Why does GWT fine duplicate descriptions where none exist?
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On my website, www.heartspm.com, I have been gradually changing over local information to remove near duplicate content. I created templates to create near duplicates for regions (coastal, inland, valley, etc. Then I also have been gradually creating unique pages for each city, such as Poway, Santa Monica, etc. Either way, I have this component of the website built on a list of cities with SEO information unique to each one pulling in template information.
Now to my question: I am getting most of these pages coming up with GWT duplicate meta description information even though the descriptions are quite different between city to city. I am viewing the source page generated as well as the descriptions that are displayed by Google on the search engine. These descriptions do not appear to duplicate to me. So why the error?
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My pleasure Gerald. Isn't this a great community for help and answers to our seo problems? Im looking forward to mozcon next month. All the best.
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Thank you for a great answer! I didn't think to look for a second set of meta data. I'm the "user champion and SEO guy." I'll feedyour info to my programmer.
I used to be in programming before the dot.com crash. I found your bug discovery humorous as it brought me back to my old days with the very flucky things we would sometimes discover. That's where experience comes in. You just can't stop when you see what obviously appears correct and start yelling, "Is Google crazy?" There's always a reason and I am thankful that you found this one that has been a huge plague on my site.
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Thank you so much. I was getting these errors returned in GWT but I didn't think to look for a second set of meta data in the code.
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The problem your having is that you have duplicate title, description and keyword tags in your source coding. If your using a CMS application, check your template meta settings. I think the template meta data is being added to every page and then you are making each unique on page, but both are being added.
<title>Hearts Pest Control Service of Rancho Bernardo</title>
................................
........................................ -
These pages alll have the same description
http://www.heartspm.com/4s-ranch-pest-control.php
http://www.heartspm.com/rancho-bernardo-pest-control.php
http://www.heartspm.com/ramona-pest-control.php
http://www.heartspm.com/santa-ysabel-pest-control.php
http://www.heartspm.com/poway-pest-control.php
http://www.heartspm.com/rancho-penasquitos-pest-control.php
http://www.heartspm.com/carmel-valley-pest-control.php
http://www.heartspm.com/scripps-ranch-pest-control.php
http://www.heartspm.com/julian-pest-control.php
http://www.heartspm.com/bonsall-pest-control.php
http://www.heartspm.com/fallbrook-pest-control.php
http://www.heartspm.com/pauma-valley-pest-control.php
http://www.heartspm.com/hidden-meadows-pest-control.php
http://www.heartspm.com/escondido-pest-control.php
http://www.heartspm.com/valley-center-pest-control.php
http://www.heartspm.com/the-city-of-san-diego-pest-control.php
http://www.heartspm.com/pacific-beach-pest-control.php
http://www.heartspm.com/coronado-pest-control.php
and many more
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