Pages with near duplicate content
-
Hi Mozzers,
I need your opinion on the following. Imagine that we have a product X (brand Sony for example), so if we sell parts for different models of items of this product X, we then have numerous product pages with model number.
Sony camera
parts for Sony Camera XYZ
parts for Sony Camera XY
etc.
So the thing is that these pages are very very similar, like 90% duplicate and they do duplicate pages for Panasonic, Canon let's say with small tweaks in content. I know that those are duplicates and I would experiment removing a category for one brand only (least seached for), but at the same time I cannot remove for the rest as they convert a lot, being close to the search query of the customer (customer looks for parts for Sony XYZ, lands on the page and buys, insteading of staying on a page for Sony parts where should additionally browse for model number). What would you advise to make as unique as possible these pages, I am thinking about:
-
change page titles. meta descriptions
-
tweak the content as much as I can (very difficult, there is nothing fancy or different in those :(()
-
i will start with top top pages that really drive traffic first and see how it goes. I will remove least visited pages and prominently put the model number in Sony parts page to see how it goes in terms of organic and most importantly conversions
Any other ideas? I am really concerned about dupes and a penalty, but I try to think of solutions in order not to kill conversions at this point.
Have a lovely Monday
-
-
I would disagree that this does no harm. If you are targeting the keyword "Sony" for example, it loses relevancy the more you have it dispersed throughout your site with duplicate content. Matt Cutts has a great video here, http://searchengineland.com/googles-matt-cutts-duplicate-content-wont-hurt-you-unless-it-is-spammy-167459 where he discusses this. If any of those duplicate pages have keywords, you are losing ranking opportunities.
Have you thought about adding a reviews system to those pages? That helped me a lot with all of the parts and accessories I have on my site. I also started putting them on the main pages to build some prioritization. For example:
My Generator Page: Includes the Generator, then displays the accessory and parts pages. I allow my users to add them to the cart from this page in order to focus the traffic in one location. This has helped my main pages and and my accessory pages.
I added reviews to the parts pages and then helpful tidbits of information where I could. Such as maintenance schedules, how to articles and any other topic I could think of that would be helpful to someone looking for those parts and accessories.
-
In multiple conversations with Google's John Mueller we have discussed this matter. There is NO penalty for internal duplicate content, if its unique to your site then you have nothing to worry about, especially if it is there for genuine reasons.
What John suggests is to focus on top level pages and try to cover the main details on those pages creating on great page to capture the traffic and funnel them down to other pages if need be. If that works you could effectively noindex the other pages.
There is nothing wrong with the way you have it if its genuine and serves a purpose and works in Google. It is always good to add more useful content if you can.
If however its dup content from other sites then I would really make sure you have your own unique content to add.
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
-
Does using Yoast variables for meta content overwrite any pages that already have custom meta content?
The question is about the Yoast plugin for WP sites. Let's say I have a site with 200 pages and custom meta descriptions / title tags already in place for the top 30 pages. If I use the Yoast variable tool to complete meta content for the remaining pages (and make my Moz issue tracker look happier), will that only affect the pages without custom meta descriptions or will it overwrite even the pages with the custom meta content that I want? In this situation, I do want to keep the meta content that is already in place on select pages. Thanks! Zack
On-Page Optimization | | rootandbranch0 -
Duplicate Content - Bulk analysis tool?
Hi I wondered if there's a tool to analyse duplicate content - within your own site or on external sites, but that you can upload the URL's you want to check in bulk? I used Copyscape a while ago, but don't remember this having a bulk feature? Thank you!
On-Page Optimization | | BeckyKey0 -
ECommerce Duplicate content on product pages (eg delivery info, contact details etc)
Hi, Running a Magento site and wanted to check about duplicate page content. We have 1000+ product pages and it has been suggested to remove some of the "duplicated content" which displays on every product page and replace this with an image of the same text content. By this I am talking about content which is for promo/customer purposes and is displayed on every page. eg: "If you find our products cheaper elsewhere then please click below to get your price match...... etc", and a chunk of text for the "Delivery Tab Information" and "Contact Tab Information" on each and every product page. A SEO company has suggested to turn this content into images. Does anyone have thoughts on this please?
On-Page Optimization | | Ampweb0 -
Duplicate content because of member only restrictions on a forum.
Our website's Community Forum links to the membership profile pages, which by default are blocked for non-members. https://www.foodbloggerpro.com/community/ https://www.foodbloggerpro.com/community/member/1301/ We're getting warnings in Moz for duplicate content (and errors) on these member profile pages. Any ideas for how we can creatively solve this problem? Should we redirect those pages or just beef them up with more content? Just ignore it and assume that search spiders will be smart enough to figure it out? See attached video for further explanation. Community_Area.mp4
On-Page Optimization | | Bjork0 -
Please review page for on page SEO
I'm working on an adult dating site review blog and am hoping to build links to the category pages. It's a wordpress blog so the posts are categorised by topics. However can you tell me if there is enough content on the page for google to identify what the page is about? The problem is that the content of each category pages is pulled from the posts. What I think is needed is some static text on the page 2-300 words that use the keyword. Here's an example of a page targeting the keywords 'online dating'. http://www.top-10-dating-reviews.com/category/online-dating/
On-Page Optimization | | SamCUK
[editor's note -- thumbnails on site may not be appropriate for some workplaces] Will the page rank like this if there are a good amount of authorative links or does the page itself need work?0 -
Duplicate Page Content Question
This article was published on fastcompany.com on March 19th. http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/164/designing-facebook It did not receive much traffic, so it was re-posted on Co.Design today (March 27th) where it has received significantly more traffic. http://www.fastcodesign.com/1669366/facebook-agrees-the-secret-to-its-future-success-is-design My question is if google will dock us for reprinting/reusing content on another site (even if it is a sister site within the same company). If they do frown on that, is there a proper way to attribute the content to the source material/site (fastcompany.com)?
On-Page Optimization | | DanAsadorian0 -
Duplicate content on area specific sites
I have created some websites for my company Dor-2-Dor and there is a main website where all of the information across the board is on (www.dor2dor.com) but I also have area specific sites which are for our franchisees who run certain areas around the country (www.swansea.dor2dor.com or www.oxford.dor2dor.com) The problem is that the content that is on a lot of the pages is the same on all of them for instance our faq's page, special offers etc. What is the best way to get these pages to rank well and not have the duplicate content issues and be ranked down by search engines? Any help will be greatly received.
On-Page Optimization | | D2DWeb0 -
Duplicate page content & title for www.mydomain.com and www.mydomain.com/index.php?
Hi, First post so please be gentle! My Crawl Diagnostics Summary is showing an error relating to duplicate page content and duplicate page title for www.mydomain.com and www.mydomain.com/index.php which are, in my view, the same thing/page? Could anyone shed any light please? Thanks Carl
On-Page Optimization | | Carl2870