Duplicate Content on Product Pages
-
I'm getting a lot of duplicate content errors on my ecommerce site www.outdoormegastore.co.uk mainly centered around product pages.
The products are completely different in terms of the title, meta data, product descriptions and images (with alt tags)but SEOmoz is still identifying them as duplicates and we've noticed a significant drop in google ranking lately.
Admittedly the product descriptions are a little bit thin but I don't understand why the pages would be viewed as duplicates and therefore can be ranked lower? The content is definitely unique too.
As an example these three pages have been identified as being duplicates of each other.
http://www.outdoormegastore.co.uk/regatta-landtrek-25l-rucksack.html
http://www.outdoormegastore.co.uk/canyon-bryce-adult-cycling-helmet-9045.html
http://www.outdoormegastore.co.uk/outwell-minnesota-6-carpet-for-green-07-08-tent.html
-
No, I don't have exact match domain. But, I have added duplicate content on too many product pages since last two week. I believe that, Google have crawled all product pages which contain duplicate content. And, I am getting issue regarding ranking.
-
It maybe the duplicate content, but you say last 3 days?
You don't have a exact match domain do you?
-
Hi!
Actually you are doing well, as creating original product pages is the best option in order to avoid duplicated content issues.
I want to discuss more on this sentence. I am trying to establish user friendly experience on my eCommerce website by adding specific product description from manufacturer website to my website.
But, I am getting issue in ranking since last 3 days. My major keywords Office Chairs, Patio Umbrellas & Table Lamps are going down around -10 position. I have drill down more on it and come to know about this issue.
I have added product description from manufacturer website to my website in these category products. I am 100% sure, Google is giving rank drop due to this issue.
-
Hi!
Actually you are doing well, as creating original product pages is the best option in order to avoid duplicated content issues.
If I was you, I would eventually see how to implement a UGC review option, in order to have product pages becoming even more unique with the pass of time.
About Overstock... sincerely I cannot give you an answer why it doesn't seem as suffering consequences for its duplications. It would be needed a deeper investigation, for which I don't have the time right now.
-
This is very good discussion on duplicate content. Ranking is going down on my website since last 3 days.
I have done drill down with SEO latest update and come to know about duplicate content on product pages.
My website contain true duplicate content on product page. But, I have found duplicate content on competitor website. (overstock)
They are not getting any issue regarding ranking. But, my certain category level page getting issue with ranking. I have added true duplicate in more than 2000 pages from manufacturer website to my website.
I am going to recover it by removing duplicate content or adding unique content on product page. Is there any additional inputs from SEOmoz users?
Competitor website:
My website:
Manufacturer website:
-
Hi Gavin,
Just to clarify, SEOmoz flags your content as duplicate if finds 95% HTML similarity. You can use an online tool to compare pages yourself. I like this one:
http://www.webconfs.com/similar-page-checker.php
Google obviously uses a more sophisticated method than Moz, but it's still a good warning because pages without much unique content - even if they aren't true duplicates - often have a difficult time ranking for their targeted keywords.
-
Good catch!
-
Just body.
You need a product template, this will make it easier. If you visit any major eCommerce website you will see every product has the same layout.
So something like...
Title of product > Short description > spec > FAQ's > etc
This is just an answer to a question on a forum and looks like a 100 or so words right here, you could have a FAQ's section on the products and just make the questions up and answer them.
http://uk.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090904093654AA2XDud
Always ways of creating content just need to have a good think and something will come up.
-
Thanks for the reply..
Would the 300 unique words be spread across just body content or would it include meta words too?
It's going to be difficult describing tent pegs in 300 words or more!
-
Hello
The reason these are coming up as duplicate content is due to the thin content. You need at least 300 unique words on each page to make good content and as you dont have as many words on these pages it is classing as a duplicate.
If you add more to each description then this will change and hopefully your rankings.
Good luck
-
The thin content you do have is on multiple pages on your domain.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
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
-
Should I even do product page schema?
