Duplicate Content
-
I have a question regarding non-original content on multiple sites. I'm working for a client that's company has a personalized social network for it's fans (completely custom, built from the ground up - not like kickapps, or the other social network dev platforms). Anyway the network is fairly active - at least a couple thousand users - and each one of these sites is given a subdomain.
Each of these subdomains can be given a custom URL if purchased - but essentially it's much like creating a blogger or wordpress. Each URL is basically "http://FanUsername.BrandName.c0m/"
Now the dev had the genius idea of publishing all "corporate/company" blog posts on everyone of these subdomains as well. When first learning of this, I told them it was a terrible idea - and that it may even penalize the main blog. After more research - it looks like this may not be the case? I still think they should just link back to the main blog and discontinue publishing these posts on all of these additional subdomains (and for those that purchased domain names - unique websites).
What do you guys think? Should they only include an RSS feed of links back to the main blog? Should they just link directly back to the blog? Or should they offer shortened versions of each blog post - ala links + meta description + Read More...? Or lastly, should they just keep as is?
Thanks for the help
-
For user experience, I don't like it either. But I'm more curious about the duplicate content issue. Could they be seen as simply full text RSS feeds on multiple sites? Or since the root domain is still apart of the site, it is actually seen as "on-site duplicate content" which some suggest penalizes the main site.
i'm going to recommend removing the posts all together, and then to offer an RSS of just links on another portion of the page. Maybe on the left or right column? This could be beneficial as it builds our internal linking.
-
They do not have to pay for the blog. It's all free.
It's simply apart of their blog by default when creating a social media profile. Basically it looks like an RSS feed going across all these sub-sites. Now RSS feeds are great usually right? The problem here, IMO, is that these sites are built off of the root domain. So off of one website. Which causes major issues.
I'm drafting an e-mail now to offer my options on how to fix this. rel=canonical seems like an option, but purely on user experience, I would just turn them off. Maybe include an RSS feed of just the links on a separate page.
-
As long as there is a rel=canonical in place on each one of these sub-domains I see no problem with it. It doesn't sound like the most elegant solution the way they are doing it... If I had my own "blog" on Facebook or Squarespace I wouldn't want their stuff to be published on my blog, it's just not relevant. Can you pm me the URL? I'm interested to see this in action.
-
...publishing these posts on all of these additional subdomains (and for those that purchased domain names - unique websites)
Sounds like a really bad idea that will stink up user blogs and make them mad. They should charge him for advertising if they have to pay for the blog.
and that it may even penalize the main blog. After more research - it looks like this may not be the case?
I would not do it. Six months ago I would have worried about the posts being filtered... but since February I would worry about my entire domain being demoted by the Panda algo.
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
-
Facebook ignores multiple slashes for business listing - true duplicate page issue?
Hi everyone, I am doing an external link audit for a site that contains a large number of public business profiles in it. As a part of each profile, there can be a website listed for the business, as well as a FB page and twitter etc. Pretty standard. There are thousands of business profiles on the site and I noticed that in a small group of links to FB profiles there seem to be typos. These are not the actual businesses that I found, but I have taken common public profiles and modified to show what I am seeing to give examples. https://www.facebook.com//nissanusa/ https://www.facebook.com//pizzahutus/ https://www.facebook.com//WhiteHouse/ https://www.facebook.com//TrekBicycle/ Notice the double slash. You can put as many slashes as you want and it makes no difference, e.g. https://www.facebook.com///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////TrekBicycle/ FB shows a 200 for all of pages when it should show a 404. There is no 301 to the correct URL. Facebook also does not canonical these other pages to the one slash URL. You could call this a potential duplicate content issue due to typos. These types of pages would be important for brand related searches for a business. Google may be smart enough to ignore them, or maybe the typo does not happen often enough that it does not really matter. I am just surprised that FB does not 404 or 301 these pages. When I checked my personal FB page URL and some of my friends, this does not happen. FB shows a 404 if you add extra slashes to personal pages. So, the duplicate issue seems to only be with business type FB pages. Curious about what the group thinks or if they have seen similar situations like this one. Thanks!
Social Media | | CleverPhD0 -
Using Linkedin Groups for Content Marketing
In my sector there are approximately 100 relevant groups that I could post content to. There are between 5 and 10 that would be relevant to any particular blog post. How many groups should I post to? If I post to all relevant ones I can end up spamming due to overlapping group membership, If I don't I can miss out on access to a potentially large audience What's best practice here?
