Content Strategy/Duplicate Content Issue, rel=canonical question
-
Hi Mozzers:
We have a client who regularly pays to have high-quality content produced for their company blog. When I say 'high quality' I mean 1000 - 2000 word posts written to a technical audience by a lawyer.
We recently found out that, prior to the content going on their blog, they're shipping it off to two syndication sites, both of which slap rel=canonical on them. By the time the content makes it to the blog, it has probably appeared in two other places.
What are some thoughts about how 'awful' a practice this is? Of course, I'm arguing to them that the ranking of the content on their blog is bound to be suffering and that, at least, they should post to their own site first and, if at all, only post to other sites several weeks out.
Does anyone have deeper thinking about this?
-
Basically, your is diluting its own efforts and resources, the idea to publish content in other domain make sense if it applied in the right way. (this not the case).
1- There is no make sense to have the same content in 2 places, so let see what Google has to say about it. Duplicate content
Syndicate carefully: If you syndicate your content on other sites, Google will always show the version we think is most appropriate for users in each given search, which may or may not be the version you'd prefer. However, it is helpful to ensure that each site on which your content is syndicated includes a link back to your original article. You can also ask those who use your syndicated material to use the no index meta tag to prevent search engines from indexing their version of the content.
Minimize similar content: If you have many pages that are similar, consider expanding each page or consolidating the pages into one. For instance, if you have a travel site with separate pages for two cities, but the same information on both pages, you could either merge the pages into one page about both cities or you could expand each page to contain unique content about each city.
Let's take an example assume that your client has an article called 3 Tips About legal requirements to buy a home You Can't Afford To Miss ----> The keyword on this case is_ legal requirements to buy a home._
So boost your SEO efforts is to build other articles on other pages around this content, if you made a quick content research about the topic _legal requirements to buy a home. _
Let's take an example assume that your client has an article called 3 Tips About legal requirements to buy a home You Can't Afford To Miss ----> The keyword on this case is legal requirements to buy a home.
- how much do you need to buy a house KD=4 Volume=600
- the best state to buy a house KD=10 Volume=350
- what to do after buying a house KD=4 Volume=350
So the best way to boost your content strategy and your Search Ranking is to create a universe around your content where the center of that universe is your article ( hahaha this just a Marvel joke), Also do not forget to include an internal link strategy and site structure strategy
Regards Hope this info will help you
-
Hi David,
In my limited understanding that won't helpful. Content should published on the blog first then anywhere else
To prevent Google indexing other blogs/website you need to canonicalised the other sites to the Original(your blog), this means that users on the individual sites can find the same information and the correct path but if you search for Google you get to the final page quicker.
Hope this helps.
Thanks
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
-
Duplicate content - how to diagnose duplicate content from another domain before publishing pages?
Hi, 🙂 My company is having new distributor contract, and we are starting to sell products on our own webshop. Bio-technology is an industry in question and over 1.000 products. Writing product description from scratch would take many hours. The plan is to re-write it. With permission from our contractors we will import their 'product description' on our webshop. But, I am concerned being penalies from Google for duplicate content. If we re-write it we should be fine i guess. But, how can we be sure? Is there any good tool for comparing only text (because i don't want to publish the pages to compare URLs)? What else should we be aware off beside checking 'product description' for duplicate content? Duplicate content is big issue for all of us, i hope this answers will be helpful for many of us. Keep it hard work and thank you very much for your answers, Cheers, Dusan
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Chemometec0 -
Canonical and Rel=next/prev Implementation
Hi, I have an ecommerce site that allows users to view numerous pages and sort by a number of options on categories. I've read numerous posts around my issue but am still a little confused on what is best practice with regards to the canonical tag and rel=next and prev. Below is an example of the various page/sort by URL's: Paginated URL: http://www.example.co.uk/category/subcategory.html?p=3 Sort by URL: http://www.example.co.uk/category/subcategory.html?dir=desc&order=price Paginated & Sort by URL: http://www.example.co.uk/category/subcategory.html?dir=desc&order=price&p=3 It is not viable for us to use a canonical tag to the view all page as some of the categories contain a large number of products and therefore would not have the best load speeds. Is it best to use the below structure when it comes to the canonical tag and rel=next and prev? Paginated URL: http://www.example.co.uk/category/subcategory.html?p=3 Sort by URL: http://www.example.co.uk/category/subcategory.html?dir=desc&order=price Paginated & Sort by URL: http://www.example.co.uk/category/subcategory.html?dir=desc&order=price&p=3 http://www.example.co.uk/category/subcategory.html?dir=desc&order=price&p=2" /> Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | GrappleAgency0 -
URL Redirect: http://www.example.net/ vs. http://www.example.net
I currently have a website set up so that http://www.example.net/ redirects to http://www.example.net but **http://www.example.net/ **has more links and a higher page authority. Should I switch the redirect around? Here's the Open Site Explorer metrics for both: http://www.example.net/ Domain Authority: 38/100 Page Authority: 48/100 Linking Root Domains: 112 Total Links: 235 http://www.example.net Domain Authority: 38/100 Page Authority: 45/100 Linking Root Domains: 18 Total Links: 39
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | kbrake0 -
Canonical Related question
I have a site where we have search and result pages, google webmaster tool was giving me duplicate content error for page 1 / 2 / 3 etc etc so i have added canonical on these pages like http://www.business2sell.com/businesses/california/ Is this is correct way of using canonical ?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | manish_khanna0 -
Duplicate content issue for franchising business
Hi All We are in the process of adding a franchise model to our exisitng stand alone business and as part of the package given to the franchisee will be a website with conent identical to our existing website apart from some minor details such as contact and address details. This creates a huge duplicate content issue and even if we implement a cannonical approach to this will still be unfair to the franchisee in terms of their markeitng and own SEO efforts. The url for each franchise will be unique but the content will be the same to a large extend. The nature of the service we offer (professional qualificaitons) is such that the "products" can only be described in a certain way and it will be near on in impossible to have a unique set of "product" pages for each franchisee. I hope that some of you have come across a similar problem or that some of you have suggestions or ideas for us to get round this. Kind regards Peter
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | masterpete0 -
Canonical URL Question
Hi Everyone I like to run this question by the community and get a second opinion on best practices for an issue that I ran into. I got two pages, Page A is the original page and Page B is the page with duplicate content. We already added** ="Page A**" />** to the duplicate content (Page B).** **Here is my question, since Page B is duplicate content and there is a link rel="canonical" added to it, would you put in the time to add meta tags and optimize the title of the page? Thanks in advance for all your help.**
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | DRTBA0 -
Does a mobile site count as duplicate content?
Are there any specific guidelines that should be followed for setting up a mobile site to ensure it isn't counted as duplicate content?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | nicole.healthline0 -
How permanent is a rel="canonical"?
We are rolling out our canonicals now, and we were wondering: what happens if we decide we did this wrong and need to change where canonicals point? In other words, how bad of a thing is it to have a canonical tag point to page a for a while, then change it to point to page b? I'm just curious to see how permanent of a decision we are making, and how bad it will be if we screwed up and need to change later. Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | CoreyTisdale0