Duplicate Page Titles & Content
-
We have just launched a new version of a website and after running it through SEOMOZ we have over 6000 duplicate title & content errors. (awesome)
We have products that show up multiple times under different URLs however we "thought" we had implemented the rel=canonical correctly.
My question is - do these errors still show up in SEOMOZ despite the canonical tags being there OR if they were "correct" would we be getting "zero" errors?
-
Hi Ladies & Gents
It was a canonical tag error - we went from 6000 errors to 11500 errors and now after the issue was fixed we have a handful of non related errors to sort.
Really appreciate all the feedback.
Kind Regards
Liam
-
how are you getting on, did this get resolved?
-
Hey Peter, I'm just having problems with the 4th example, and I believe you are doing it wrong. Not to try to point out problems with your software, but the report that I now have is more or less unusable for my clients because you see the duplicates this way.
What we have, is duplicates reaching to different categories with canonical set up.
B references A in category 1
D references C in category 2
and hundreds more ...But, because B and D are empty, except for the navigation, the tool sees B and D as duplicates. Two problems with that:
1. They are not even "considered" by Google, because they reference something else as a canonical, so they are not duplicates of each other.
2. The report now shows 10 different pages from different categories as duplicates, and with the number of false identified duplicates it is now impossible for me to find any real duplicates.So, is my understanding wrong, and what can we do to find the really duplicated pages?
Thanks,
-
Hi there,
Thanks for reaching out to us! I'm sorry if there are any confusions regarding the way we classify duplicate content. Just clarify a few things, here is how our system interprets duplicate content vs. rel canonical:
Assuming A, B, C, and D are all duplicates,
If A references B as the canonical, then they are not considered duplicates
If A and B both reference C as canonical, A and B are not considered duplicates of each other
If A references C as a canonical, A and B are considered duplicated
If A references C as canonical, B references D, then A and B are considered duplicates
The examples you've provided actually fall into the fourth example I've listed above.For more information on using canonical tags, check out this great post by our very own Dr. Pete:
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/rel-confused-answers-to-your-rel-canonical-questionsI hope this clears things up. Please let me know if you have any other questions.
Best,
Peter
SEOmoz Help Team. -
Thanks for the responses - sort of what I feared but haven't implemented canonical tags before so was unsure whether they should be showing.
Looks like there is a long day ahead
-
I am afraid i don’t know the detailed ins and outs of SEOMozs products, however we have some paginated pages on one of our sites. Our crawl reports are not showing errors for duplicate page titles and they are detailed in the notices section as canonical.
This implies to me that the crawl reports do ignore correctly formatted canonical tags. Perhaps you could download the error list and the list of discovered canonical tags and compare the two to confirm. Alternately try crawling the site with other tools, the one i would recommend is Screaming Frog as this will allow you to filter canonical tags in the reports, and do it for free.
-
Hi,
All things being equal, if the canonical tags are properly implemented you should see zero.
For ecomm sites, it is pretty easy to get duplicate title and content warnings from similar but not identical product pages which is usually an indication of thin content (no descriptions or one line descriptions that are almost identical).
So first line of enquiry is to confirm the canonicals are really doing what you expect them to be doing and if after the next crawl you still see duplicate issues then download them in a csv and start investigating them to see which pages are being flagged.
Hope that helps!
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
-
What Should I Do About Duplicate Title Warning From Category Pages Of Store?
I know a lot of the MOZ warnings can be ignored, however, I'm trying to figure out of this one should be added to that list: my store has urls setup like this for categories: https://www.mysite.com/sweaters https://www.mysite.com/sweaters/page/2 The meta title is "Sweaters" for both pages. Is that bad practice? I don't think I can automatically change the meta title to to Sweaters Page 2 or even want to. or should I do that? Or just ignore these type of warnings?
Moz Pro | | IcarusSEO0 -
Duplicate content issue
I'm getting duplicate content warnings from Moz for various slideshows on my posts and pages in Wordpress. It seems when I create a slideshow it exists as its own page and as these have no text Moz sees them as duplicates. Here are some examples - http://www.weddingphotojournalist.co.uk/?gallery_page=slideshow&pp_gallery_id=1331991312
Moz Pro | | simonatkinsphoto
Moz says is a duplicate of -
http://www.weddingphotojournalist.co.uk/?gallery_page=slideshow&pp_gallery_id=1000144730 The second of those two slideshows is on this page -http://www.weddingphotojournalist.co.uk/menorca-wedding/ but also exists as the page above. How can i avoid these being seen as duplicate content?0 -
I have double-checked the rel canonical is properly employed on our page but the On Page Grader says it's not working?
I have double-checked the rel canonical is properly employed on our page but the On Page Grader says it's not working Here is the URL - http://www.solidconcepts.com/industries/aerospace-parts-manufacturing/ What is wrong with how we are doing things?
Moz Pro | | StratasysDirectManufacturing0 -
Crawl report - duplicate page title/content issue
When the crawl report is finished, it is saying that there are duplicate content/page titles issues. However there is a canonical tag that is formatted correctly so just wondered if this was a bug or if anyone else was having the same issues? For example, I'm getting a error warning for this page http://www.thegreatgiftcompany.com/categories/categories_travel?sort=name_asc&searchterm=&page=1&layout=table
Moz Pro | | KarlBantleman0 -
Duplicate page errors
I have 102 duplicate page title errors and 64 duplicate page content errors. They are almost all from the email a friend forms that are on each product of my online store. I looked and the pages are identical except for the product name. Is this a real problem and if so is there a work around or should I see if I can turn off the email a friend option? Thanks for any information you can give me. Cingin Gifts
Moz Pro | | cingingifts0 -
Only Crawling 1 page?
Hi Guys, Any advice much appreciated on this! Recently set up a new campaign on my dashboard with just 5 keywords. The domain is brammer.co.uk and a quick Google site:brammer.co.uk shows a good amount of indexed pages. However - first seomoz tool crawl has only crawled 1 url!! "Last Crawl Completed: Apr. 12th, 2011 Next Crawl Starts: Apr. 17th, 2011" Any ideas what's stopping the tool crawl anymore of the site?? Cheers in advance.. J
Moz Pro | | lovealbatross0 -
Duplicate content and what to say to my webmaster
Hi, SEOmoz is telling me I have a duplicate content issue between kansascityrealestate dot com and kansascityrealestate dot com/Real-Estate-Homes-Kansas-City.asp my webmaster says Google should figure out is the same page. Suggestions on what to do and how to explain it to the webmaster? Thank you.
Moz Pro | | Ken_Jansen0