Duplicate eCommerce Product Descriptions
-
I know that creating original product descriptions is best practices. What I don't understand is how other sites are able to generate significant traffic while still using duplicate product descriptions on all product pages. How are they not being penalized by Google?
-
From my experience as an SEO for a large eCommerce site (our own products), I tend to think that Google has a way of recognizing eCommerce site from purely informational ones and takes that into consideration when analyzing content.
As you say Chris, many producers will distribute their catalogs to all their dealers and they in turn will put those online. The same happens with our products here. Our dealers use the very description we provide them with and no one has ever been penalized for that.
As said, I personally think that Google takes the intent of your site (eCommerce, informational etc. ) into consideration when slapping duplicate content penalties.
Having said that, i have no data to back up that claim so go easy on me, it's only based on my gut feeling and practical observations.
-
I can definitely understand the frustration, but Google won't penalize sites for simply having duplicate content, and especially storefronts. Many merchants are provided with photos and product descriptions by the distributor, and when you're talking about hundreds or even thousands of products, it just not feasible for a merchant to change all of the descriptions and even more so if your inventory is changing on a monthly or even weekly basis. Then all of your changes get overwritten with the new upload.
A good example would be the SMC websites that you see on late night TV where they send out a CD with products to thousands of customers and 98% of them just upload the database into their stores with little to no alteration. They won't be penalized, but they just won't be able to sell much.
In those cases, the sites aren't going to be penalized. And if those sites are ranking well without changing the content, then Google is definitely looking at other factors to make that decision (traffic, bounce rate, time on site, etc.).
The sites Google are penalizing are the ones that intentionally try to game the system by stripping content from other sites and reposting them with literally no changes at all. Also sites that try to duplicate one of their stores multiple times in a cookie cutter fashion in order to trick the system to see if they can get multiple listings on the SERPs.
You haven't provided specific sites to review for a definitive answer here, but they don't sound like they're trying to do anything black hat. They're just lazy. But if your site will be selling the same products, altering your descriptions and images is the only way that you'll get the advanatage over them instead of just becoming "yet another one of those sites". Good luck!
-
Thanks for the Amazon comment Chris :). I understand the multitude of variables when asking this question but after looking at a group of sites with similar backlink profiles, site architecture, etc. and all use duplicate product descriptions I am taken aback that they are not penalized. Even looking at smaller sites that are not properly constructed or optimized use duplicate product descriptions and still drive traffic/rank. Then I read all about rewriting product descriptions from SEOMoz and others (this information gels with what I know to be true) but then see sites still rank with this thin/dupe content.
Any thoughts?
-
That could be for a variety of reasons. Is that site the only one that is offering that particular product? Is it a highly trafficked site with a lot of backlinks, reviews, and online activity? Are the pages simply coded properly using canonical tags which help them escape "wrath"? These are all valid questions when you're doing competitive analysis and all things that Google considers along with dozens of other considerations.
Your best practice is to create new descriptions, take new photos or alter the existing ones (add text, crop, change contrast, etc.). This way your listing is seen as fresh and original content and will eventually take precedence over their carbon copy approach. If you have a better page with better content that's more informative to the customer, Google will choose your listing over 20 other sites that all have the same photos and descriptions.
Originality always wins....in most cases. Keep in mind that there are many other considerations in the Google algorithms, so don't expect to beat out Amazon no matter how hard you try.
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
-
Will I have duplicate content on my own website?
Hello Moz community, We are an agency providing services to various industries, and among them the hair salon industry. On our website, we have our different service pages in the main menu, as usual. These service pages are general information and apply to any industry.We also have a page on the website that is only intended for the hair salon industry. On this page, we would like to link new service pages: they will be the same services as our “general” services, but specialized for hair salons. My questions relate to duplicate content: Do we have to make the new individual service pages for hair salons with completely different text, even though it’s the same service, in order to avoid having duplicate content? Can we just change a few words from the “general service” page to specifically target hair salons, and somehow avoid Google seeing it as duplicate content? Reminder that these pages will be internal links inside of the hair salon industry page. Thank you in advance for your answers, Gaël
On-Page Optimization | | Gael_Regnault0 -
Duplicate H3, H4 or H5 Tags
I know that duplicate H1 and H2 tags are a red flag for Google, but does the same apply for H3, H4 and H5 tags? A lot of my products have the same H5 tags and I'm wondering whether or not that is pulling down my keyword rank.
On-Page Optimization | | moon-boots0 -
How many words for product description
Hi, I've read articles on the MOZ blog, which stress the point for unique product descriptions. I think this was even mentioned in one White Board Friday. Now I am in the process of writing them. How many words should they have at least in your opinion? Best, Robin
On-Page Optimization | | soralsokal0 -
Meta Description Question
Hi, Lets say you have a 1000 pages, is it ok to generate a template meta description and flip the keywords depending on the page? For example: Red Shoes page: Buy Red Shoes at amazing prices. We have a large range of Red Shoe sizes available. Blue Shoes page: Buy Blue Shoes at amazing prices. We have a large range of Blue Shoe sizes available. Thoughts?
On-Page Optimization | | Bondara0 -
How to get rid of those duplicate pages
Hi eveyone Just got my first diagnostics report and i got 220 duplicate page titles and 217 duplicate content pages. I know why this has happened it is because i did play about a bit and did originally have:- www.mydomainname.com/index.php/alpha Then i change the page path to:- www.mydomainname.com/alpha Then i change the page path to:- www.mydomainname.com/category/alpha So now when i get crawled i have 3x duplicate page titles, descriptions and page content. Even when i have put 301 redirects to my preferred domain path. Which is hurting my seo, right? How do i stop theold domains from giving me these bad reports? The site is on Joomla Thanks guys Oujipickle
On-Page Optimization | | oujipickle0 -
Duplicate meta descriptions
Hi all, I'm using Yoast's SEO plugin and when I run a On Page report card here on SEOMOZ it says there are 2 descriptions tags I've been trying to fix this but can't (I'm new!) Anyone any ideas on this? Thanks Elaine
On-Page Optimization | | elaineryan0 -
Do I need a unique post meta description
Just wondering what the best practise is for unique meta desriptions on blogs. When I post a blog on my wordpress, clicking the title takes you to an individual page with that blog on it. I understand how important the title tag is on this page but when I create a meta description: a) is it useful? b) Should it be unique or is it ok to copy part of the post and insert that as the meta tag? Thanks
On-Page Optimization | | acs1111 -
Is ranking hurt by slow moving product
I sell B2B industrial products. I have 300 products on the site. Some products are seldom purchased and the brand name is not significant for these products If the title page is the right wording and length, and there is a valid product widget -1-1-1 but nobody has bought one in 5 years due to it being a niche product, but they could and it's a profitable sale. Question: Is** overall site rankin**g **being hurt **by valid content ( Description, Part # and Price and it can be checked out in the cart), but is is never/seldom searched for.?
On-Page Optimization | | Wales0