Duplicate content issue on Magento platform
-
We have a lot of duplicate pages (600 urls) on our site (total urls 800) built on the Magento e-commerce platform. We have the same products in a number of different categories that make it easy for people to choose which product suits their needs.
If we enable the canonical fix in Magento will it dramatically reduce the number of pages that are indexed. Surely with more pages indexed (even though they are duplicates) we get more search results visibility.
I'm new to this particular SEO issue. What do the SEO community have to say on this matter. Do we go ahead with the canonical fix or leave it?
-
Thanks Matt for the detailed answer. I appreciate it.
-
I would absolutely recommend canonical in this case, and I'm afraid you're working on a bit of a misconception about indexed pages and the effects of duplicate content.
When a user searches Google, Google tries to serve them the most relevant, useful pages and resources based on their perceived intent. If multiple pages on your site appear to potentially fit the needs of the searcher, then Google is likely to do 1 of 2 things—rank one of the pages (potentially the wrong one), or determine that the appropriate page isn't clear and skip your site entirely. What canonical does is let Google know what you consider the appropriate result.
Having these duplicates is likely to do the opposite of what you're expecting. More pages indexed ≠ greater visibility.
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
-
Database driven content producing false duplicate content errors
How do I stop the Moz crawler from creating false duplicate content errors. I have yet to submit my website to google crawler because I am waiting to fix all my site optimization issues. Example: contactus.aspx?propid=200, contactus.aspx?propid=201.... these are the same pages but with some old url parameters stuck on them. How do I get Moz and Google not to consider these duplicates. I have looked at http://moz.com/learn/seo/duplicate-content with respect to Rel="canonical" and I think I am just confused. Nick
Technical SEO | | nickcargill0 -
Duplicate Page Content but where?
Hi All Moz is telling me I have duplicate page content and sure enough the PA MR mT are all 0 but it doesnt give me a link to this content! This is the page: http://www.orsgroup.com/index.php?page=Scanning-services But I cant find where the duplicate content is other than on our own youtube page which I will get removed here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pnjh9jkAWuA Can anyone help please? Andy
Technical SEO | | ORS-Group0 -
Noticed a lot of duplicate content errors...
how do I fix duplicate content errors on categories and tags? I am trying to get rid of all the duplicate content and I'm really not sure how to. Any suggestions, advice and/or help on this would be greatly appreciated. I did add the canonical url through the SEO Yoast plugin, but I am still seeing errors. I did this on over 200 pages. Thanks for any assistance in advance. Jaime
Technical SEO | | slapshotstudio0 -
Duplicate Title and Content. How to fix?
So this is the biggest error I have. But I don't know how to fix it. I get that I have to make it so that the duplicats redirect to the source, but I don't know how to do that. For example, this is out of our crawl diagnostic: | On The Block - Page 3 http://www.maddenstudents.com/forumdisplay.php?57-On-The-Block/page3 1 1 0 On The Block - Page 3 http://www.maddenstudents.com/forumdisplay.php?57-On-The-Block/page3&s=8d631e0ac09b7a462164132b60433f98 | 1 | 1 | 0 | That's just an example. But I have over 1000+ like that. How would I go about fixing that? Getting rid of the "&s=8d631e0ac09b7a462164132b60433f98"? I have godaddy as my domain and web hoster. Could they be able to fix it?
Technical SEO | | taychatha0 -
Help With Joomla Duplicate Content
Need another set of eyes on my site from someone with Joomla experience. I'm running Joomla 2.5 (latest version) and SEOmoz is giving my duplicate content errors on a lot of my pages. I checked my sitemap, I checked my menus, and I checked my links, and I can't figure out how SEOmoz is finding the alternate paths to my content. Home page is: http://www.vipfishingcharters.com/ There's only one menu at the top. Take the first link "Dania Beach" under fishing charters for example. This generates the SEF url: http://www.vipfishingcharters.com/fishing-charters/broward-county/dania-beach-fishing-charters-and-fishing-boats.html Somehow SEOmoz (and presumably all other robots) are finding duplicate content at: http://www.vipfishingcharters.com/broward-county/dania-beach-fishing-charters-and-fishing-boats.html SEOmoz says the referrer is the homepage/root. The first URL is constructed using the menu aliases. The second one is constructed using the Joomla category and article alias. Where is it getting this and how can I stop it? <colgroup><col width="601"></colgroup>
Technical SEO | | NoahC0 -
See any issues with this tabbed content page?
When I view source, and view as Googlebot it's showing as 1 long page of content = good. However, the developer uses some redirects and dynamic page generation to pull this off. I didn't see any issues from a Search perspective but would appreciate a second opinion: Click here Thanks!
Technical SEO | | 540SEO0 -
Are RSS Feeds deemed duplicate content?
If a website content management system includes built-in feeds of different categories that the client can choose from, does that endanger them of having duplicate content if their categories are the same as another client's feed? These feeds appear on templated home page designs by default. Just trying to figure out how big of an issue these feeds are in terms of duplicate content across clients' sites. Should I be concerned? Obviously, there's other content on the home page besides the feed and have not really seen negative effects, but could it be impacting results?
Technical SEO | | KyleNeuberger0 -
Duplicate Content issue
I have been asked to review an old website to an identify opportunities for increasing search engine traffic. Whilst reviewing the site I came across a strange loop. On each page there is a link to printer friendly version: http://www.websitename.co.uk/index.php?pageid=7&printfriendly=yes That page also has a link to a printer friendly version http://www.websitename.co.uk/index.php?pageid=7&printfriendly=yes&printfriendly=yes and so on and so on....... Some of these pages are being included in Google's index. I appreciate that this can't be a good thing, however, I am not 100% sure as to the extent to which it is a bad thing and the priority that should be given to getting it sorted. Just wandering what views people have on the issues this may cause?
Technical SEO | | CPLDistribution0