What is the best practice to handle duplicate content?
-
I have several large sections that SEOMOZ is indicating has duplicate content, even though the content is not identical. For example:
Leather Passport Section
- Leather Passports - Black
- Leather Passposts - Blue
- Leather Passports - Tan
- Etc.
Each of the items has good content, but it is identical, since they are the same products. What is the best practice here:
1. Have only one product with a drop down (fear is that this is not best for the customer)
2. Make up content to have them sound different?
3. Put a do-no-follow on the passport section?
4. Use a rel canonical even though the sections are technically not identical?
Thanks!
-
Thanks. I was afraid this might be the best way to do it Unfortunately, I have quite a few categories like this - trophies, medals, etc. that are the same, except for size and / or color.
-
If you have the resources to implement it I would personally go with #2 - it gives you the opportunity to get some long tail traffic in from the colour variables. Obviously don't make the products 'sound different' from each other, just explain the product another way.
If the products are separate for a reason which is beneficial to the customer (as you suggest) and you can write good enough content for each then this would certainly be the way to go.
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 Mystery
Hi Moz community! I have an ongoing duplicate mystery going on here and I'm hoping someone here can answer my question. We have an Ecommerce site that has a variety of product pages and category pages. There are Rel canonicals in place, along with parameters in GWT, and there are also URL rewrites. Here are some scenarios, maybe you can give insight as to what’s exactly going on and how to fix it. All the duplicates look to be coming from category pages specifically. For example:
Technical SEO | | Ecom-Team-Access
This link re-writes: http://www.incipio.com/cases/tablet-cases/amazon-kindle-cases-sleeves.html?cat=407&color=152&price=20- To: http://www.incipio.com/cases/tablet-cases/amazon-kindle-cases-sleeves.html The rel canonical tag looks like this: http://www.incipio.com/cases/tablet-cases/amazon-kindle-cases-sleeves.html" /> The CONTENT is different, but the URLs are the same. It thinks that the product category view is the same as the all products view, even though there is a canonical in there telling it which one is the original. Some of them don’t have anything to do with each other. Take a look: Link identified as duplicate: http://www.incipio.com/cases/smartphone-cases/htc-smartphone-cases/htc-windows-phone-8x-cases.html?color=27&price=20- Link this is a duplicate of: http://www.incipio.com/cases/macbook-cases/macbook-pro-13in-cases.html Any idea as to what could be happening here?0 -
Joomla: content accesible through all kinds of other links >> duplicate content?!
When i did a site: search on Google i've noticed all kind of URL's on my site were indexed, while i didn't add them to the Joomla navigation (or they were not linked anywhere on the site). Some examples: www.domain.com/1-articlename >> that way ALL articles are publicly visible, even if they are not linked to a menu-item... If by accident such a link get's shared it will be indexed in google, you can have 2 links with same content... www.domain.com/2-uncategorised >> same with categories, automatically these overview pages are visible to people who know this URL. On it you see all the articles that belong to that category. www.domain.com/component/content >> this gives an overview of all the categories inside your Joomla CMS I think most will agree this is not good for your site's SEO? But how can this be solved? Is this some kind of setting within Joomla? Anyone who dealt with these problems already?
Technical SEO | | conversal0 -
Uservoice and Duplicate Page Content
Hello All, I'm having an issue where the my UserVoice account is creating duplicate page content (image attached). Any ideas on how to resolve the problem? A couple solutions we're looking into: moving the uservoice content inside the app, so it won't get crawled, but that's all we got for now. Thank you very much for your time any insight would be helpful. Sincerely,
Technical SEO | | JonnyBird1
Jon Birdsong SalesLoft duplicate duplicate0 -
Duplicate Content based on www.www
In trying to knock down the most common errors on our site, we've noticed we do have an issue with dupicate content; however, most of the duplicate content errors are due to our site being indexed with www.www and not just www. I am perplexed as to how this is happening. Searching through IIS, I see nothing that would be causing this, and we have no hostname records setup that are www.www. Does anyone know of any other things that may cause this and how we can go about remedying it?
Technical SEO | | CredA0 -
Does turning website content into PDFs for document sharing sites cause duplicate content?
Website content is 9 tutorials published to unique urls with a contents page linking to each lesson. If I make a PDF version for distribution of document sharing websites, will it create a duplicate content issue? The objective is to get a half decent link, traffic to supplementary opt-in downloads.
Technical SEO | | designquotes0 -
I'm getting a Duplicate Content error in my Pro Dashboard for 2 versions of my Homepage. What is the best way to handle this issue?
Hi SEOMoz,I am trying to fix the final issues in my site crawl. One that confuses me is this canonical homepage URL fix. It says I have duplicate content on the following pages:http://www.accupos.com/http://www.accupos.com/index.phpWhat would be the best way to fix this problem? (...the first URL has a higher page authority by 10 points and 100+ more inbound links).Respectfully Yours,Derek M.
Technical SEO | | DerekM880 -
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 -
Duplicate content connundrum
Hey Mozzers- I have a tricky situation with one of my clients. They're a reputable organization and have been mentioned in several major news articles. They want to create a Press page on their site with links to each article, but they want viewers to remain within the site and not be redirected to the press sites themselves. The other issue is some of the articles have been removed from the original press sites where they were first posted. I want to avoid duplicate content issues, but I don't see how to repost the articles within the client's site. I figure I have 3 options: 1. create PDFs (w/SEO-friendly URLs) with the articles embedded in them that open in a new window. 2. Post an image with screenshot of article on a unique URL w/brief content. 3. Copy and paste the article to a unique URL. If anyone has experience with this issue or any suggestions, I would greatly appreciate it. Jaime Brown
Technical SEO | | JamesBSEO0