Duplicate Page Titles and Keywords
-
Still new to this SEO world, so please bear with me. I have an eCommerce site so one of the issues is duplicate content and page titles.
So what I was thinking was this...for each product that I sell I have 4 or 5 keywords that I have targeted. For example for personalized iPhone cases I have decided on:
iphone 4 case personalized, monogrammed iphone 4 case, personalized and monogrammed iphone case, preppy phone case, personalized iPhone case, monogrammed iPhone case
For each of my products I was going to a product description (ie: trendy color block diagonal stripes) and a targeted keyword. But I was going to rotate the keywords through so as to try to avoid the duplicate page title issue.
Will that help?
Thanks much,
Shara
-
Shara,
I would approach the changes like this: For your better selling products and products you want to sell better (think about that last one in terms of what makes you the most money, is easiest to fulfill, least headaches, etc.). Work on those first. If you have something that is really moving, be careful and slowly implement the changes.
As to what needs to change, I think you need to approach it from not changing each page as much as seeing what can be done to the site. It is a Drupal site as I recall and there are ways to work with it.
Best
-
Hi Robert,
Thanks so much for the thoughtful answer. I can fix the problem with the title tags and the H1 tags. Your insight into the meta description was helpful. But how much variation does there need to be not to get dinged for duplicate content?
Unfortunately I cannot change the main structure of the site. For better or worse I am stuck with it and will have to make it work as best as I can from the SEO standpoint.
Your help and insight is MUCH appreciated!
Shara
-
Shara,
I think I followed you, but you need to understand what you are doing here so I will be a bit more in depth:For the above url : http://www.confectionsbysharaspaperie.com/products/personalized-gifts/orange-yellow-and-gray-funky-floral-personalized-phone-case-spcase59
You have a title tag that is 93 characters long, set up for a search on orange, yellow, and gray funky floral monogrammed I Phone Case. Now, the good news is you will rank first on this search. The bad news is no one searches for this. So, with every variation you have one more non searched title tag keyword phrase.
when you look at what people search on, you see that there are over a half million searches per month in US on I Phone Case, 12,000 on Custom I Phone Case, and 9000 on personalized I phone case. Zero on monogrammed and on all additional variants you are using like custom monogrammed, custom personalized, etc.
So, your title tags need to be around these searched keywords. Adding the blue red double striped, etc. does not assist you. Get them to the site first and then easily get them to the types. That said your meta descriptions should sell not describe. This is what makes a person click to go to your site: Custom I Phone cases in many styles never seen before. Personalized, inexpensive, overnight shipping 800-123-4567. (Find variations for every page).
Now back to duped content: Your duplicate content is caused by using a page for every design and color variant. You need to break them down into say Mod designs, contemp. designs, solid color, etc. Then, when someone goes to that page they see the pics that do not become new urls. I will have my Drupal dev look at it tomorrow, but I know there are some smarter eComm drupal devs than me on moz.
All of your content with the exception of the long design keyword phrase is EXACTLY the same:
This tone on tone red circular pattern on the personalized phone case offers tough protection while looking fabulous! For your iPhone a silicone skin surrounds your phone completely, absorbing all impact and shock. Wrapped around the skin is a tough, ABS plastic shell, which completely secures your iPhone and adds another level of protection. For the Blackberry, Samsung Galaxy S phones and iTouches we offer the tough hard to break plastic. Each case is designed and heat printed so there is no fading or rubbing off. Love things that are personalized and have an iPad? Take a look at our personalized or monogrammed iPad folio cases.
You can replace tone on tone red circular pattern with any of these:
trendy, colorful swirl design or trendy color block diagonal stripes or etc.
lastly, your H1's are all starting off with Confections by Shara's Paperie and then the trendy, colorful,,,,,,, Sorry, you are just hurting yourself with all of this. The H1 has a role in the algorithm and unless people are searching on Shara's Paperie at a rate that I am just oblivious to, and we know they are not searching on trendy, striped, vertical, tango ....., then these are bad. Having them all be identical (essentially) is killing you.
So, you have your work cut out for you and you need to understand that there are NO Shortcuts. Whoever built the site put everything in for their ease as opposed to for SEO purposes. Now the work seems to be falling on you.
Lastly, I handle a printing client (very large format) and am aware you can put a picture onto vinyl, etc for putting on anything. I do not notice anything like that with your cases. Have you ever thought of that? I think it would be a seller if I could upload a photo to your site on a predetermined template (for accurate sizing and alignment to case) and have that as my case pic.
Best to you,
-
Hey Shara
I think where you are headed is a good start. So, for main tab for IPhone cases (tab will be title tag) you would have IPhone Cases / Shop Confections (note there should be a pipe - straight line vertical - and not a slash betsween. I am on an interns keyboard and realized he needs new keyboard).