If I have no reviews/ratings on the page itself and special/limited time offers and just a regular product page with a standard price, is there any ability to do product schema with it getting flagged for errors? Google's Structured Markup Testing Tool threw me an error when I test it without any of those: | One of offers or review or aggregateRating should be provided. | And even if it's possible, is there any point?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SearchStan0 -
Certain Product Pages Not Indexing
Hey All, We discovered an issue where new product pages on our site were not getting indexed because a "noindex" tag was inadvertently being added to section when those pages were created. We removed the noindex tag in late April and some of the pages that had not been previously indexed are now showing up, but others are still not getting indexed and I'd appreciate some help on why this could be. Here is an example of a page that was not in the index but is now showing after removal of noindex: http://www.cloud9living.com/san-diego/gaslamp-quarter-food-tour And here is an example of a page that is still not showing in the index: http://www.cloud9living.com/atlanta/race-a-ferrari UPDATE: The above page is now showing after I manually submitted it in WMT. I had previously submitted another page like a month ago and it was still not indexing so I thought the manual submission was a dead end. However, it just so happens that the above URL just had its Page Title and H1 updated to something more specific and less duplicative so I am currently running a test to see if that's the problem with these pages not indexing. Will update this soon. Any suggestions? Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | GManSEO0 -
Duplicate Content Question
Brief question - SEOMOZ is teling me that i have duplicate content on the following two pages http://www.passportsandvisas.com/visas/ and http://www.passportsandvisas.com/visas/index.asp The default page for the /visas/ directory is index.asp - so it effectively the same page - but apparently SEOMOZ and more importantly Google, etc treat these as two different pages. I read about 301 redirects etc, but in this case there aren't two physical HTML pages - so how do I fix this?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | santiago230 -
How to Best Establish Ownership when Content is Duplicated?
A client (Website A) has allowed one of their franchisees to use some of the content from their site on the franchisee site (Website B). This franchisee lifted the content word for word, so - my question is how to best establish that Website A is the original author? Since there is a business relationship between the two sites, I'm thinking of requiring Website B to add a rel=canonical tag to each page using the duplicated content and referencing the original URL on site A. Will that work, or is there a better solution? This content is primarily informational product content (not blog posts or articles), so I'm thinking rel=author may not be appropriate.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Allie_Williams0 -
Duplicate Page Title problems with Product Catalogues (Categories, Subcategories etc.)
Hey guys, I've done a fair bit of Googling and "mozzing" and can't seem to find a definitive solution. In our product catalogue on our site we have multiple ways to access the product for navigation purposes, and SeoMoz is throwing up hundreds of duplicate page title errors which are basically just different ways to get to the same product yet it sees it as a "separate page" and thus duplicating itself. Is this just SeoMoz confusing itself or does Google actually see it this way too? For example, a product might be: www.example.com/region/category/subcategory/ www.example.com/region2/category/subcategory/ www.example.com/region/category/subcategory2/ etc. Is the only solution to have the product ONLY listed in one combination? This kind of kills our ability to have easy refinement for customers browsing the catalogue, i.e: something that falls under the "Gifts for Men" might also be a match for "Father's Day Gifts" or "Gifts for Dad" etc. Any solution or advice is greatly appreciated, cheers 🙂
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ExperienceOz0 -
Duplicate content resulting from js redirect?
I recently created a cname (e.g. m.client-site .com) and added some js (supplied by mobile site vendor to the head which is designed to detect if the user agent is a mobi device or not. This is part of the js: var CurrentUrl = location.href var noredirect = document.location.search; if (noredirect.indexOf("no_redirect=true") < 0){ if ((navigator.userAgent.match(/(iPhone|iPod|BlackBerry|Android.*Mobile|webOS|Window Now... Webmaster Tools is indicating 2 url versions for each page on the site - for example: 1.) /content-page.html 2.) /content-page.html?no_redirect=true and resulting in duplicate page titles and meta descriptions. I am not quite adept enough at either js or htaccess to really grasp what's going on here... so an explanation of why this is occurring and how to deal with it would be appreciated!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SCW0 -
Blog Duplicate Content
Hi, I have a blog, and like most blogs I have various search options (subject matter, author, archive, etc) which produce the same content via different URLs. Should I implement the rel-canonical tag AND the meta robots tag (noindex, follow) on every page of duplicate blog content, or simply choose one or the other? What's best practice? Thanks Mozzers! Luke
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | McTaggart0 -
Nuanced duplicate content problem.
Hi guys, I am working on a recently rebuilt website, which has some duplicate content issues that are more nuanced than usual. I have a plan of action (which I will describe further), so please let me know if it's a valid plan or if I am missing something. Situation: The client is targeting two types of users: business leads (Type A) and potential employees (Type B), so for each of their 22 locations, they have 2 pages - one speaking to Type A and another to Type B. Type A location page contains a description of the location. In terms of importance, Type A location pages are secondary because to the Type A user, locations are not of primary importance. Type B location page contains the same description of the location plus additional lifestyle description. These pages carry more importance, since they are attempting to attract applicants to work in specific places. So I am planning to rank these pages eventually for a combination of Location Name + Keyword. Plan: New content is not an option at this point, so I am planning to set up canonical tags on both location Types and make Type B, the canonical URL, since it carries more importance and more SEO potential. The main nuance is that while Type A and Type B location pages contain some of the same content (about 75%-80%), they are not exactly the same. That is why I am not 100% sure that I should canonicalize them, but still most of the wording on the page is identical, so... Any professional opinion would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | naymark.biz0