How should I deal with "duplicate" content in an Equipment Database?
-
The Moz Crawler is identifying hundreds of instances of duplicate content on my site in our equipment database. The database is similar in functionality to a site like autotrader.com. We post equipment with pictures and our customers can look at the equipment and make purchasing decisions.
The problem is that, though each unit is unique, they often have similar or identical specs which is why moz (and presumably google/bing) are identifying the content as "duplicate". In many cases, the only difference between listings are the pictures and mileage- the specifications and year are the same.
Ideally, we wouldn't want to exclude these pages from being indexed because they could have some long-tail search value. But, obviously, we don't want to hurt the overall SEO of the site.
Any advice would be appreciated.
-
I think Tom lays this out quite well and I would follow this advice.
-
I would leave it like this especially if these pages generate long tail search traffic. Having semi-duplicate pages isn't necessarily going to hurt you (check also: https://blog.kissmetrics.com/myths-about-duplicate-content/). Check also this article https://moz.com/blog/have-we-been-wrong-about-panda-all-along) and finally Google (https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/66359?hl=en) :
"Duplicate content on a site is not grounds for action on that site unless it appears that the intent of the duplicate content is to be deceptive and manipulate search engine results. If your site suffers from duplicate content issues, and you don't follow the advice listed above, we do a good job of choosing a version of the content to show in our search results."
If your site has enough pages with rich content & these "thin" pages have value as landing pages for your visitors don't start messing with it.
Dirk
-
"Ideally, we wouldn't want to exclude these pages from being indexed because they could have some long-tail search value. But, obviously, we don't want to hurt the overall SEO of the site."
You say that, but I'm not entirely sure it's true.
I understand the theory - if you have 20 Citroen C1s listed on the site, you could potentially have 20 pages of yours ranking for relevant terms, right?
Well, unique content on those pages or not, I think it would be extremely unlikely that Google would want to present all of those results to the user. Furthermore, if the pages expire or go "out of stock", as it were, when purchased, would Google want to rank it?
So I'm not convinced having all those pages indexed and treated as unique (whether they are or not) would result in traffic (please prove me wrong though - if you have lots of entrances to the site via organic search to those pages it'll show what I know!).
My preference, regardless of the above, would be to have a main page for your Citroen C1 products - a hub page - that then links to all the different products you have as and when they're available.
This has many advantages - you just need to focus on ranking one page in the category instead of several, you can collect all the link equity you earn to one page, you can ensure the page is well optimised for search engines and users, and the page will be evergreen - meaning your links would be too.
The short version:
Homepage > Hub Page > Product variant 1, variant 2 etc
Rank the homepage and the hub page.
Hope this helps.
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
-
Ranking penalty for "accordion" content -- hidden prior to user interaction
Will content inside an "accordion" module be ranked as non-hidden content? Is there an official guide by google and other search engines addressing this? Example of accordion element: https://v4-alpha.getbootstrap.com/components/collapse/#accordion-example Will all elements in the example above be seen + treated equally by search engines?
Technical SEO | | houlihanlokey1 -
Duplicate Content - Different URLs and Content on each
Seeing a lot of duplicate content instances of seemingly unrelated pages. For instance, http://www.rushimprint.com/custom-bluetooth-speakers.html?from=topnav3 is being tracked as a duplicate of http://www.rushimprint.com/custom-planners-diaries.html?resultsperpg=viewall. Does anyone else see this issue? Is there a solution anyone is aware of?
Technical SEO | | ClaytonKendall0 -
Does duplicate content not concern Rand?
