Duplicate Content Dilemma for Category and Brand Pages
-
Hi,
I have a online shop with categories such as:
- Trousers
- Shirts
- Shoes
- etc.
But now I'm having a problem with further development.
I'd like to introduce brand pages. In this case I would create new categories for Brand 1, Brand 2, etc... The text on categories and brand pages would be unique. But there will be an overlap in products.How do I deal with this from a duplicate content perspective?
I'm appreciate your suggestions.
Best, Robin
-
Wow. I did some research. I stand corrected. Thanks, Linda.
As far as your categories go, you could have:
www.Domain.com/computers/notebooks/apple-notebooks/
and
www.domain.com/apple-products/
On your category pages, I'd suggest adding unique content at the bottom of the category pages. A paragraph above the fold would help for ranking purposes, but may detract from usability and conversions.
-
Thank you for the time you've invested in this answer. This gives me a good sense on what to do.
I like option 2 the best. But not sure whether I got it right. What do you think of the following scenario (taking the Apple example you provided):
- I have a category page with notebooks. The title, description and text on this category is focusing on notebooks in general. The products include Dell, HP and Apple.
=> This is basically the setup, which I have in my shop right now. - Now I want to create a brand page for Apple. There the title, description and text is focused on Apple in general. The products include Apple Notebooks, iPhones, iPads ect.
Now here's the point: Title, description and text for the notebook category and Apple brand page will be different (unique content). But products are part of content too, aren't they? And since there will be a overlap in products, this would result in duplicate content for featured products.
But I want both pages to rank. One for 'notebook' and the other one for 'apple'.
Is that possible, or are partially overlapping products in those 2 categories a dealbreaker for my SEO?
- I have a category page with notebooks. The title, description and text on this category is focusing on notebooks in general. The products include Dell, HP and Apple.
-
According to Moz: "Another option for dealing with duplicate content is to utilize the rel=canonical tag. The rel=canonical tag passes the same amount of link juice (ranking power) as a 301 redirect, and often takes much less development time to implement." http://moz.com/learn/seo/canonicalization
Why do you think it does not pass ranking power?
-
This is a difficult question. I would agree with patrick_g that canonicals are one way to handle duplicate content, but canonicals don't pass link juice to the parent, unless it's through a link.
The canonical tag only tells google which page to index. It does not transfer link juice as does a 301 redirect. Read up on this.
Here are some good choices:
1. if the brands are only for use experience purposes, you could make the pages noindex, follow. This would eliminate the duplicate content issue, and the brands could serve as a link juice hub. They would be kept out of google's index, but would still pass link juice.
2. Create unique content for the brand pages, and give them a title tag and content that differs from the competing page. For example if you already have an "Apple" page, make the new page "Certified Apple Products" (or some other KW).
3. This one requires some programming skill, and is a little controversial. Put the new pages in a parent folder "/hide/" (don't actually use the word "hide"). Put all the new pages in that folder, and disallow the parent folder in robots.txt. Any links on your site to these pages would pass link juice to these pages, which would be lost, and could be a significant link juice drain. Here's the controversial part - put the links to those pages in an iframe, and disallow the iframe folder in robots.txt. This would prevent bots from crawling those links and passing link juice.
-
Hello soralsokal,
I don't have a bunch of products like you, but generally I prefer to use the rel=canocial tag to push the link juice to the one category page I'm trying to get ranked well. So I still build out the various pages I want, but don't expect the duplicate content to be ranked.
I suppose you could also put them in your Robots.txt file to block them from search engines. I've done that with a blog that packed the blog posts in all sort of different categories, thus creating duplicate content.
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
-
Fix Duplicate Content Before Migration?
My client has 2 Wordpress sites (A and B). Each site is 20 pages, with similar site structures, and 12 of the pages on A having nearly 100% duplicate content with their counterpart on B. I am not sure to what extent A and/or B is being penalized for this. In 2 weeks (July 1) the client will execute a rebrand, renaming the business, launching C, and taking down A and B. Individual pages on A and B will be 301 redirected to their counterpart on C. C will have a similar site structure to A and B. I expect the content will be freshened a bit, but may initially be very similar to the content on A and B. I have 3 questions: Given that only 2 weeks remain before the switchover - is there any purpose in resolving the duplicate content between A and B prior to taking them down? Will 301 redirects from penalized pages on A or B actually hurt the ranking of the destination page on C? If a page on C has the same content as its predecessor on A or B, could it be penalized for that, even though the page on A or B has since been taken down and replaced with a 301 redirect?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | futumara0 -
301 from old site to new one , Should I point to home page or sub category page ?
