Duplicate content, although page has "noindex"
-
Hello,
I had an issue with some pages being listed as duplicate content in my weekly Moz report. I've since discussed it with my web dev team and we decided to stop the pages from being crawled. The web dev team added this coding to the pages <meta name='robots' content='max-image-preview:large, noindex dofollow' />, but the Moz report is still reporting the pages as duplicate content.
Note from the developer "So as far as I can see we've added robots to prevent the issue but maybe there is some subtle change that's needed here. You could check in Google Search Console to see how its seeing this content or you could ask Moz why they are still reporting this and see if we've missed something?"
Any help much appreciated!
-
@rj_dale have you added a rel=canonical tag to the page to make sure you're marking to Google the correct version of the page? Even if it doesn't have a duplicate page, add a self-referencing canonical tag and if you need any more help - speak to a freelance seo consultant.
-
Based on your description, it appears as though the page is already indexed in the search engine. This is being picked up by the Moz tool and being reported as duplicate content.
What you can try to do is - for the page that is flagged by the Moz tool as duplicate enter it in Google as the following
site:example.com/moz-flagged-duplicate-url
This will show if the page is already indexed.
If the page is indexed, I would recommend you to:
a) Review the two or more similar URLs flagged as duplicates and see if they are actual duplicates or a tool-based error. If it is a tool based error you can ignore the issue. If you think the pages are actual duplicates you can evaluate pages in terms of backlinks or incoming traffic and choose the preferred page version that should be indexed in search engines. Place a canonical tag of the preferred page version on all the pages flagged as duplicate.
b) Please remove the noindex tag. This is not the right technique to handle duplicate content for SEO results.
c) You would have to wait for Google to crawl and update results. You can promote your new page on social media, email marketing campaigns, or build backlinks to the page. With time search engines will pick up these changes and updates its indexed results.
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
-
Unsolved What should I do with WordPress Blog homepage
Hi, I have a large WordPress blog with thousands of posts. By default, the blog homepage contains the excerpt of each posts. As there are so many posts, the homepage is paginated(Totally 1341 pages) I use siteliner to check and find a lot of duplicate contents on the blog homepage. So, what should I do with it? Should I noindex the homepage and all the paginated pages accordingly? Thank you
On-Page Optimization | | ccw0 -
Unsolved Duplicate Contents in Order Pages of Multiple Products
Hi, I have a website containing 30 software products. Each product has an order page. The problem is that the layout and content of these 30 order pages are very similar, except for the product name, for example: https://www.datanumen.com/access-repair-order/
On-Page Optimization | | ccw
https://www.datanumen.com/outlook-repair-order/
https://www.datanumen.com/word-repair-order/ Siteliner has reports these pages as duplicate contents. I am thinking of noindex these pages. However, in such a case, if a user search for "DataNumen Outlook Repair order page", then he will not be able to see the order page of our product, which drives the revenue go away. So, how to deal with such a case? Thank you.1 -
Is it Ok to have multiple domains (separate website different content) rank for similar keywords?
Is it 'OK' to have multiple domains in the following instance? Does Google actively discourage multiple (but completely different sites) domains from the same company appearing in the search results for the same and or similar keywords if the content is slightly different? This is where the 'main site' has the details, and you can purchase product, and the second site is a blog site only. We are creating a separate content blogsite; which would be on a second domain that will be related to one portion of content on main site. They would be linking back and forth, or maybe the blog site would just link over to the main site so they can purchase said product. This would be a similar scenario to give you an idea of how it would be structured: MAIN SITE: describes a few products, and you can purchase from this site SECOND SITE, different domain: a blog site that contains personal experiences with one of the products. BOTH sites will be linked back and forth....or as mentioned maybe the blog site could just link over to the 'main site' Logo would be a modified version of the main logo and look and feel of the sight would be similar but not exactly the same. MORE INFO: the main site has existed for way over 10 years, starting to gain some traction in an extremely competitive market, but does not rank super high, is gaining traction due to improvements in speed, content, onpage SEO, etc... So in addition to my main question of is this 'ok' to have this second domain, also will it hurt the rankings or negatively affect the 'main' site? Wondering about duplicate content issues, except it will be slightly different...
SEO Tactics | | fourwhitesocks0 -
How to stop /tag creating duplicate content - Wordpress
Hi, I keep getting alert for duplicate content. It seems Wordpress is creating it through a /tag https://www.curveball-media.co.uk/tag/cipr/ https://www.curveball-media.co.uk/tag/pr-agencies/ Something in the way we've got Wordpress set up?
Technical SEO | | curveballmedia0 -
Plagiarized Site Effecting Google Rankings
Can someone provides insights on a de-indexing example? I have gone through the depths of Google lack of support and requesting duplicate content flags, so no avail. Here's the scenario: Client had a competing SEO provider try to earn his business. In doing so, he copied word for word our blog that we have been producing content on over the last 5 years. He also integrated Google reviews in the structured data on this new URL. Well, fast forward 1-2 months later, our rankings started to drop. We found this 100% plagiarized site is taking away from our keyword rankings on GMB, and is no and Google search, and our site GMB is now only displaying on a branded name search as well as our search traffic has dropped. I have identified the plagiarized, duplicated content, being tied to our GMB as well, as the source of the problem. Well, I finally obtain ed control of the plagarized domain and shut down the hosted, and forwarded the URL to our URL. Well, Google still has the HTTS version of the site indexed. And it is in my professional opinion, that since the site is still indexed and is associated with the physician GMB that was ranking for our target keyword and no longer does, that this is the barrier to ranking again. Since its the HTTPS version, it is not forwarded to our domain. Its a 504 error but is still ranking in the google index. The hosting and SSL was canceled circa December 10th. I have been waiting for Google to de-index this site, therefore allowing our primary site to climb the rankings and GMB rankings once again. But it has been 6 weeks and Google is still indexing this spam site. I am incredibly frustrated with google support (as a google partner) and disappointed that this spam site is still indexed. Again, my conclusion that when this SPAM site is de-indexed, we will return back to #1. But when? and at this point, ever? Highlighted below is the spam site. Any suggestions? Capture.PNG
SEO Tactics | | WebMarkets0 -
How to prevent duplicate content at a calendar page
Hi, I've a calender page which changes every day. The main url is
Technical SEO | | GeorgFranz
/calendar For every day, there is another url: /calendar/2012/09/12
/calendar/2012/09/13
/calendar/2012/09/14 So, if the 13th september arrives, the content of the page
/calendar/2012/09/13
will be shown at
/calendar So, it's duplicate content. What to do in this situation? a) Redirect from /calendar to /calendar/2012/09/13 with 301? (but the redirect changes the day after to /calendar/2012/09/14) b) Redirect from /calendar to /calendar/2012/09/13 with 302 (but I will loose the link juice of /calendar?) c) Add a canonical tag at /calendar (which leads to /calendar/2012/09/13) - but I will loose the power of /calendar (?) - and it will change every day... Any ideas or other suggestions? Best wishes, Georg.0 -
How important is meta content="" name="title"?
How much meta content="" name="title" impacts rankings? I have right now:
Technical SEO | | tonis
<title>Keyword</title> So my question is, that does this Keyword 2, so called meta title have any impact on rankings?0 -
What should i do with the links for "Login", "Register", "My Trolley" links on every page.
My website ommrudraksha has 3 links on every page. 1. Login 2. Register 3. My trolley My doubt is i do not want to give any weightage to these links. does these links will be calculated when page links are calculated ? Should i remove these as links and place these as buttons ? ( with look a like of link visually ? )
Technical SEO | | Ommrudraksha0