Product descriptions, when do they become classed as duplicate content, how different do they have to be?
-
I look after 3 sites which have a lot of crossover on products. We have 1000s of products and I've made it a requirement that we give each it's on description on each of the sites. This sounds like the right thing to but it's very hard for our content writers to write three different versions descriptions, especially when we have variations on the products so potentially writing unique product descriptions for 4-5 very similar products on three separate sites. We've worked very hard to create unique content deep through the site on all categories, subcategories and tag combinations and along with the other SEO work we've done over the last couple of years is producing great results.
My question is now far do we have to go? I'm busy writing some product descriptions for a 3rd party site for some of our products, the easy thing to do is just copy and paste but I want Google to see the descriptions as unique. Whilst all SEO advice will say 'write unique descriptions' from a practical point of view this isn't especially useful as there doesn't really seem to be much guidance on how different they need to be. I gather we can't just move around the paragraphs or jumble up sentences a bit but it is easier to work from a description and change it than it is to start from a blank slate (our products range form being very interesting and unique, to quite everyday so sometimes tough to create varied unique content for).
Does anyone know of any guidance or evidence of just how clever the Google algorithm is and how close content has to be before it becomes classed as the same or similar?
Thanks
Pete
-
Hi Pete,
Andy nails most things so ill just talk about the "how different part".
Google is very good at identifying the structure of a sentence and determining its meaning. To simplify things I always look at it like this
"It is warm" is the same as "It is hot"
changing text like this and hoping its unique is asking for trouble. Instead try to write as if you are a different personality appealing to a different type of person within the context of the site.
Site: 1 Mr technical writes the content for this site. Your all about the technical features, why they outshine the other specifications and why thats good.
Site 2: Mr indulgent writes for this site, he is less concerned with the technical and is all about actually using the product. He talks about the ease of use and how great if feels to use etc.
Site 3: Mr in the middle, he has a descent amount of respect for the technical elements and mentions them, and has a more speculative approach of explaining why this would be good.
These three personalities all talk very differently, use a different pool of words, create these persona's and be them as you write. This will give you the base difference to make identical information very different.
To combat similar products, my approach has been to not try to distinguish them too much but to engage with the similar products and talk about them. For example product A is the same as product B except product B has a special paint on it that makes it look good so it costs more. So product A is all about value, its the cheapest in the range so great value for money, affordable but with all the necessary perks. Product B is luxurious, not only does it have everything product A has but looks dang good and is a real head turner.
This approach allows you include all the important content needed to get the word count up and make it a good page but present in a way that is very different.
-
Anecdotally... when Panda first hit back in 2011, the vast majority of coupon sites fell off the map. We did not. The difference was that while everyone else was scraping product descriptions and titles etc., we were writing everything by hand.
-
Great answer!
-
Hi Pete,
I think it's important to remember that Google doesn't penalise duplicate internal content...
John Mueller - Google
John clearly states “We don’t have a duplicate content penalty. It’s not that we would demote a site for having a lot of duplicate content.” and “You don’t get penalized for having this kind of duplicate content” in which he was talking about very similar pages. John says to “provide… real unique value” on your pages.There is no direct guidance on just how similar 'similar' needs to be before it is picked up as duplicate - if it were all on one site, it would be less of an issue, but as you have these crossovers on 3 sites, this might cause problems.
Try and avoid templated copy with a few changes because this can be seen as 'boilerplate' which Google doesn't like either.
I'll be honest, carrying the same products on different sites is a bit of a dangerous game in most cases, but there are exceptions.
Lets say you have 3 sites that are Football, Cricket & Tennis. One product that might be the same could be socks. If you differentiate here and write about socks for each sport (and each site), then you will be OK, even if it is the same product.
I hope this makes sense?
-Andy
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
-
Similar Content
I'm in the process of launching two new websites (redesign / rebrand) - one website represents the manufacturer while a second website represents the retail side of the manufacturer (same company essentially but two different brands). The sites have co-existed historically without worry of canibalizing the other's traffic, but I want to make sure in this redesign that we're all set. I'm curious if anyone has any recommendations on how to handle two sites with different branding but VERY similar content (product descriptions are essentially the same). I was thinking it could be smart to just no follow the content on the manufacturers site since we're just trying to drive traffic to the consumer-facing retail side mostly anyway but would love to hear from the experts! Thank you.
