Skip to content
    Moz logo Menu open Menu close
    • Products
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Pro Home
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Home
      • STAT
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Home
      • Compare SEO Products
      • Moz Data
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis
      • Keyword Explorer
      • Link Explorer
      • Competitive Research
      • MozBar
      • More Free SEO Tools
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO
      • SEO Learning Center
      • Moz Academy
      • MozCon
      • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers
      • Agency Solutions
      • Enterprise Solutions
      • Small Business Solutions
      • The Moz Story
      • New Releases
    • Log in
    • Log out
    • Products
      • Moz Pro

        Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

      • Moz Local

        Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

      • STAT

        SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

      • Moz API

        Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

      • Compare SEO Products

        See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

      • Moz Data

        Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

      Let your business shine with Listings AI
      Moz Local

      Let your business shine with Listings AI

      Learn more
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis

        Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

      • Keyword Explorer

        Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

      • Link Explorer

        Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

      • Competitive Research

        Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

      • MozBar

        See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

      • More Free SEO Tools

        Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
      Moz Pro

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

      Learn more
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO

        The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

      • SEO Learning Center

        Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

      • On-Demand Webinars

        Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

      • How-To Guides

        Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

      • Moz Academy

        Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

      • MozCon

        Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
      Moz API

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

      Find your plan
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers

        Simplify SEO tasks to save time and grow your traffic.

      • Small Business Solutions

        Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

      • Agency Solutions

        Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

      • Enterprise Solutions

        Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

      • The Moz Story

        Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

      • New Releases

        Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

      Surface actionable competitive intel
      New Feature

      Surface actionable competitive intel

      Learn More
    • Log in
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Dashboard
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Dashboard
      • Moz Academy
    • Avatar
      • Moz Home
      • Notifications
      • Account & Billing
      • Manage Users
      • Community Profile
      • My Q&A
      • My Videos
      • Log Out

    The Moz Q&A Forum

    • Forum
    • Questions
    • Users
    • Ask the Community

    Welcome to the Q&A Forum

    Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

    1. Home
    2. SEO Tactics
    3. Intermediate & Advanced SEO
    4. How does having multiple pages on similar topics affect SEO?

    Moz Q&A is closed.

    After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.

    How does having multiple pages on similar topics affect SEO?

    Intermediate & Advanced SEO
    3
    4
    3064
    Loading More Posts
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as question
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
    • JonathonOhayon
      JonathonOhayon last edited by

      Hey everyone,

      On our site we have multiple pages that have similar content. As an example, we have a section on Cars (in general) and then specific pages for Used Cars, European Cars, Remodeled Cars etc. Much of the content is similar on these page and the only difference is some content and the additional term in the URL (for example car.com/remodeled-cars and /european-cars).

      In the past few months, we've noticed a dip in our organic ranking and started doing research. Also, we noticed that Google, in SERPs, shows the general page (cars.com/cars) and not the specific page (/european-cars), even if the specific page has more content. Can having multiple pages with similar content hurt SEO? If so, what is the best way to remedy this? We can consolidate some of the pages and make the difference between them a little clearer, but does it make that much of a difference for rankings?

      Thanks in advance!

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • JonathonOhayon
        JonathonOhayon @Devanur-Rafi last edited by

        Makes a lot of sense, thank you.

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • GPainter
          GPainter @Devanur-Rafi last edited by

          Some great points there Devanur. There is also the option of canonical but the problem is it would mean you're having less pages indexed but one page (the original) would be stronger.

          Duplicate content can hurt you but the other side of that is Matt Cutts has mentioned a few times that it wont hurt you unless its spammy, and boiler plate terms you can also normally get away with. For a good nights sleep though its easier just to fix it and know its one less thing to worry about.

          Good luck.

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • Devanur-Rafi
            Devanur-Rafi last edited by

            Hi,

            Having multiple pages with similar or identical content confuses the search engines and the outcomes in SERPs will be undesirable. Here is the deal: No two unique URLs should serve substantially similar or identical content. If it is the case, you should decide the URL that you would like to rank in the search engines, make others point to it via rel=canonical attribute. In general, the page that targets the most search keyword/phrase can be made the canonical URL or the preferred URL.

            If I were you, I would have added unique content to the existing pages targeting the main keyword for the page.

            For example, if the page talks about, 'used cars', this would become my target term for the page:

            abc.com/cars/used-cars.html

            I would also go ahead with a thorough keyword research & analysis to find which keywords/phrases are being searched more in your geo-location or target market, add corresponding pages with highly targeted content for each of these keywords/phrases (if not added already).

            The key here is, content that is unique, up-to-date, highly relevant and useful to the visitors. Such content would bring in dramatic improvements to your overall SEO ROI and search engines like Google love such content and these pages will be awarded good positions in the SERPs going forward. As you know, high quality content is a natural link magnet.

            Here is an action plan, if I were you:

            1. Make these pages unique by adding unique content

            2. Do a thorough keyword research & analysis to find new content opportunities in your niche

            3. Add new pages with unique content based on the outcome of step 2.

            4. Update the Sitemap.xml file and submit it to webmaster tools

            5. Repeat steps from 2 to 4 once in 6 months based on the results or as and when required.

            Those were my two cents my friend. Good Luck.

            Best regards,

            Devanur Rafi

            GPainter JonathonOhayon 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 1
            • 1 / 1
            • First post
              Last post

            Got a burning SEO question?

            Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


            Start my free trial


            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.

