder if the very plugin your client is using is causing this issue too. -
Sure, here's an example: this is the main website: beautifulpacific.com, with the blog being located at beautifulpacific.com/blog. One of the satellite sites is beautifulfiji.com, with its blog at beautifulfiji.com/blog.
-
_To me, the best-case scenario would be to use these blogs to pump out fresh, authoritative content for each satellite site blog -- a more intensive undertaking, to be sure, but a best practice -- and include an RSS feed. _
Agreed. Also, there's no reason he can't write a post for one audience that references a post he made on another domain. It's hard to get a good feel for the whole situation without viewing the sites and blogs themselves.
-
Many thanks for your reply, Brian.
The satellite websites are not where conversations/sales take place; they feed his main site. I agree that providing a feed via the blog's RSS would make more sense. And when you say, "but if the point of the content is to be consumed, enjoyed, attract social shares and links, build traffic and then convert, then there's really little if any gain to be had in [noindexing]," I wholeheartedly agree. Even if it were to solve the duplicate content issue, it would preclude us from being able to put fresh content up on that blog and leverage it accordingly.
I can tell you that there is nothing nefarious in the client's idea here: his intentions are purely to give users fresh content to explore on the satellite sites. But as he relies on me to guide him in terms of SEO implications, I don't think he thought through how duplicate content could hurt him.
To me, the best-case scenario would be to use these blogs to pump out fresh, authoritative content for each satellite site blog -- a more intensive undertaking, to be sure, but a best practice -- and include an RSS feed.
-
Have you suggested he use an iframe to host the content from one site into the satellites?
Or maybe simply a feed to show the fresh content to visitors?
Does he convert on those satellite sites or are they micros to drive to the main?The thing is, it is definitely going to be duplicate content, and since the host is presumably the same... well... Not good.
I would ask: "why?" He is expecting to get links to this content on this site one day, the same content on this site the next? If it's a good post, what would happen if someone shares it socially from one domain, and those exposed to it see it elsewhere?
I think noindexing is a good half measure, but if the point of the content is to be consumed, enjoyed, attract social shares and links, build traffic and then convert, then there's really little if any gain to be had in even doing that. A noindexed blog post getting links? A noindexed blog category getting social buzz?
Force your client to understand the end goal. If he just wants something for them to read, add a feed. Then the social shares and links will do some good to at least the most important domain.
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
-
Unsolved Duplicate Content
We have multiple collections being flagged as duplicate content - but I can't find where these duplications are coming from? The duplicate content has no introductory text, and no meta description. Please see examples:- This is the correct collection page:-
Technical SEO | | Caroline_Ardmoor
https://www.ardmoor.co.uk/collections/deerhunter This is the incorrect collection page:-
https://www.ardmoor.co.uk/collections/vendors How do I stop this incorrect page from showing?0 -
Noindex nofollow issue
Hi, For some reason 2 pages on my website, time to time get noindex nofollow tags they disappear from search engine, i have to log in my thesis wp theme and uncheck box for "noindex" "nofollow" and them update, in couple days my website is back up. here is screen shot http://screencast.com/t/A6V6tIr2Cb6 Is that something in thesis theme that cause the problem? even though i unchecked the box and updated but its still stays checked http://screencast.com/t/TnjDcYfsH4sq appreciated for your help!
Technical SEO | | tonyklu0 -
Duplicate content vs. less content
Hi, I run a site that is currently doing very well in google for the terms that we want. We are 1,2 or 3 for our 4 targeted terms, but havent been able to jump to number one in two categories that I would really like to. In looking at our site, I didn't realize we have a TON of duplicate content as seen by SEO moz and I guess google. It appears to be coming from our forum, we use drupal. RIght now we have over 4500 pages of duplicate content. Here is my question: How much is this hurting us as we are ranking high. Is it better to kill the forum (which is more community service than business) and have a very tight site SEO-wise, or leave the forum even with the duplicate content. Thanks for your help. Erik
Technical SEO | | SurfingNosara0 -
Issue: Duplicate Pages Content
Hello, Following the setting up of a new campaign, SEOmoz pro says I have a duplicate page content issue. It says the follwoing are duplicates: http://www.mysite.com/ and http://www.mysite.com/index.htm This is obviously true, but is it a problem? Do I need to do anything to avoid a google penalty? The site in question is a static html site and the real page only exsists at http://www.mysite.com/index.htm but if you type in just the domain name then that brings up the same page. Please let me know what if anything I need to do. This site by the way, has had a panda 3.4 penalty a few months ago. Thanks, Colin
Technical SEO | | Colski0 -
Duplicate content issue. Delete index.html and replace with www.?
