Mobile version creating duplicate content
-
Hi
We have a mobile site which is a subfolder within our site.
Therefore our desktop site is www.mysite.com and the mobile version is www.mysite.com/m/. All URL's for specific pages are the same with the exception of /m/ in them for the mobile version.
The mobile version has the specific user agent detection capabilities. I never saw this as being duplicate content initially as I did some research and found the following links
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mY9h3G8Lv4k
http://searchengineland.com/dont-penalize-yourself-mobile-sites-are-not-duplicate-content-40380
http://www.seroundtable.com/archives/022109.htmlWhat I am finding now is that when I look into Google Webmaster Tools, Google shows that there are 2 pages with the same Page title and therefore Im concerned if Google sees this as duplicate content. The reason why the page title and meta description is the same is simply because the content on the 2 verrsions are the exact same. Only layout changes due to handheld specific browsing.
Are there any speficific precausions I could take or best practices to ensure that Google does not see the mobile pages as duplicates of the desktop pages
Does anyone know solid best practices to achieve maximum results for running an idential mobile version of your main site?
-
Consider creating a user agent detection that will use a different style sheet when a mobile device requests it. OR you can use the mobile user agent to create progressive enhancement - building whatever the device wil allow. Check out some of mobile css and/or progressive enhancement resources online first for more details.
-
Are there any speficific precausions I could take or best practices to ensure that Google does not see the mobile pages as duplicates of the desktop pages
I was referring to the part on Canonical and Duplicate Versions of Content which you can also read here: http://www.seomoz.org/learn-seo/canonicalization
If your mobile site has the same content as your full version, then the mobile site should canonicalize to the full version.
This is how you handle duplicate content.
-
Hi Richard
Thanks for taking the time to respond. I dont think you've read my question as I am fimiliar with that guide but it doesn't seem to answer my question at all. Maybe you can elaborate or point out something specific that you wanted me to see?
Thanks though. Cheers
-
This is the perfect use of canonicalizing the page.
Start here: http://guides.seomoz.org/chapter-4-basics-of-search-engine-friendly-design-and-development
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
-
Best Practices for Creating Back Links from "Thought Leader" Content
What is the best way to use articles from a "thought leader" to build high-quality links to my website? I have heard that it is possible to pay bloggers to post business articles that link back to a website. That assuming these blogs have domain authority this is a good technique to improve ranking. Is this in fact true, and if so where would I find blogs to post our content. The purpose would be to promote real estate brokerage website. Any suggestions? Is this possible, advisable, best use of quality content? Alternatively, where else can we post engaging content to create links back to our site? Social media? The nature of the content would be such topics as how to find the best value in Manhattan office of loft space rentals, etcera. Thanks, Alan
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Kingalan10 -
Geographic site clones and duplicate content penalties
We sell wedding garters, niche I know! We have a site (weddinggarterco.com) that ranks very well in the UK and sell a lot to the USA despite it's rudimentary currency functions (Shopify makes US customers checkout in £gbp; not helpful to conversions). To improve this I built a clone (theweddinggarterco.com) and have faked a kind of location selector top right. Needless to say a lot of content on this site is VERY similar to the UK version. My questions are... 1. Is this likely to stop me ranking the USA site? 2. Is this likely to harm my UK rankings? Any thoughts very welcome! Thanks. Mat
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | mat20150 -
Tools to scan entire site for duplicate content?
HI guys, Just wondering if anyone knows of any tools to scan a site for duplicate content (with other sites on the web). Looking to quickly identify product pages containing duplicate content/duplicate product descriptions for E-commerce based websites. I know copy scape can which can check up to 10,000 pages in a single operation with Batch Search. But just wondering if there is anything else on the market i should consider looking at? Cheers, Chris
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | jayoliverwright0 -
Duplicate content issue with pages that have navigation
We have a large consumer website with several sections that have navigation of several pages. How would I prevent the pages from getting duplicate content errors and how best would I handle SEO for these? For example we have about 500 events with 20 events showing on each page. What is the best way to prevent all the subsequent navigation pages from getting a duplicate content and duplicate title error?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | roundbrix0 -
Product Syndication and duplicate content
Hi, It's a duplicate content question. We sell products (vacation rental homes) on a number of websites as well as our own. Generally, these affiliate sites have a higher domain authority and much more traffic than our site. The product content (text, images, and often availability and rates) is pulled by our affiliates into their websites daily and is exactly the same as the content on our site, not including their page structure. We receive enquiries by email and any links from their domains to ours are nofollow. For example, all of the listing text on mysite.com/listing_id is identical to my-first-affiliate-site.com/listing_id and my-second-affiliate-site.com/listing_id. Does this count as duplicate content and, if so, can anyone suggest a strategy to make the best of the situation? Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | McCaldin0 -
Created the content, yet we don't rank for it. Toxic website?
Hey everyone, I'm beginning to think our site is toxic i.e. it'll never rank properly again irrespective of what we do. I recently published some data (2 months ago) in an interactive visual called the "iPhone 5S Price Index". I outreached and got thousands of links from sites including Forbes, Gizmodo (various international versions), Washington Post, The Guardian, NY Times, etc etc. All of these results dominate the Google rankings, all with links pointing to us. YET, we're no where to be seen. What incentive are Google giving content creators, like me, to continue producing content that is obviously popular if we can't even rank for it? The traffic we received was fantastic. In one day the traffic was 40 times our average, which made me smile like a Cheshire Cat from ear-to-ear but we need to improve our rankings overall otherwise the value to us is lost. The traffic wasn't there to buy our service, they were there to see the graphic. Hopefully our brand exposure leads to future sales, but it's a pittance compared to our previous rankings income. I've had this type of success 3 times in the last few months on this site alone. Yet nothing changes. We suffered from a loss of rankings in September 2012, fighting ever since to get it back. Now I'm losing hope it is even possible. Does anyone know why our site wouldn't rank when we're undeniable the source that created the work? Also, why wouldn't the increase in domain authority (which has jumped about 10 points according to OSE) have a knock on effect for the rest of our keywords - or even let us appear within the top 100 for ones we obviously serve? We do Real Company Shit - and we're good at it. But I need these rankings back. It's driving me nuts. Thanks.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | purpleindigo0 -
Duplicate page content errors stemming from CMS
Hello! We've recently relaunched (and completely restructured) our website. All looks well except for some duplicate content issues. Our internal CMS (custom) adds a /content/ to each page. Our development team has also set-up URLs to work without /content/. Is there a way I can tell Google that these are the same pages. I looked into the parameters tool, but that seemed more in-line with ecommerce and the like. Am I missing anything else?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | taylor.craig0 -
Could you use a robots.txt file to disalow a duplicate content page from being crawled?
A website has duplicate content pages to make it easier for users to find the information from a couple spots in the site navigation. Site owner would like to keep it this way without hurting SEO. I've thought of using the robots.txt file to disallow search engines from crawling one of the pages. Would you think this is a workable/acceptable solution?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | gregelwell0