Glossary index and individual pages create duplicate content. How much might this hurt me?
-
I've got a glossary on my site with an index page for each letter of the alphabet that has a definition. So the M section lists every definition (the whole definition).
But each definition also has its own individual page (and we link to those pages internally so the user doesn't have to hunt down the entire M page).
So I definitely have duplicate content ... 112 instances (112 terms). Maybe it's not so bad because each definition is just a short paragraph(?)
How much does this hurt my potential ranking for each definition? How much does it hurt my site overall?
Am I better off making the individual pages no-index? or canonicalizing them?
-
Thanks, Ryan!
-
From here: http://moz.com/messages/write to Dirk's username: DC1611. There used to be a button in profiles, but it looks like it got shuffled in the redesign.
-
PM? Does Moz offer that function?
-
It's a bit difficult to assess which of the pages is more important without knowing the site. Having a lot of content is good - but if the only link between the content is that they all start with the same letter it could be pretty weak or pretty strong depending on the situation:
I'll give 2 examples :
Suppose that the index is on First names starting with S - in this case this page is a valuable one because a lot of people are searching for it - and the search volume is potentially bigger than the number of people that are looking for first name steve (= one specific item)
Suppose the index is about Illnesses starting with S - in this case the index page has very little value for a searcher, because people are searching illnesses based the symptoms -the fact that illnesses start with S doesn't link them together.
It could be helpful if you send me the actual url's via PM if you don't want to disclose them here.
rgds
Dirk
-
Oops. Sorry. Poor wording there. Meant to say ...
Definitely not concerned that the M index page and the M* definition** page BOTH show up in the search results.
We definitely do want at least one of the pages to not only show up in the rankings, but to rank highly. I'm guessing the M index page would actually have a chance of ranking high because it will have so many long tails related to our short-tail.
But it would seem weird to put a no-index on the M* definition** page ... since we have multiple internal links to those pages.
Thanks again for your patience. Really appreciate the feedback.
Steve
-
That's exactly what I am saying - your index page with all the definitions is from Google perspective completely different from the detailed definition page (the first one being much richer in content than the 2nd one). If getting these pages ranked is the least of concerns - you can keep it as it is. If you want to play on the safe side, you can put a noindex on the index page.
rgds,
Dirk
-
Just having a bit of a dilemma. Trying to make it easier for people who come to the glossary and then go to ... say ... the M page. Don't have to keep clicking away to see the definitions. Result: More user-friendly
But we also want to have a very specific definition page so that when we link from an article to the definition, the user doesn't have to see all of the M definitions. Result: More user-friendly.
Definitely not concerned that both the M index page and the M* definition** page show up in the search results. That would actually be swell. Just more concerned that our overall site ranking or domain authority will somehow suffer.
If you're saying that the M index page and the M* page** are dramatically different (because the M index page is much, much longer) and so I shouldn't worry, that's great. (Hope that's what you're saying.)
Thanks!
-
Hi,
As far as I understand it's not really a question of duplicate content in the SEO meaning. Although all the definitions starting with M are on the M-index page this page is quite different to the pages that contain the individual definitions of the terms that start with M.
A problem on many sites is that the pages that only contain the explanation of one term are very light in terms of content, and that the page with is listing all these terms is generally not very interesting from a user (and search perspective). I don't know your site, so difficult to assess if this is the case
You could make the index page noindex/follow - and just list the terms, linking to the explanation pages. For the explanation pages which are probably the most interesting for users & search engines: try to enrich them by adding more content, like links to articles on your site that use the term, or have more information on the term
Hope this helps,
Dirk
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
-
I still see the old page in index
Hello, I have done a redirect and still see in google index my old page after 3 weeks. My new page is there also Is it normal that the old page isn't dropped for the index yet ? Thank you,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seoanalytics0 -
Duplicate page content on numerical blog pages?
Hello everyone, I'm still relatively new at SEO and am still trying my best to learn. However, I have this persistent issue. My site is on WordPress and all of my blog pages e.g page one, page two etc are all coming up as duplicate content. Here are some URL examples of what I mean: http://3mil.co.uk/insights-web-design-blog/page/3/ http://3mil.co.uk/insights-web-design-blog/page/4/ Does anyone have any ideas? I have already no indexed categories and tags so it is not them. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | 3mil0 -
Links from non-indexed pages
Whilst looking for link opportunities, I have noticed that the website has a few profiles from suppliers or accredited organisations. However, a search form is required to access these pages and when I type cache:"webpage.com" the page is showing up as non-indexed. These are good websites, not spammy directory sites, but is it worth trying to get Google to index the pages? If so, what is the best method to use?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | maxweb0 -
Is legacy duplicate content an issue?
I am looking for some proof, or at least evidence to whether or not sites are being hurt by duplicate content. The situation is, that there were 4 content rich newspaper/magazine style sites that were basically just reskins of each other. [ a tactic used under a previous regime 😉 ] The least busy of the sites has since been discontinued & 301d to one of the others, but the traffic was so low on the discontinued site as to be lost in noise, so it is unclear if that was any benefit. Now for the last ~2 years all the sites have had unique content going up, but there are still the archives of articles that are on all 3 remaining sites, now I would like to know whether to redirect, remove or rewrite the content, but it is a big decision - the number of duplicate articles? 263,114 ! Is there a chance this is hurting one or more of the sites? Is there anyway to prove it, short of actually doing the work?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Fammy0 -
Getting Pages Requiring Login Indexed
Somehow certain newspapers' webpages show up in the index but require login. My client has a whole section of the site that requires a login (registration is free), and we'd love to get that content indexed. The developer offered to remove the login requirement for specific user agents (eg Googlebot, et al.). I am afraid this might get us penalized. Any insight?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | TheEspresseo0 -
Need help with duplicate content. Same content; different locations.
We have 2 sites that will have duplicate content (e.g., one company that sells the same products under two different brand names for legal reasons). The two companies are in different geographical areas, but the client will put the same content on each page because they're the same product. What is the best way to handle this? Thanks a lot.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Rocket.Fuel0 -
Will pages irrelevant to a site's core content dilute SEO value of core pages?
We have a website with around 40 product pages. We also have around 300 pages with individual ingredients used for the products and on top of that we have some 400 pages of individual retailers which stock the products. Ingredient pages have same basic short info about the ingredients and the retail pages just have the retailer name, adress and content details. Question is, should I add noindex to all the ingredient and or retailer pages so that the focus is entirely on the product pages? Thanks for you help!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ArchMedia0 -
SEOMoz mistaking image pages as duplicate content
I'm getting duplicate content errors, but it's for pages with high-res images on them. Each page has a different, high-res image on it. But SEOMoz keeps telling me it's duplicate content, even though the images are different (and named different). Is this something I can ignore or will Google see it the same way too?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JHT0