How do I create a strategy to get rid of dupe content pages but still keep the SEO juice?
-
We have about 30,000 pages that are variations of "<product-type>prices/<type-of-thing>/<city><state "<="" p=""></state></city></type-of-thing></product-type>
These pages are bringing us lots of free conversions because when somebody searches for this exact phrase for their city/state, they are pretty low-funnel.
The problem that we are running into is that the pages are showing up as dupe content.
One solution we were discussing is to 301-redirect or canonical all the city-state pages back to jus tthe "<type of="" thing="">" level, and then create really solid unique content for the few hundred pages we would have at that point.</type>
My concern is this. I still want to rank for the city-state because as I look through our best-converting search-terms, they nearly always have the city-state in the search term, so the search is some variation of " <product-type><type of="" thing=""><city><state>"</state></city></type></product-type>
One thing we thought about doing is dynamically changing the meta-data & headers to add the city-state info there.
Are there other potential solutions to this?
-
Thanks for getting back to me!
Even if you do the dynamic meta data, that does not sound like a lot of duplication can be avoided between the 30,000 city/state pages.
That's the reason we are considering this new strategy, where we have essentially 300 unique pages, but we dynamically generate the city/state.
Is the content on these pages unique ? I mean the set of products returned, are they just unique collections or what ?
The content is unique, to a point. The pricing varies by region, but the actual products are the same.
You said these pages are showing up as duplicate content ? Where are they showing as duplicate content ?
They are showing up as dupe content on the seomoz report. Not sure if that's what you mean?
Do your stronger pages, homepage, category pages rank for your head keywords ? Do they rank very very well ?
Not sure what you're asking exactly. How do I find out what my head keywords are?
It really depends upon the overall domain authority and what other stuff is going on your website.
Over PR is about a 5 right now.
-
Even if you do the dynamic meta data, that does not sound like a lot of duplication can be avoided between the 30,000 city/state pages.
Is the content on these pages unique ? I mean the set of products returned, are they just unique collections or what ?
You said these pages are showing up as duplicate content ? Where are they showing as duplicate content ?
Do your stronger pages, homepage, category pages rank for your head keywords ? Do they rank very very well ?
It really depends upon the overall domain authority and what other stuff is going on your website.
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 SEO Strategy
Hi fellow Mozers: I have a question about strategy. I have a client who is a major real estate developer in our region. They build and sell condominiums and also built and manage several major rental apartments. All rental properties have their own websites and there is also a corporate website, which has been around for many years and has decent domain authority (+/- 40). The original intent of the corporate website was to communicate central brand positioning points, attract investors and offer individual profiles of all major properties. My client is interested in developing an organic search strategy which will reach consumers looking to rent apartments. Typical search strings would include the family whose core string would be 'apartments in Baltimore.' (Currently, the client runs PPC for each one of their properties. This is expensive and highly competitive.) In doing research, we've found that there are two local competitors who are able to break on to Page 1 and appear beside the National 'apartment search guides' who dominate the Page 1 SERPS (like apartments.com). The two local competitors have websites of either the same or lower authority than our client's; one has a better link profile, the other is comparable. Here's our problem: our local competitors only build and manage apartments. So, then, the home pages and all the content of their sites ONLY talk about apartment rental related information. Our client's apartment business is actually larger in scope than either local competitor but is only one of their major real estate verticals. So my question is this: if we want to build out a bunch of content which will rank competitively with our local competition, are we better off creating a new area of the corporate site, creating targeted content and resources appropriate for apartment seekers OR would we be better off creating an entirely new site, just devoted to the same? I'm wondering if a new section will ever rank well against competitors whose root domains actually feature content which is only rental related? Likewise, I'm wondering whether we'd be giving up too much, in terms of authority, by creating an entirely new site? I've also only found examples in the industry where an entirely new site was created, so it makes me question the strategy of building out a rental-specific section of a site which also contains information about their condo business. For instance, the Related Companies are a huge builder in the East; they have a corporate site and a site called https//relatedrentals.com . Any feedback would be greatly appreciated!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Daaveey0 -
What is the best structure for paginating comment structures on pages to preserve the maximum SEO juice?