Hello all, I'm a new SEOer and I'm currently trying to navigate the layman's minefield that is trying to understand duplicate content issues in as best I can. I'm working on a website at the moment where there's a duplicate content issue with blog archives/categories/tags etc. I was planning to beat this by implementing a noindex meta tag on those pages where there are duplicate content issues. Before I go ahead with this I thought: "Hey, these Moz guys seem to know what they're doing! What would Rand do?" Blogs on the website in question appear in full and in date order relating to the tag/category/what-have-you creating the duplicate content problem. Much like Rand's blog here at Moz - I thought I'd have a look at the source code to see how it was dealt with. My amateur eyes could find nothing to help answer this question: E.g. Both the following URLs appear in SERPs (using site:moz,com and very targeted keywords, but they're there): https://moz.com/rand/does-making-a-website-mobile-friendly-have-a-universally-positive-impact-on-mobile-traffic/ https://moz.com/rand/category/moz/ Both pages have a rel="canonical" pointing to themselves. I can understand why he wouldn't be fussed about the category not ranking, but the blog? Is this not having a negative effect? I'm just a little confused as there are so many conflicting "best practice" tips out there - and now after digging around in the source code on Rand's blog I'm more confused than ever! Any help much appreciated, Thanks
Technical SEO | | sbridle1 -
Showing duplicate content when I have canonical url set, why?
Just inspecting my sites report and I see that I have a lot of duplicate content issues, not sure why these two pages here http://www.thecheapplace.com/wholesale-products/Are-you-into-casual-sex-patch http://www.thecheapplace.com/wholesale-products/small-wholesale-patches-1/Are-you-into-casual-sex-patch are showing as duplicate content when both pages have a clearly defined canonical url of http://www.thecheapplace.com/Are-you-into-casual-sex-patch Any answer would be appreciated, thank you
Technical SEO | | erhansimavi0 -
Lots of duplicate content warnings
I have a site that says that I have 2,500 warnings. It is a real estate website and of course we use feeds. it says I have a lot of duplicate content. One thing is a page called "Request an appointment" and that is a url for each listing. Since there are 800 listings on my site. How could I solve this problem so that this doesn't show up as duplicate content since I use the same "Request an Appointment" verbeage on each of those? I guess my developer who used php to do it, created a dedicated url to each. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Technical SEO | | SeaC0 -
What is the best practice to handle duplicate content?
I have several large sections that SEOMOZ is indicating has duplicate content, even though the content is not identical. For example: Leather Passport Section - Leather Passports - Black - Leather Passposts - Blue - Leather Passports - Tan - Etc. Each of the items has good content, but it is identical, since they are the same products. What is the best practice here: 1. Have only one product with a drop down (fear is that this is not best for the customer) 2. Make up content to have them sound different? 3. Put a do-no-follow on the passport section? 4. Use a rel canonical even though the sections are technically not identical? Thanks!
Technical SEO | | trophycentraltrophiesandawards0 -
International Websites: rel="alternate" hreflang="x"
Hi people, I keep on reading and reading , but I won't get it... 😉 I mean this page: http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=189077&topic=2370587&ctx=topic On the bottom of the page they say: Step 2: Use rel="alternate" hreflang="x" Update the HTML of each URL in the set by adding a set of rel="alternate" hreflang="x" link elements. Include a rel="alternate" hreflang="x" link for every URL in the set, like this: This markup tells Google's algorithm to consider all of these pages as alternate versions of each other. OK! Each URL needs this markup. BUT: Do i need it exactly as written above, or do I have to put in the complete URL of the site, like: The next question is, what happens exactly in the SERPS when I do it like this (an also with Step1 that I haven't copied here)? Google will display the "canonical"-version of the page, but wehen a user from US clicks he will get on http://en-us.example.com/**page.htm **??? I tried to find other sites which use this method, but I haven't found one. Can someone give me an example.website??? Thank you, thank you very much! André
Technical SEO | | waynestock0 -
About duplicate content
Hi i'm a new guy around here, but i'm having this problem in my website. Using de Seomoz tools i ran a camping to my website, in results i get to many errors for duplicate conten, for example, http://www.mysite/blue/ http://www.mysite/blue/index.html, so my question is, what is the best way to resolve this problem, use a 301 or use the rel canonical tag? Wich url will be consider for main url, Thanks for yor help.
Technical SEO | | NorbertoMM0