Under that you will have each of the titles you list above: iphone 4 case personalized, monogrammed iphone 4 case, personalized and monogrammed iphone case, preppy phone case, personalized iPhone case, monogrammed iPhone case****. I would set these up in the order of IP4 first (personalized, monogrammed, personalized and monogrammed) then general IPhone ( IPhone case preppy, IPhone case personalized , IPhone case monogrammed). So, no matter what additional description, you are always starting with IPhone case or IPhone 4 Case. For your different colors, designs, etc. to the extent your eCommerce platform will allow, you want to be able to select a color variation without changing the url. So if I am on IPhone 4 case monogrammed, and it comes in solid or striped with different variations of colors, I would have the color selector change the color for solid page, and for design page. This should prevent dupe content. If you do the title tags this way you won't have duplicate title tags.
Hope this helps,
Robert
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
-
Grade F page on Moz positions No 1 on Google Keywords not contained
Hi I am trying to understand why a page list in position 1 on Google despite the fact it does not include the search terms anywhere in the page source. One of our sites has been in that position for years has great content and links for the key word terms so how can the other page overtake it and all of the other keywords without so much as a sniff of the keyword in the URL, Meta, content or images. It grades F on Moz! How can I discover the technique that has been used. This really is black art stuff or do Google accept payment from major corporations to list their pages irrespective of content?
On-Page Optimization | | Eff-Commerce0 -
Duplicate Title and Meta Description Tags in Shopify with this App
Hello. I'm finding that by adding the Ultra SEO app in Shopify, I now have duplicates of the Title tags and Meta Descriptions. It looks like it's pulling title tags from the Shop info, the product or page titles as well as the Title tag I add in Ultra SEO. The website is 1bigcookie.com. The duplicate meta descriptions are from the text I entered in the meta description field in Ultra SEO. I entered the canonical url code shopify specifies to help with duplicate content, but what about duplicate title and meta description tags on the same page?
On-Page Optimization | | mymochamoney0 -
Category listing page coming above product pages
A new SEO client we have taken on seem to be hitting most of the points right on with their site and SEO. However one thing that is bugging me is that their category pages i.e. "Footwear" which title tag includes the brands they stock. Is almost always coming up above (if they are ever even found) the product individual pages. Anyone seen this sort of things happening? Very frustrating.
On-Page Optimization | | iboxsecurityltd0 -
Duplicate page title - blogs
Hope someone can help me, I am a total SEO noivce so please be gentle. My first report shows that I have duplicate page titles. I have been through and changed all of these so they are different and after my latest crawl they are still showing as duplicates. I am wondering if this is because it;s a blog, here is one of the duplicates: http://www.cottagesoapcompany.co.uk/blog/?row=1 Hope you can help!
On-Page Optimization | | emmamoulden0 -
Home page keyword effecting internal page ranking
Hello, My client has a second keyword for the home page that is competitive. The home page is not being ranked for this keyword. Instead, an internal category page is ranking. This internal category page is more relevant than the home page - it shows the categories for the actual products that this term refers to. But everyone around us in Google's page results has far more backlinks than the internal page, and we're all heavily optimized for this term. My question is, is it safe to pull the second term off of the home page or is this internal page strong because it is somehow being strengthened by the home page optimization?
On-Page Optimization | | BobGW0 -
Phrase duplication within Title Tags
I'm creating a few hundred category level pages on my site, and am wondering if duplicating a phrase within each title tag is OK to do: Examples: 1) Title Tag for a page that provides brochure templates for the child care industry. - Title Desired: Child Care Brochure Templates | Brochure & Flyer Maker 2) Title Tag for a page that provides brochure templates for the financial services industry. ** - Title Desired: ** Financial Services Templates | Brochure & Flyer Maker Question: Is it OK to repeat what is after the pipe in each title tag (i.e. 'Brochure & Flyer Maker') on a few hundred category level pages. It's definitely an accurate description of what you will find on the page, however I don't want to run the risk of duplicate content / keyword stuffing issues. Essentially, can I use an exact duplicate phrase inside multiple title tags and be OK?...or is this not advised? I appreciate any advice or feedback. Thanks. -J
On-Page Optimization | | cre80 -
Summarize your question.Images being seen as duplicate content/pages
My images suddenly are appearing in my crawl reports as duplicate content, without meta tags, this happened over night and cant figure out why.
On-Page Optimization | | RBYoung0 -
I have a question about on page links or duplicate contant
Ok help me out here friends. I’m working with the warnings and errors for my site. I have two problems that relate to each other and I want to know if you had to choose what problem what would you choose. I’m running into some duplicate content and title errors because under categories for my products there are so many products that it creates more than one page and with each new page it has the same title or same content on the page. I tried to make this less in some cases by showing more products per page like 100 items and in most cases per category it will only show one page now. Now some times there’s still more than one page and also this creates too many links now on that category page. So I think I can get rid of all the to many on page links but it will make more pages and duplicate content and title tag. What would you guys do?
On-Page Optimization | | Dataken0