            • See all categories

            Related Questions

            • shabbirmoosa

              Rel canonical tag from shopify page to wordpress site page

              shopify wordpress canonical

              We have pages on our shopify site example - https://shop.example.com/collections/cast-aluminum-plaques/products/cast-aluminum-address-plaque That we want to put a rel canonical tag on to direct to our wordpress site page - https://www.example.com/aluminum-plaques/ We have links form the wordpress page to the shop page, and over time ahve found that google has ranked the shop pages over the wp pages, which we do not want. So we want to put rel canonical tags on the shop pages to say the wp page is the authority. I hope that makes sense, and I would appreciate your feeback and best solution. Thanks! Is that possible?

              Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | shabbirmoosa
              0
            • Wavelength_International

              Should I apply Canonical Links from my Landing Pages to Core Website Pages?

              I am working on an SEO project for the website: https://wave.com.au/ There are some core website pages, which we want to target for organic traffic, like this one: https://wave.com.au/doctors/medical-specialties/anaesthetist-jobs/ Then we have basically have another version that is set up as a landing page and used for CPC campaigns. https://wave.com.au/anaesthetists/ Essentially, my question is should I apply canonical links from the landing page versions to the core website pages (especially if I know they are only utilising them for CPC campaigns) so as to push link equity/juice across? Here is the GA data from January 1 - April 30, 2019 (Behavior > Site Content > All Pages😞

              Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Wavelength_International
              0
            • Cin7_Marketing

              Does changing template for a wordpress site affect SEO

              Hi I work for an Inventory Management Software company and we already have a WordPress site but I am currently working on re-designing of our WordPress site and in this process, we are looking for moving to a new template. I want to know what will be the impact on SEO performance while taking a shift to a new template.

              Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Cin7_Marketing
              0
            • Online-Marketing-Guy

              Substantial difference between Number of Indexed Pages and Sitemap Pages

              Hey there, I am doing a website audit at the moment. I've notices substantial differences in the number of pages indexed (search console), the number of pages in the sitemap and the number I am getting when I crawl the page with screamingfrog (see below). Would those discrepancies concern you? The website and its rankings seems fine otherwise. Total indexed: 2,360 (Search Consule)
              About 2,920 results (Google search "site:example.com")
              Sitemap: 1,229 URLs
              Screemingfrog Spider: 1,352 URLs Cheers,
              Jochen

              Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Online-Marketing-Guy
              0
            • shauna7084

              Multiple Landing Pages and Backlinks

              I have a client that does website contract work for about 50 governmental county websites.  The client has the ability to add a link back in the footer of each of these websites.  I am wanting my client to get backlink juice for a different key phrase from each of the 50 agencies (basically just my keyphrase with the different county name in it).  I also want a different landing page to rank for each term.  The 50 different landing pages would be a bit like location pages for local search.  Each one targets a different county.  However, I do not have a lot of unique content for each page.  Basically each page would follow the same format (but reference a different county name, and 10 different links from each county website). Is this a good SEO back link strategy?  Do I need more unique content for each landing page in order to prevent duplicate content flags?

              Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | shauna7084
              0
            • sbaylor

              Artist Bios on Multiple Pages: Duplicate Content or not?

              I am currently working on an eComm site for a company that sells art prints. On each print's page, there is a bio about the artist followed by a couple of paragraphs about the print. My concern is that some artists have hundreds of prints on this site, and the bio is reprinted on every page,which makes sense from a usability standpoint, but I am concerned that it will trigger a duplicate content penalty from Google. Some people are trying to convince me that Google won't penalize for this content, since the intent is not to game the SERPs. However, I'm not confident that this isn't being penalized already, or that it won't be in the near future. Because it is just a section of text that is duplicated, but the rest of the text on each page is original, I can't use the rel=canonical tag. I've thought about putting each artist bio into a graphic, but that is a huge undertaking, and not the most elegant solution. Could I put the bio on a separate page with only the artist's info and then place that data on each print page using an <iframe>and then put a noindex,nofollow in the robots.txt file?</p> <p>Is there a better solution?  Is this effort even necessary?</p> <p>Thoughts?</p></iframe>

              Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | sbaylor
              0
            • Peter264

              Number of forum posts per topic page

              When optimizing a forum topic page for SEO, would it be better to have a higher number of posts per page than seperating the topic up into multiple pages? For example, out of the box a forum may display 15 posts per topic page - would there be any SEO benifit in changing that number to say 30 posts per page?  I.e. more content per page and decreasing unnecessary "page 2, page 3, page 4"... etc. Your thoughts and comments are most appreciated.

              Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Peter264
              0
            • EricPacifico

              Should the sitemap include just menu pages or all pages site wide?

              I have a Drupal site that utilizes Solr, with 10 menu pages and about 4,000 pages of content. Redoing a few things and we'll need to revamp the sitemap. Typically I'd jam all pages into a single sitemap and that's it, but post-Panda, should I do anything different?

              Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | EricPacifico
              0

            Get started with Moz Pro!

            Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

            Start my free trial
            Products
            • Moz Pro
            • Moz Local
            • Moz API
            • Moz Data
            • STAT
            • Product Updates
            Moz Solutions
            • SMB Solutions
            • Agency Solutions
            • Enterprise Solutions
            Free SEO Tools
            • Domain Authority Checker
            • Link Explorer
            • Keyword Explorer
            • Competitive Research
            • Brand Authority Checker
            • Local Citation Checker
            • MozBar Extension
            • MozCast
            Resources
            • Blog
            • SEO Learning Center
            • Help Hub
            • Beginner's Guide to SEO
            • How-to Guides
            • Moz Academy
            • API Docs
            About Moz
            • About
            • Team
            • Careers
            • Contact
            Why Moz
            • Case Studies
            • Testimonials
            Get Involved
            • Become an Affiliate
            • MozCon
            • Webinars
            • Practical Marketer Series
            • MozPod
            Connect with us

            Contact the Help team

            Join our newsletter
            Moz logo
            © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
            • Accessibility
            • Terms of Use
            • Privacy

            Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.