You have a full webpage with a great amount of content, images & media. This is a social blogging site where other members can leave their comments and reactions to the article. Over time there are say 1000 comments on this page. So we set the canonical URL, and use Rel (Prev & Next) to tell the bots that the next subsequent block of 100 comments is attributed to the primary URL. Or... We allow the newest 10 comments to exist on the primary URL, with a "see all" comments link that refers to a new URL, and that is where the rest of the comments are paginated. Which option does the community feel would be most appropriate and would adhere to the best practices for managing this type of dynamic comment growth? Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | HoloGuy0 -
Splitting a strong page - SEO
Hi, I have a page with high traffic that is showing a list of flea markets in a unique URL. We are redesigning our website and we have created a listing directory of flea markets, so the users can look up and find the information for each. Each flea market will have its own URL in the future, and the listing directory shows only summarized info of each flea market in the results. Before activating the new flea market section, I would like to make sure which is our best bet: Option 1: Create pages with same URL/content as the current ones, which we won't link from frontend, and besides that, use the new flea market section on a separate page. Option 2: Redirect the current page to the new flea market section. As an inaccurate reference because it depends on many variables and SEO doesn't have an actual number, I understand this is more or less how it would work: Example Option 1 (after 1 week of launch): Old Flea Market Pages SEO traffic: 10,000 visits/month New Copied Flea Market Pages traffic: 9,700 (maybe a bit below 100 because of design changes etc) New Flea Market Section traffic: 500 visits/month (then increase over time) Example Option 2 (after 1 week of launch): Old Flea Market Pages SEO traffic: 10,000 visits/month New Redirected Flea Market Pages traffic: 9,000 (in principle PageRank wouldn't be affected, but other rankings might) New Flea Market Section traffic: (joined above, then increase over time) According to this, Option 1 would give us more total future visits compared to redirecting, plus the new flea market pages would add to it. If redirecting, the new flea market section would add up some SEO juice to the old page, but not as much as Option 1 (not redirecting). Please confirm. Which option is the best one and why? Thank you, New 301 Redirection Rules: https://moz.com/blog/301-redirection-rules-for-seo
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | viatrading10 -
SEO Adjustments Where Content Isn't Front And Centre...
So I am wondering what people think for a SEO strategy for sites where (1) the interaction is a one-off event and (2) content is not often shared or something that people want. Specificially regarding two sites this applies to: Site 1 is basically a mortgage site. So customers interact with the site once and then most likely never again once their mortgage is sorted. Mortgages aren't great content pieces and customers don't really read a lot of the content - it's part of the reason loan officers/mortgage professionals exist... Site 2 is also for a one off purchase but it's an embarrassing problem that nobody would share content for because they don't want people to know that they sought help for this. This also makes getting backlinks hard. Also it is a one off purchase, never to be made again... Am interested in how people would adapt their SEO strategies to these circumstances - where content development and promotion is limited...
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | GTAMP0 -
Which is more valuable in a landing page, content or functionality?
I have two possible landing pages to focus off page links and paid ad links to, one page has space for content but basically only serves as a springboard to a map view style listing page. The idea is to use this page full of good content to build search engine value. The map view page is the most functional and is what visitors would ultimately be seeking, but has no real room for content. Are these content landing pages useful? Would it be better to focus on user functionality even though there is no space for content, and would search engines naturally apply for value to these pages? Are these landing pages necessary? The url's in question are http://www.rentcollegepads.com/marquette/search and http://www.rentcollegepads.com/marquette Thanks guys!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Dom4410 -
Manual action penalty revoked, rankings still low, if we create a new site can we use the old content?
Scenario:
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | peteboyd
A website that we manage was hit with a manual action penalty for unnatural incoming links (site-wide). The penalty was revoked in early March and we're still not seeing any of our main keywords rank high in Google (we are found on page 10 and beyond). Our traffic metrics from March 2014 (after the penalty was revoked) - July 2014 compared to November 2013 - March 2014 was very similar. Question: Since the website was hit with a manual action penalty for unnatural links, is the content affected as well? If we were to take the current website and move it to a new domain name (without 301 redirecting the old pages), would Google see it as a brand new website? We think it would be best to use brand new content but the financial costs associated are a large factor in the decision. It would be preferred to reuse the old content but has it already been tarnished?0 -
If I only Link to Page via Sitemap, can it still get indexed?
Hi there! I am creating a ton of content for specific geographies. Is it possible for these pages to get indexed if I only put them in my sitemap and don't link to them through my actual site (though the pages will be live). Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Travis-W
Travis0 -
WIll Splash Page Triggered Only for iPhones Hurt SEO
Background We are in the process of launching a website where ticket inventory and processing are handled by a third party. Our primary means of traffic generation (at least at first) will be through SEO traffic. One of the things that they require of us is a script that will detect people with an iPhone and, upon entering the site, display a page giving people the option to call for help or continue to the site. (see attached screenshot) We will still get credit for the transaction (tracked through the phone #) and they say that this increases conversion rate, so it is something that we would like to use, unless it will affect our ability to rank in mobile. Problem My concern is that we will be penalized by Google (or rank poorly in Mobile search) because the page that iPhone users (not iPad users) are served is hosted on a different domain and not optimized at all for the keywords people are searching for. This is obviously a non-issue if Google never sees the page, but I have heard that Google will emulate different devices when crawling pages. Question Can anyone provide any insight about this? I feel like we are adding value to customers by giving them the option to speak to customer support, but I'm afraid that Google will think we are cloaking or at best providing the same page to anyone entering with an iPhone. Here is a link to the soon-to-be-launched website:http://dev.concerttickets.com.vhost.zerolag.com/ -- so you can check it out on your iPhone.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | highlyrelevant
Is there a possibility that this could effect SEO traffic from other devices?
Any suggests will or advice will be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance!
EP1nA EP1nA EP1nA.png
0