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.
-
Thanks grasshopper!
-
No; site B is using Spry, a now defunct Adobe framework: http://blogs.adobe.com/dreamweaver/2012/08/update-on-adobe-spry-framework-availability.html
Site A uses ExpressionEngine.
-
Hi Allie,
You're absolutely on the right track. Cross-domain canonicalization was created to deal with situations exactly like the one you're describing. I've used it many times, and it works great.
http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2009/12/handling-legitimate-cross-domain.html
-
Im pretty sure you can trackback to the original.. Are you using wordpress?
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
-
Possible duplicate content issues on same page with urls to multiple tabs?
Hello everyone! I'm first time here, and glad to be part of Moz community! Jumping right into the question I have. For a type of pages we have on our website, there are multiple tabs on each page. To give an example, let's say a page is for the information about a place called "Ladakh". Now the various urls that the page is accessible from, can take the form of: mywanderlust.in/place/ladakh/ mywanderlust.in/place/ladakh/photos/ mywanderlust.in/place/ladakh/places-to-visit/ and so on. To keep the UX smooth when the user switches from one tab to another, we load everything in advance with AJAX but it remains hidden till the user switches to the required tab. Now since the content is actually there in the html, does Google count it as duplicate content? I'm afraid this might be the case as when I Google for a text that's visible only on one of the tabs, I still see all tabs in Google results. I also see internal links on GSC to say a page mywanderlust.in/questions which is only supposed to be linked from one tab, but GSC telling internal links to this page (mywanderlust.in/questions) from all those 3 tabs. Also, Moz Pro crawl reports informed me about duplicate content issues, although surprisingly it says the issue exists only on a small fraction of our indexable pages. Is it hurting our SEO? Any suggestions on how we could handle the url structure better to make it optimal for indexing. FWIW, we're using a fully responsive design with the displayed content being exactly same for both desktop and mobile web. Thanks a ton in advance!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | atulgoyal0 -
Same site serving multiple countries and duplicated content
Hello! Though I browse MoZ resources every day, I've decided to directly ask you a question despite the numerous questions (and answers!) about this topic as there are few specific variants each time: I've a site serving content (and products) to different countries built using subfolders (1 subfolder per country). Basically, it looks like this:
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | GhillC
site.com/us/
site.com/gb/
site.com/fr/
site.com/it/
etc. The first problem was fairly easy to solve:
Avoid duplicated content issues across the board considering that both the ecommerce part of the site and the blog bit are being replicated for each subfolders in their own language. Correct me if I'm wrong but using our copywriters to translate the content and adding the right hreflang tags should do. But then comes the second problem: how to deal with duplicated content when it's written in the same language? E.g. /us/, /gb/, /au/ and so on.
Given the following requirements/constraints, I can't see any positive resolution to this issue:
1. Need for such structure to be maintained (it's not possible to consolidate same language within one single subfolders for example),
2. Articles from one subfolder to another can't be canonicalized as it would mess up with our internal tracking tools,
3. The amount of content being published prevents us to get bespoke content for each region of the world with the same spoken language. Given those constraints, I can't see a way to solve that out and it seems that I'm cursed to live with those duplicated content red flags right up my nose.
Am I right or can you think about anything to sort that out? Many thanks,
Ghill0 -
About duplicate content
We have to products: - loan for a new car
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | KBC
- load for a second hand car Except for title tag, meta desc and H1, the content is of course very similmar. Are these pages considered as duplicate content? https://new.kbc.be/product/lenen/voertuig/autolening-tweedehands-auto.html
https://new.kbc.be/product/lenen/voertuig/autolening-nieuwe-auto.html thanks for the advice,0 -
SEO effect of content duplication across hub of sites
Hello, I have a question about a website I have been asked to work on. It is for a real estate company which is part of a larger company. Along with several other (rival) companies it has a website of property listings which receives a feed of properties from a central hub site - so lots of potential for page, title and meta content duplication (if if isn't already occuring) across the whole network of sites. In early investigation I don't see any of these sites ranking very well at all in Google for expected search phrases. Before I start working on things that might improve their rankings, I wanted to ask some questions from you guys: 1. How would such duplication (if it is occuring) effect the SEO rankings of such sites individually, or the whole network/hub collectively? 2. Is it possible to tell if such a site has been "burnt" for SEO purposes, especially if or from any duplication? 3. If such a site or the network has been totally burnt, are there any approaches or remedies that can be made to improve the site's SEO rankings significantly, or is the only/best option to start again from scratch with a brand new site, ensuring the use of new meta descriptions and unique content? Thanks in advance, Graham
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | gmwhite9991 -
Implications of posting duplicate blog content on external domains?
I've had a few questions around the blog content on our site. Some of our vendors and partners have expressed interest in posting some of that content on their domains. What are the implications if we were to post copies of our blog posts on other domains? Should this be avoided or are there circumstances that this type of program would make sense?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Visier1 -
Duplicate Content: Organic vs Local SEO
Does Google treat them differently? I found something interesting just now and decided to post it up http://www.daviddischler.com/is-duplicate-content-treated-differently-when-local-seo-comes-into-play/
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | daviddischler0 -
Canonical Not Fixing Duplicate Content
I added a canonical tag to the home page last month, but I am still showing duplicate content for the home page. Here is the tag I added: What am I missing? Duplicate-Content.jpg
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | InnoInsulation0 -
Login Page = Duplicate content?
I am having a problem with duplicate content with my log in page QuickLearn Online Anytime - Log-in
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | QuickLearnTraining
http://www.quicklearn.com/maven/login.aspx
QuickLearn Online Anytime - Log-in
http://www.quicklearn.com/maven/login.aspx?ReturnUrl=/maven/purchase.aspx?id=BAM-SP
QuickLearn Online Anytime - Log-in
http://www.quicklearn.com/maven/login.aspx?ReturnUrl=/maven/purchase.aspx?id=BRE-SP
QuickLearn Online Anytime - Log-in
http://www.quicklearn.com/maven/login.aspx?ReturnUrl=/maven/purchase.aspx?id=BTAF
QuickLearn Online Anytime - Log-in
http://www.quicklearn.com/maven/login.aspx?ReturnUrl=/maven/purchase.aspx?id=BTDF What is the best way to handle it? Add a couple sentences to each page to make it unique? Use a rel canonical, or a no index no follow or something completely different? Your help is greatly appreciated!0