Social Media | | Zippy-Bungle0 -
Duplicate Content issue: Amazon book review & company blog
Can my site be penalized for including a book review verbatim in my blog that I also post on Amazon? What are the steps I need to take? I have written a book review that I want to post on Amazon. I am also planning to create a blog post and include the exact text of the review within the post which I will then also promote on my social channels. What do I need to watch out for in terms of duplicate content? Is there a sequence I should follow? We have the rel=canonical tag on our site which is WordPress.
Social Media | | gfiedel0 -
What do I do about old content on my blog?
I run a blog: www.b2bsocialmediaguide.com. It's been going for 2.5 years and some of the old content is, frankly, dated! What do you recommend I do about it? 1. Update old articles with new, more relevant content and change the date? 2. Write new articles with the relevant content and forward the URLs from old articles to the new ones? 3. Do nothing. 4. Just add links to new content from old posts? I don't want to lose link juice!
Social Media | | HeatherBakerTopLine0 -
Benefits and cons of hosting video content vs hosting via youtube
Hi if a site is hosting its own videos (not embedding them on youtube) is there less benefits then getting youtube to host it, and then embedding the youtube video. For instance: For benefits such as building channel authority, easy to rank the video in the search engines hosted on youtube, better opportunity to increase visitors and traffic and higher chance for the video to spread and rank for the keyword when hosted on youtube. What do you guys think?
Social Media | | monster990 -
MyBlogGuest releases 'Viral Content Buzz' website
Hi, Looks like Ann over at MyBlogGuest has released a very interesting side project called 'Viral Content Buzz' (www.viralcontentbuzz.com). I have had a quick look and it seems to be something that could be very useful regarding social sharing of content. Basically you can put your article into a category to gain exposure for it (this costs 'points'), once in the gallery others can tweet the link to the article to gain themselves points - and it goes round and round. It does look like a good way of building up followers and exposure but in order to pick up points you need to tweet and you can not tweet until you have a certain number of followers (just so you know I like this). The only thing I can think of negatively is how real are those lists? I guess the proof would be in the retweeting and visits to the article. Anyone else looked at this service?
Social Media | | activitysuper1 -
Should I use a subdomain our primary domain for this content?
Hi, We have an eCommerce site www.refreshcartridges.co.uk and currently publish videos, unique articles, troubleshooting advice etc. on a subdomain igloo.refreshcartridges.co.uk. The hope is that the content on igloo will prove sufficiently useful for someone to either link to or bookmark for future reference. Eventually this will hopefully result in sales through the main site. We were assured several years ago that we should host this content on a subdomain but the more I think about it, the more I think that this content should be hosted as part of the main site (for example www.refreshcartridges.co.uk/igloo/). My logic is that this would extend a couple of advantages, not least that any links built to this unique content would be attributed to the primary domain rather than the subdomain. Although I appreciate the subdomain does link back to the primary domain I can't help but feel this dilutes the potential strength of any link. Post Penguin I think it would be nice to get genuine, natural links appreciating content on our primary domain rather than a separate subdomain. It should probably be pointed out that we only publish articles related to our key business activity (printing, cartridges, technology) on igloo. There is no unrelated content designed simply as link bait. If we were to make the move we would of course 301 all the old pages.. I would really appreciate your opinion on whether you agree or whether you would be tempted to keep the content on a subdomain. Thanks for your help! Chris
Social Media | | ChrisHolgate0 -
I'd like some thoughts on content I'm considering producing for my discount drug card business...
I'm fairly new to SEO, but I'm trying to learn. I have a discount prescription drug card business and while it's quite new (the website was created in January) I'm not very satisfied with the traffic I'm receiving...that's putting it mildly. I'm contemplating different methods I might be able to exercise in order for my website to show value....to my potential visitors and search engines. First, while I do have a blog I find it extremely difficult to offer well-written material on prescription drugs and what not....while it is my intention to offer a good product and service it's a subject that I don't have enough experience on to write intelligent posts. I'm just not in a position to hire a writer. Essentially I have two thoughts....one, trying to find a doctor, a pharmacist or a pharmacy school whereby I could professionally videotape a presenter talking about various prescription drugs, kind of like a glossary. Which prescriptions are used to treat various ailments, etc... The 2nd idea is a little disconnected to the business of prescription drugs, but along the lines of saving money and being financially sound. In this example I would tape 30 second pieces where a financial consultant might give different lessons about ways to save money or be financially prudent. For someone looking to save money on prescription drugs...this could be very useful information. My reasoning with both of these is providing original material that could make my site more authoritative and provide rich content. Videotaping these would be a good option for me because that's my primary business. I appreciate your patience and feedback. Any other ideas or input would be most welcome! Thank you.
Social Media | | MyMeds0