Duplicate content question...
-
I have a high duplicate content issue on my website. However, I'm not sure how to handle or fix this issue. I have 2 different URLs landing to the same page content. http://www.myfitstation.com/tag/vegan/ and http://www.myfitstation.com/tag/raw-food/ .In this situation, I cannot redirect one URL to the other since in the future I will probably be adding additional posts to either the "vegan" tag or the "raw food tag". What is the solution in this case?
Thank you
-
Thank you SO much for your helpful tips and advice!
-
I think Chris had it right in the first response. Use canonical tags on any duplicate content posts pointing to the one version you want to be the canonical version (so the canonical tag on both version needs to have the same canonical URL). You don't have to use canonical tags on the unique pages, but you can if you want to. Just set the canonical URL to the URL of that post.
The tags pages themselves don't matter. Don't worry about them. They won't cause you any issues. It's the posts you need to be thinking about. You also don't need to de-index anything. The canonical tags on the post pages will fix the issue and you don't have to do anything about the tags page.
-
Tag archives shouldn't be canonicalized because the hope is that you would be adding more content to both over time that would negate the relevancy of the canonical. Most people seem to NoIndex their tag archives... which is a fine solution considering Tag Archives have negligible benefits in Search. You could keep them indexed if you would prefer and the duplicate content issue will be solved once you add more content to each. Also, keep in mind that Matt Cutts, in a recent video, said that duplicate content will not penalize you if it is non-spammy... it just won't rank well (or at all) while duplicate.
-
Hi,
Since you are planning on adding other articles to each tag I don't think canonical is the best way to go since they are not (or are not going to be) true duplicate content. The main problem is the use of tags which usually produce pages with content which is available elsewhere on the site and as such do not have anything really unique about them (except for the tag). No-indexing is one solution, check out these discussions for more details and some related links.
http://moz.com/community/q/dupe-content-canonicalize-the-wordpress-tag-or-noindex http://moz.com/community/q/noindex-tags-in-wordpress
-
Even better, just no-index your tag pages.
Depending on what CMS your using (wordpress?) it wont be easy implementing a rel=canonical tag on a tag page
Its general practice to no-index category and tag pages to avoid duplicate issues.
-
Hello,
rel=canonical will fix this - https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/139394?hl=en
What it does is tell Google "this page is a duplicate" then Google will only index one page. So in the head you would put the tag pointing to the page you want ranked.
Matt Cutts has said “I wouldn’t stress about this unless the content that you have duplicated is spammy or keyword stuffing.”
So once you've done the canonical I wouldn't stress a great deal about the duplicate content (though I still recommend implementing the rel=canonical tag when possible)
Hope that helps a bit.
Good luck!
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 w/ same URLs
I am getting high priority issues for our privacy & terms pages that have the same URL. Why would this show up as duplicate content? Thanks!
Technical SEO | | RanvirGujral0 -
Why are these two URLs showing in Moz as duplicate content?
Here is the first URL - http://www.flagandbanner.com/Products/FBPP0000012376.asp Here is the 2nd URL - http://www.flagandbanner.com/Products/flag-spreader.asp Granted I am new to this issue on this website, but what is Roger seeing that I'm not? A lot of our duplicate pages are just like this example.
Technical SEO | | Flaglady0 -
Duplicate Content in Dot Net Nuke
Our site is built on Dot Net Nuke. SEOmoz shows a very large amount of duplicate content because at the beginning each page got an extension in the following format: www.domain.com/tabid/110/Default.aspx The site additionally exists without the tabid... part. Our web developer says an easy fix with a canonical tag or 301 redirect is not possible. Does anyone have DNN experience and can point us in the right direction? Thanks, Ricarda
Technical SEO | | jsillay0 -
Duplicate Content of Reseller Product?
There is a particular product/service that I resell through an API. There are quite a few of them and each one requires a lot of content. The company provides web content for each product but I'm wondering about the SEO implications of using it? Obviously using the content, it will not be unique so I won't be able to rank (easily at least) for these products. Are there any _negative_results that I can get from using this content though? If I simply won't rank for those products it's not an issue since I get traffic elsewhere. Thanks!
Technical SEO | | reliabox0 -
Duplicate page content
Hello, The pro dashboard crawler bot thing that you get here reports the mydomain.com and mydomain.com/index.htm as duplicate pages. Is this a problem? If so how do I fix it? Thanks Ian
Technical SEO | | jwdl0 -
Duplicate Content Errror
I am getting a duplicate content error for urls for the "tags" or categories pages for my blog. These are some the URLs that SEOmoz is saying are errors, or duplicate pages. http://sacmarketingagency.com/blog/?Tag=Facebook http://sacmarketingagency.com/blog/?Tag=content+marketing http://sacmarketingagency.com/blog/?Tag=inbound+marketing As you can see, they are just the pages that are aggregating certain blog post based on how we tagged them with the appropriate category. Is this really a problem for our SEO, if so any suggestions on how to fix this?
Technical SEO | | TalkingSheep0 -
Business/Personal Blog Duplicate Content
Quick Question. I am in the process of launching a new website for my IT business which will include a blog. I also want to start up my personal blog again. I want to publish some blog posts to both my business and personal blogs but I don't want to have any duplicate content issues. I am not concerned with building the SERPs of my personal blog but I am very focused on the business blog/site. I am looking for some ideas of how I can publish content to both sites without getting hurt by duplicate content. Again, I am not concerned with building up the placement of my personal site but I do want to have a strong personal site that helps build my name. Any help on this would be great. Thanks!
Technical SEO | | ZiaTG0 -
I am Posting an article on my site and another site has asked to use the same article - Is this a duplicate content issue with google if i am the creator of the content and will it penalize our sites - or one more than the other??
I operate an ecommerce site for outdoor gear and was invited to guest post on a popular blog (not my site) for a trip i had been on. I wrote the aritcle for them and i also will post this same article on my website. Is this a dup content problem with google? and or the other site? Any Help. Also if i wanted to post this same article to 1 or 2 other blogs as long as they link back to me as the author of the article
Technical SEO | | isle_surf0