Best Way to check for duplicate pages
-
With Google's updates we know they want to clean out duplicate content. i have been seeing the same crap spit out even word for word on different sites. Anyway how do you experienced SEO people test for dups on your own site as well as other sites. The only thing i can come up with is paying copyscape 5 cts a test. There has to be other ways. Advise/
-
Well there's the rub. Close key words...
avoid an audit
avoid a tax audit
avoid audit
all get hits from the rankings data. they bring up different pages as top ranking because different sites and pages rank differently based on the key word optimization.
Now I have the experience to know that in the past a good well developed linking structure will overcome this and you actually can rank for several variations by having a good topical silo structure. I am sometimes surprised what my main page ranks for just because a term is on the page! Content dominating the page does get hits.
BUT...competition is getting crazy in my industry. Sales companies are ranking and then selling the leads.I'm not just competing with similar businesses anymore. It seems like as long as I can vary the content, and i really can, because I have over 30 years in the business and more experience than anyone i know , so i can write varied content all day long!
As for the page, we don't use flash or anything. Had over 100 links on many pages so some changes had to be made.
Tell me more about an easier path to trend instead of doing pages for slight variations. Long term phrases don't seem to get many hits in my business. At least I don't think it's worth doing pages for till we knock off the shorter ones we have a chance of ranking for, which includes the three listed above.
-
Thanks, so then 5ct a test will add up but then it will be worth it. That's the feedback i was looking for, just wanted to make sure i wasn't missing another cheaper service that was as good.
-
Hey Joe
I think you have likely answered your own question to some extent - there are lots of manual ways to check for duplicate content by searching for it. You could even automate this against new sites by setting up Google Alerts to check for various random search strings in double quotes from all the pages across your site but why do this when there are professional solutions like copyscape?
Sure, there is a charge involved with copyscape and such tools but it is a fairly low. Alteratively, you will have to spend more time (money) coming up with a manual solution that will likely be less comprehensive.
A client of mine recently got hit quite badly by duplicate problems, some internal repetition (chunks on multiple pages) & loads of other sites had taken chunks of text from multiple pages, some entire pages had been copied with small edits. The offshoot of this was nearly 3 months without rankings whilst we identified and resolved the issue and being an internet company this was nearly three months without any new orders coming in.
If your have concerns about being caught up in a duplicate filter & this could have a series impact on your business then copyscape is a solid investment.
Hope it helps
Marcus
-
Does your situation benefit from having higher content pages that rank for your target keyword plus variables and long term additions? If so that might be an easier path to tread than something like page 1: kitten, page 2: kittens, page 3: young kittens...
If you're really looking into cranking out the content you're more along the lines of a eHow or other Demand Media property and then yes, you'd need a program to prevent duplication of both content created and keywords targeted. Still, even they get variable content by avoiding overly similar topics.
Finally, if header, footer, and side bar info is complicating things too drastically you could take steps on some pages to keep it unindexed via flash, image map, or by minimizing where applicable.
-
Thanks, I am aware of those things. I still don't want to worry about duplicate content. i have many pages that have similar key words that i can rank for, and I have to write them. I also have a lot of header and side bar info and need my content long enough to overcome that. Writing many pages that focus on similar key words can cause me to inadvertantly write similar info that i need to watch out for. that's why i need a copyscape type program.
-
You can search for long quote, supposedly unique phrases in Google. If you find multiple pages from other domains you'll have located duplicate content. Duplicate content isn't a death knell though as Google understands that there are many sites out there which scrape and farm content. With enough authority you should outrank those sorts of sites and also be able to highlight your original content status in Google Webmaster tools.
If you have copyright status to your content you can always pursue DMCA removal requests.
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
-
Combine poorly ranking pages into a single page?
I'm doing on-page optimizations for an apartment management company, and they have about seven apartments listed on their site. Rather than include everything on the same page - /apartments/apartment-name/ - they have the following setup: /apartments/apartment-name/contact /apartments/apartment-name/features /apartments/apartment-name/availability /apartments/apartment-name/gallery /apartments/apartment-name/neighborhood With very few exceptions, none of these pages appear to rank for anything, and those that do either rank very poorly for seemingly random keywords or for keywords like the apartment complex name (alongside the main landing page for the complex). I'm of the mind to recommend combining the pages into a single one that contains all the info, eliminates the chances for duplicate content (all of the neighborhood pages contain the same content verbatim), and prevents keyword cannibalization. Thoughts? Thanks.
On-Page Optimization | | Alces1 -
Updated page not ranking.
Hi Guys. Bit flummoxed by this. I've recently updated our Mid year diaries page to be this years mid year products. i.e) Diaries that go from 2015-16 not 2014-15. Last year we rank really well for the search term 'mid year diaries 14-15'. All i've done is update the page to be focused on 2015-16 diaries, but when i type in 'mid year diaries 15-16' it's no where to be seen in the SERP. Even our home page is ranking higher! I'm really puzzled about this, nothings changed apart from the year! The only reason I can think of is that Google is reading the file name of the images which are related to lasts years products? For example the file name might say mid year diary 2014-15. Do you think this is what's effecting us? Very puzzling 😕 I've submitted it through Webmaster tool btw 🙂 Isaac.
On-Page Optimization | | isaac6630 -
How to remove duplicate content issues for thin page(containing oops no resulting found)
In this scenarios we have multiple different URLs but the page content is rendering same (containing Oops message) due to which content duplicate's issue arises.As soon as content for these URL,s are available then those pages duplicate issue will removed. So we want to remove duplicate issue not the page & Page URLs.
On-Page Optimization | | surabhi60 -
How to treat pages that are removed?
I have a website that need be very up-to-date, I mean, pages can be published just for 30 days, after that it should be unpublished. Everyday more than 300 pages is "removed", For theses pages I am returning http code "410" (Gone), also I remove from the sitemap. Now, I am checking Google WebMasterTools and I am getting thousands of pages not found. So... My questions Does it have SEO impact? How is the best approach to treat it?
On-Page Optimization | | thobryan0 -
Why a page with an On Page A grade has a less good rank than a page with a F grade?
Why a page with an On Page A grade is ranked 17 in Google when the home page with a F grade is ranked 9 ? Thanks
On-Page Optimization | | Amadeus_eBC0 -
Duplicate page
Just getting started and had a question regarding one of the reports. It is telling me that I have duplicate pages but I'm not sure how to resolve that.
On-Page Optimization | | KeylimeSocial0 -
My website is saying I have duplicate page content and page title. How do I fix it?
Hi, I created a website on webstarts.com. After I launched it then ran a scan through SEO it says I have duplicate page content and page title. The 2 pages it is reading are technically the same page. www.mobilemowermedicsinc.com and www.mobilemowermedicsinc.com/index . I am unsure how to get rid of on of these as it keeps saying this is an error in the SEO scan. Could someone please advise me of what to do from here. Thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | bcarp880 -
Some of my pages are ranking for terms which I want other pages to rank for. What can I do to effectively switch the ranking?
Some of the pages are ranking for terms I have optimised other pages for. The pages which are ranking are quite rightly falling, because they aren't optimised for the terms they're showing for. However, I have pages which are optomised for those terms. How do I switch the SERPS to the page I want?
On-Page Optimization | | GlobalLingo1