Hey Seo Experts, I have a small website ranking for few terms like cabinets sale, buy etc . However what i have now decided is to launch a New website with more different products like living room furniture, wardrobes etc . Out of all these categories on new website Cabinets is one of the SubCategory . Now I do not want to have 2 websites . So wanted to 301 from small cabinets website to newly created website. Some of the doubts I have at the moment is ? 1 Should I REDIRECT 301 to sub category (i,e cabinets) which is purely related to Cabinets or Do a Redirect to HOME PAGE . As I also need more Authority to home page as well , as this is relatively new website ? 2 Second question related to this. If you have multiple sub domains does it divide the total authority & TF.Or it is just Ok to have multiple Sub domains if needed ? Any advice appreciated !! Thanks .
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | aus00070 -
Best method for blocking a subdomain with duplicated content
Hello Moz Community Hoping somebody can assist. We have a subdomain, used by our CMS, which is being indexed by Google.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | KateWaite
http://www.naturalworldsafaris.com/
https://admin.naturalworldsafaris.com/ The page is the same so we can't add a no-index or no-follow.
I have both set up as separate properties in webmaster tools I understand the best method would be to update the robots.txt with a user disallow for the subdomain - but the robots text is only accessible on the main domain. http://www.naturalworldsafaris.com/robots.txt Will this work if we add the subdomain exclusion to this file? It means it won't be accessible on https://admin.naturalworldsafaris.com/robots.txt (where we can't create a file). Therefore won't be seen within that specific webmaster tools property. I've also asked the developer to add a password protection to the subdomain but this does not look possible. What approach would you recommend?0 -
Reinforcing Rel Canonical? (Fixing Duplicate Content)
Hi Mozzers, We're having trouble with duplicate content between two sites, so we're looking to add some oomph to the rel canonical link elements we put on one of our sites pointing towards the other to help speed up the process and give Google a bigger hint. Would adding a hyperlink on the "copying" website pointing towards the "original" website speed this process up? Would we get in trouble if added about 80,000 links (1 on each product page) with a link to the matching product on the other site? For example, we could use text like "Buy XY product on Other Brand Name and receive 10% off!"
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Travis-W0 -
Duplicate Content on Press Release?
Hi, We recently held a charity night in store. And had a few local celebs turn up etc... We created a press release to send out to various media outlets, within the press release were hyperlinks to our site and links on certain keywords to specific brands on our site. My question is, should we be sending a different press release to each outlet to stop the duplicate content thing, or is sending the same release out to everyone ok? We will be sending approx 20 of these out, some going online and some not. So far had one local paper website, a massive football website and a local magazine site. All pretty much same content and a few pics. Any help, hints or tips on how to go about this if I am going to be sending out to a load of other sites/blogs? Cheers
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | YNWA0 -
Duplicate content from development website
Hi all - I've been trawling for duplicate content and then I stumbled across a development URL, set up by a previous web developer, which nearly mirrors current site (few content and structure changes since then, but otherwise it's all virtually the same). The developer didn't take it down when the site was launched. I'm guessing the best thing to do is tell him to take down the development URL (which is specific to the pizza joint btw, immediately. Is there anything else I should ask him to do? Thanks, Luke
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | McTaggart0 -
Duplicate content issue for franchising business
Hi All We are in the process of adding a franchise model to our exisitng stand alone business and as part of the package given to the franchisee will be a website with conent identical to our existing website apart from some minor details such as contact and address details. This creates a huge duplicate content issue and even if we implement a cannonical approach to this will still be unfair to the franchisee in terms of their markeitng and own SEO efforts. The url for each franchise will be unique but the content will be the same to a large extend. The nature of the service we offer (professional qualificaitons) is such that the "products" can only be described in a certain way and it will be near on in impossible to have a unique set of "product" pages for each franchisee. I hope that some of you have come across a similar problem or that some of you have suggestions or ideas for us to get round this. Kind regards Peter
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | masterpete0 -
Fixing Duplicate Content Errors
SEOMOZ Pro is showing some duplicate content errors and wondered the best way to fix them other than re-writing the content. Should I just remove the pages found or should I set up permanent re-directs through to the home page in case there is any link value or visitors on these duplicate pages? Thanks.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | benners0