Tricky Decision to make regarding duplicate content (that seems to be working!)
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I have a really tricky decision to make concerning one of our clients. Their site to date was developed by someone else.
They have a successful eCommerce website, and the strength of their Search Engine performance lies in their product category pages. In their case, a product category is an audience niche: their gender and age.
In this hypothetical example my client sells lawnmowers:
http://www.example.com/lawnmowers/men/age-34
http://www.example.com/lawnmowers/men/age-33
http://www.example.com/lawnmowers/women/age-25
http://www.example.com/lawnmowers/women/age-3
For all searches pertaining to lawnmowers, the gender of the buyer and their age (for which there are a lot for the 'real' store), these results come up number one for every combination they have a page for.
The issue is the specific product pages, which take the form of the following:
http://www.example.com/lawnmowers/men/age-34/fancy-blue-lawnmower
This same product, with the same content (save a reference to the gender and age on the page) can also be found at a few other gender / age combinations the product is targeted at. For instance:
http://www.example.com/lawnmowers/women/age-34/fancy-blue-lawnmower
http://www.example.com/lawnmowers/men/age-33/fancy-blue-lawnmower
http://www.example.com/lawnmowers/women/age-32/fancy-blue-lawnmower
So, duplicate content. As they are currently doing so well I am agonising over this - I dislike viewing the same content on multiple URLs, and though it wasn't a malicious effort on the previous developers part, think it a little dangerous in terms of SEO.
On the other hand, if I change it I'll reduce the website size, and severely reduce the number of pages that are contextually relevant to the gender/age category pages. In short, I don't want to sabotage the performance of the category pages, by cutting off all their on-site relevant content.
My options as I see them are:
- Stick with the duplicate content model, but add some unique content to each gender/age page. This will differentiate the product category page content a little.
- Move products to single distinct URLs. Whilst this could boost individual product SEO performance, this isn't an objective, and it carries the risks I perceive above.
What are your thoughts?
Many thanks,
Tom
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Thanks Russ - that's a good idea. Bit of a pain from a tech perspective as it turns out, but definitely they way we'll tackle the issue post launch.
Thanks again,
Tom
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Do you have multiple categories on the site? Why not just collapse 1 category and see how it performs (give it a good 6 months though before making a final verdict)
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