Dulpicate Content being reported
-
Hi
I have a new client whose first MA crawl report is showing lots of duplicate content.
The main batch of these are all the HP url with an 'attachment' part at the end such as:
www.domain.com/?attachment_id=4176
As far as i can tell its some sort of slide show just showing a different image in the main frame of each page, with no other content. Each one does have a unique meta title & H1 though.
Whats the best thing to do here ?
-
Not a problem and leave as is
-
Use the paremeter handling tool in GWT
-
Canonicalise, referencing the HP
or other solution ?
Many Thanks
Dan
-
-
Hi Dan,
Actually it looks like ctrl L will do it (you are creating an excel table). You usually need to erase the first few rows from the export so you have the column header in row 1 and then select all and create the table checking the 'my table has headers' so that you can then filter using the headers
-
Sorry Lynn but what is the 'windows' bit in control-windows-L since cant see on my keyboard, can it have a different icon/symbol etc?
-
Great stuff thanks Lynn !! Ill tell their dev to do that
many many thanks
All Best
Dan
-
cool cheers Don
-
Hi Dan,
The robots must be getting the urls from somewhere so it is worth finding out where. If you download the moz report in csv and open in excel you can control-windows-L to get a filterable list. If you filter for duplicates and find these urls on the left then on the far right it should reference where they are being linked from. I suspect you will find pages in the site that have these images in them and are linking to the attachment_id urls (often it is from gallery pages).
Once you have found the pages, then try applying the yoast redirects and see if they work as expected (ie redirect the attachment_id links to the relevant gallery page for example). Ideally you would get rid of the links completely from the code - this will probably need a bit of dev work on the template but should be pretty straightforward since you are likely just removing the A tag from around the images.
-
Gotcha, definitely don't want to nix pages then. I would imagine Lynn's response is more appropriate then, it is likely that he is using a plugin that has been updated to better SEO practices that he hasn't yet updated.
-
Many thanks Don
ill ask client but dont think so (doubt any links pointing to them) but due to varying kw rich meta titles and h1's think client may have implemented this for some seo reason (hes very seo savvy but bit old school) prob not aware needs more content on page beyond a pic & some meta & an h1.
On a side note do you think these could be dragging sites rankings down (there are 350 of them) ?
All Best
Dan
-
Thanks Lyn
Yes it is wp i think
If i click on the image it loads page with image (another duplicate) in the series next
I'm not sure what the normal page is since can only find these via the cralw reports, they dont seem to be linked to in any site nav etc
Does that sound to you then like best solution is via Yoast redirects etc ?
On a side note do you think these could be dragging sites rankings down (there are 350 of them) ?
Cheers
Dan
-
Hi Dan,
If these pages have no SEO value then you can just stop them from being crawled, thus preventing any duplicate content penalties. If you see some backlinks (SEO value) to any of these then I would use Canonical.
robots.txt
User-agent:: *
Disallow: /*attachment_id
Hope it helps,
Don
-
Hi Dan,
Is the site running wordpress? If so it sounds like maybe a badly coded template which is showing links somewhere in the code to the attachments (if you click on the image in its normal page does it take you to the duplicate url you mention?). It would be best to find out where the linking is happening and correct it so the links are removed if at all possible. The Yoast plugin also has a setting where you can redirect attachment ids to their related post (its in the permalinks settings of the yoast plugin) - that might help solve the problem.
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
-
No Java, No Content..?
Hello Mozers! 🙂 I have a question for you: I am working on a site and while doing an audit I disabled JavaScript via the Web Developer plugin for Chrome. The result is that instead of seeing the page content, I see the typical “loading circle” but nothing else. I imagine this not a good thing but what does this implies technically from crawler perspective? Thanks
Technical SEO | | Pipistrella0 -
404 or 503 Malware Content ?
Hi Folks When it comes to malware , if I have a site that uses iframe to show content off 3rd party sites which at times gets infected. Would you recommend 404 or 503 ing those pages with the iframe till the issue is resolved ? ( I am inclined to use 503 .. ) Then take the 404/503 off and ask for a reindex ( from GWT malware section ) OR Ask for a reindex as soon as the 404/503 goes up. ( I do understand we are asking to index as non existing page , but the malware warning gets removed ) PS : it makes sense for this business to showcase content using iframe on these special pages . I do understand these are not the best way to go about SEO.
Technical SEO | | Saijo.George0 -
Term for how content or data is structured
There is a term for how data or content is structured and for the life of me I can't figure it out. The following is the best I know of how to explain it: magnolia is of Seattle. Seattle is of Washington. Washington is of the US. US is of North America. North America is of Earth. etc etc etc etc. Any help is much appreciated. I'm trying to use the term to communicate It's application to SEO in that Google analyze how information is structured to understand the breadth and depth of your sites content...
Technical SEO | | BonsaiMediaGroup0 -
An odd duplicate content issue...
Hi all, my developers have just assured me that nothing has changed form last week but in the today's crawl I see all the website duplicated: and the difference on the url is the '/' so basically the duplicated urls are: htts://blabla.bla/crop htts://blabla.bla/crop/ Any help in understanding why is much appreciated. thanks
Technical SEO | | LeadGenerator0 -
Duplicate Content and URL Capitalization
I have multiple URLs that SEOMoz is reporting as duplicate content. The reason is that there are characters in the URL that may, or may not, be capitalized depending on user input. A couple examples are: www.househitz.com/Pennsylvania/Houses-for-sale www.househitz.com/Pennsylvania/houses-for-sale www.househitz.com/Pennsylvania/Houses-for-rent www.househitz.com/Pennsylvania/houses-for-rent There are currently thousands of instances of this on the site. Is this something I should spend effort to try and resolve (may not be minor effort), or should I just ignore it and move on?
Technical SEO | | Jom0 -
Duplicate content issue
Hi everyone, I have an issue determining what type of duplicate content I have. www.example.com/index.php?mact=Calendar,m57663,default,1&m57663return_id=116&m57663detailpage=&m57663year=2011&m57663month=6&m57663day=19&m57663display=list&m57663return_link=1&m57663detail=1&m57663lang=en_GB&m57663returnid=116&page=116 Since I am not an coding expert, to me it looks like it is a URL parameter duplicate content. Is it? At the same time "return_id" would makes me think it is a session id duplicate content. I am confused about how to determine different types of duplicate content, even by reading articles on Seomoz about it: http://www.seomoz.org/learn-seo/duplicate-content. Could someone help me on how to recognize different types of duplicate content? Thank you!
Technical SEO | | Ideas-Money-Art0 -
Where to put content on the page? - technical
The new algo update says any images at the top of the page negatively affect user experience if they are adverts? how does google know if its an advert or relevant banner? When trying to put text as far up as possible on the page, is it ok to make it appear higher in the code but appear further down using css? Or does Google not go from the code top to bottom when working this out, more how it renders? Any advice much appreciated.
Technical SEO | | pauledwards0 -
Duplicate Content Resolution Suggestion?
SEOmoz tools is saying there is duplicate content for: www.mydomain.com www.mydomain.com/index.html What would be the best way to resolve this "error"?
Technical SEO | | PlasticCards0