E-commerce site product descriptions and duplicate content
-
Hi everyone.
I'm developing an e-commerce site using Prestashop and concerned about the issue of duplicate content among product descriptions. My main concerns are:
-
If there are 500 or more products and those product descriptions are obtained from a manufacturer or supplier's website hence running into external duplicate content issues.
-
Internal duplicate content is also an issue, if there are multiple similar products and each product has the same description across several pages.
What would be the best approach to eliminate the possibility of incurring a duplicate content penalty due to similar product descriptions?
I've already considered the suggestion of noindex-ing the complete range of products to help protect from duplicate content penalties and having unique articles written in the site blog discussing products instead linking to certain products on the site.
Another consideration I had was noindex-ing all product pages except pages for featured products in the store and rewriting descriptions for a set amount of those featured products regularly (this will still have the problem of internal duplicate content across pages if similar product descriptions are rewritten).
The product range is intended to be very large so I'm really seeking an alternative solution from the insane task of rewriting many product descriptions. Any suggestions to make SEO work efficient are very much welcome and appreciated.
Thank you!
-
-
Hi David,
That was one of the options we were considering and keeping the remaining 80% out of the index to ensure we wouldn't be penalised for DC because for I know for a fact in most cases if we use the content provided ny the manufacturer we will be stumped for DC, as every other Joe is using it.
Thanks for your input.
-
Have you considered scaling the task, rewriting perhaps the top 20% of products to begin with?
It is a massive undertaking, but I think you'll find it'll be worth it.
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
-
Duplicate content query
I'm currently reauthoring all of the product pages on our site. Within the redesign of all the pages is a set of "why choose us?" bullet points and "what our customers say" bullet points. On every page these bullet points are the same. We currently have 18% duplicate content sitewide and I'm reluctant to push this. The products are similar but targeted at different professions, so I'm not sure whether to alter the text slightly for the bullet points on each page, remove the bullet points entirely or implement some form of canonicalisation that won't impact the profession-specific pages' ability to rank well.
On-Page Optimization | | EdLongley0 -
Exclude sorting options using nofollow to reduce duplicate content
I'm getting reports of duplicate content for pages that have different sorting options applied, e.g: /trips/dest/africa-and-middle-east/
On-Page Optimization | | benbrowning
/trips/dest/africa-and-middle-east/?sort=title&direction=asc&page=1
/trips/dest/africa-and-middle-east/?sort=title&direction=des&page=1 I have the added complication of having pagination combined with these sorting options. I also don't have the option of a view all page. I'm considering adding rel="nofollow" to the sorting controls so they are just taken out of the equation, then using rel="next" and rel="prev" to handle the pagination as per Google recommendations(using the default sorting options). Has anyone tried this approach, or have an opinion on whether it would work?0 -
Best practices for marking up product pages on eccomerce site (SEO noob)
After analyzing the code on various competitors eccomerce sites I wanted to seek advice on best practices for marking up individual product pages for keywords and descriptions. My competition is all over the map as far as utilizing keywords and descriptions, some have few keywords while others have many and vice versa for descriptions. What is the best method for marking up product pages on an eccomerce site for keywords and descriptions? In addition, is it okay to utilize the same keywords for multiple products that may be under the same category? or is this considered duplicate content? Thanks for the help, if you have any resources for SEO and eccomerce sites I would greatly appreciate the guidance best,Michelle & Blake
On-Page Optimization | | LeapOfBelief0 -
Duplicate Content
Part of a site I am working on, features many different bags in all thicknesses colors and sizes. I'm getting an error when some pages have different content like different thicknesses. The only differences between the pages are a single digit - but in trash bags that makes it a whole different product! I can't do a canonical because it's not the same. For example: http://www.plasticplace.net/index.php?file=productdetail&iprod_id=274 and http://www.plasticplace.net/index.php?file=productdetail&iprod_id=268 Any ideas?
On-Page Optimization | | EcomLkwd0 -
Removing syndicated duplicate content from website - what steps do I need to take to make sure Google knows?
Hey all, So I've made the decision to cancel the service that provides my blog with regular content / posts, since it seems that having duplicate content on my site isn't doing me any favors. So I'm on a Wordpress system - I'll be exporting the posts so I have them for reference, and then deleting the posts. There are like 150 or so - What steps should I take to ensure that Google learns of the changes I've made? Or do I not need to do anything at all in that department? Also - I guess I've assumed that the best decision would be to 'remove' the content from my blog. IS that the best way to go? Or should I leave it in place and start adding unique content? (my guess is that I need to remove it...) Thanks for your help, Kurt
On-Page Optimization | | KurtBullock0 -
Offer landing page, duplicate content and noindex
Hi there I'm setting up a landing page for an exclusive offer that is only available (via a link) to a particular audience. Although I've got some specific content (offer informaiton paragraph), i want to use some of the copy and content from one of my standard product pages to inform the visitors about what it is that i'm trying to sell them. Considering I'm going to include a noindex on this page, do i need to worry about it having some content copied directly from another page on my site? Thanks
On-Page Optimization | | zeegirl0 -
Duplicate content on my domain
I have several pages on my domain that are using the same content except for changing a paragraph or sentence. Do I need to create unique content, even though much of the information pertains to a feature and is related?
On-Page Optimization | | Court_H0 -
Home page duplicated content issue
Hi there! The home page of my site can be seen under www.mysitename.com and www.mysitename.com/EN/ or www.mysitename.com/ES/ (depending on your language). I understand that this is duplicated content because they show the same content under different URLs. To solve this we've done (depending on your language) a 301 redirect from www.mysitename.com to www.mysitename.com/EN/ or www.mysitename.com/ES/ Is this correct? Thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | Xopie0