I have a duplicate content issue. On my site the home button goes to the index.html and not the www. If I change it to the www will it impact my SERPS? I don't think anyone links to the index.html.
Technical SEO | | bronxpad1 -
Duplicate content, how to solve?
I have about 400 errors about duplicate content on my seomoz dashboard. However I have no idea how to solve this, I have 2 main scenarios of duplication in my site: Scenario 1: http://www.theprinterdepo.com/catalogsearch/advanced/result/?name=64MB+SDRAM+DIMM+MEMORY+MODULE&sku=&price%5Bfrom%5D=&price%5Bto%5D=&category= 3 products with the same title, but different product models, as you can note is has the same price as well. Some printers use a different memory product module. So I just cant delete 2 products. Scenario 2: toners http://www.theprinterdepo.com/brother-high-capacity-black-toner-cartridge-compatible-73 http://www.theprinterdepo.com/brother-high-capacity-black-toner-cartridge-compatible-75 In this scenario, products have a different title but the same price. Again, in this scenario the 2 products are different. Thank you
Technical SEO | | levalencia10 -
How to resolve duplicate content and title errors?
Hello, I'm new to this resource and SEO. I have taken the time to read other posts but am not entirely sure about the best way to resolve the issues I am experiencing and so am hoping for a helpful hand. My site diagnostics advise me that most of my errors relate to duplicate content and duplicate page titles. Most of these errors seem to relate to our ecommerce product pages. A little about us first, we manufacture and retail over the internet our own line of unique products which can only be purchased through our website. So it’s not so important to make our product pages stand out from competitors. An example of one of our product pages can be found here: http://www.nabru.co.uk/product/Sui+2X2+Corner+Sofa In terms of SEO we are focusing on improving the rankings of our category pages which compete much more with our competitors, but would also like our product pages to be found via a google search for those potential customers that are at the late stage of a buying cycle. So my question: Whilst it would be good to add more content to the product pages, user reviews, individual product descriptions etc (and have good intentions to do this over time, which unfortunately is limited) is there an easy way to fix the duplicate content issues, ensure our products can be found and ensure that the main focus is on our category pages? Many thanks.
Technical SEO | | jannkuzel0 -
The Bible and Duplicate Content
We have our complete set of scriptures online, including the Bible at http://lds.org/scriptures. Users can browse to any of the volumes of scriptures. We've improved the user experience by allowing users to link to specific verses in context which will scroll to and highlight the linked verse. However, this creates a significant amount of duplicate content. For example, these links: http://lds.org/scriptures/nt/james/1.5 http://lds.org/scriptures/nt/james/1.5-10 http://lds.org/scriptures/nt/james/1 All of those will link to the same chapter in the book of James, yet the first two will highlight the verse 5 and verses 5-10 respectively. This is a good user experience because in other sections of our site and on blogs throughout the world webmasters link to specific verses so the reader can see the verse in context of the rest of the chapter. Another bible site has separate html pages for each verse individually and tends to outrank us because of this (and possibly some other reasons) for long tail chapter/verse queries. However, our tests indicated that the current version is preferred by users. We have a sitemap ready to publish which includes a URL for every chapter/verse. We hope this will improve indexing of some of the more popular verses. However, Googlebot is going to see some duplicate content as it crawls that sitemap! So the question is: is the sitemap a good idea realizing that we can't revert back to including each chapter/verse on its own unique page? We are also going to recommend that we create unique titles for each of the verses and pass a portion of the text from the verse into the meta description. Will this perhaps be enough to satisfy Googlebot that the pages are in fact unique? They certainly are from a user perspective. Thanks all for taking the time!
Technical SEO | | LDS-SEO0