Content Development | | TheBatesMillStore0 -
Content Syndication Service
Am curious to get the forum's opinion on content syndication services like SYNND . Has anyone tried them or any other content syndication networks. Does the forum have any recommendations for good quality syndication networks that can be used to distribute content to quality sources.
Content Development | | SEO5Team0 -
Should we syndicate content?
Hello Mozzers! Our company (FindMyAccident) is an accident news site. The goal is to roll our reporting out to all 50 states; currently, we operate full-time in 7 states. To date, the largest expenditure is our writing staff. We hire professional
Content Development | | Wayne76
journalists who work with police departments and other sources to develop written
content and video for our site. Our visitors also contribute stories and/or
tips that add to the content on our domain. In short, our content is original. A site that often appears alongside us in the SERPs in the markets where we work full-time is accidentin.com. They are a site that only syndicates accident news and offers little original content. (They also allow users to submit their own accident stories, and the entries index quickly and are sometimes viewed by hundreds of people in the same day. What's perplexing is that these entires are isolated incidents that have little to no media value, yet they do extremely well.) The link profile is virtually non-existent. There are approximately 6 linking domains. I don't rest my bets with Quantcast figures, but accidentin does use their pixel sourcing and the figures indicate that they are receiving up to 80k visitors a day in some instances. Not too shabby for the Flying Dutchman of accident news sites. 🙂 I understand that it's common to see news sites syndicate from the AP, etc., and traffic accident news is not going to have a lot of competition (in most instances), but the real shocker is that accidentin will sometimes appear as the first or second result above the original sources. What the...!? The question: does anyone have a guess as to what is making it perform so well? While looking at their model, I'm wondering if we're not silly to syndicate news in the states where we don't have actual staff? It would seem we could attract more traffic by setting up syndication in our vacant states. Should the Panda updates have any effect on their site? Thanks, gang.... Wayne0 -
Content
I'm curious what people are paying when they outsource content writing. I'm thinking about outsourcing some writing. I'm looking for the best quality content on the web, nothing medicore or average! What do you guys pay?
Content Development | | PeterM220 -
Someone wants to syndicate my content but I'm afraid
I GOT THE FOLLOWING EMAIL: Hi, I visited your site and would like to connect regarding nSphere syndicating your content into our search platform. We are interested in syndicating your content into our network. There’s no cost for this, we ask you to place a module on your site that reads your content and syndicates it into our network of millions of users. You only need to place a simple JavaScript code on your site. I have the code, but I would like to speak or email with you first. This module acts as search tool for your users as well. Can you email me or send me your number and a good day/time to connect? Thank you in advance.
Content Development | | UnderRugSwept
Matthew Mantyla | nSphere
Director of Media Integration I'M AFRAID OF DUPLICATE CONTENT. SHOULD I JUST IGNORE THIS; IS IT SPAM; OR COULD THIS BE AN OPPORTUNITY? I'M THINKING I SHOULD BE SUSPICIOUS OF THE FACT THAT HE DIDN'T EVEN PROVIDE A URL.0 -
Content Writers / Blog Posts
Hi there Would anyone know where i could fund affordable, reliable blog post writers who would be able to produce quality posts at affordable rates? What would the accepted rate be etc? Regards Stef
Content Development | | stefanok0 -
Help with Duplicate Content Issue for pages...
I have pages with duplicate content, i want to put them on hold while i write unique content as i do not want to get marked down for it. I also want to keep the urls and use them again.
Content Development | | pauledwards
There are about 300 pages affected by duplicate content currently. Am i best doing 302 redirects as it is temporary? to the origional source of the content, or canonical tags no index? The pages are currently indexed and cahced by google, i want to use the url in the future for unique content to get it valued by Google. Any advice much appreciated. Kind Regards,0 -
Duplicate Content Penalty
If our pages are to have roughly 30% of non-original textual content, can we be penalized by Google? Or are we OK as long as this non-original content is relevant to the pages?
Content Development | | Quidsi0