Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Duplicate Terms of Use and Privacy Policy, is it a problem?
-
Hi,
If i use same terms of use and privacy policy content across my websites, does it amounts to duplicate content issues? Does it affect my websites in any manner?
Regards
-
Duplicate content is one of many hundreds of factors. If you have a very well crafted site, highly optimized, and with a very strong inbound link profile, but only a couple pages (ones that are not highly relevant to your primary topical focus) are duplicate, the potential negative impact on your overall rankings will be minimal.
This is true for most SEO factors. If any single factor has a flaw, but it's not a flaw that applies to the whole site, that single factor is going to have minimum impact on the overall site.
-
You can do almost anything you wish on a "noindex" tagged page. You are telling the search engine bot to exclude the page from the search index, so the page should not affect your ranking.
The reason your site's # of pages is a factor, is your overall site is viewed as a whole. If you have a basic site with 10 pages, and there is a problem with 1 of the pages having duplicate content, then 10% of your site is affected, and this can impact how the search engine views your site. If your site hosted a forums with 10k pages, then that 1 page would represent 0.001 of your site, so the impact would not have any real effect.
-
Thanks for the helpful reply Alan! Can you please explain this - "If it's only a few pages, sure, duplicate content there could have an impact". How duplicate content issues vary between small and big sites? I was under the impression that number of pages do not have any influence in duplicate content.
Is it okay to use the same privacy policy and terms of use across different websites as long as i noindex,follow them?
-
How big is your site? If it's only a few pages, sure, duplicate content there could have an impact. But in reality, I expect your site is not primarily made up of keyword phrases that either of those pages would be optimized for, and that you have more than a few pages. If so, any "negative" aspect would not be severe.
Having said that, it really is best to just use a robots meta tag set to noindex,follow (my preference instead of blocking completely in the robots.txt file.
-
Thanks for the reply Ryan! But if i don't block it via robots.txt file or noindex tag, will it affect my site negatively? I mean the overall site
-
I would recommend blocking pages such as privacy policy, terms of use, legal, etc. It is unlikely these pages would ever bring traffic to your site. Even if they did, it is not going to be the quality traffic you desire.
In robots.txt you can add
Disallow: /pages/privacy/
substitute your local path for /pages/privacy/
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 Structure For E-Commerce With Products Using Multiple Categories
Hi all, I am in the process of re-structuring my e-commerce website for better SEO and user experience. I have done some keyword research and would like some advice on how best to structure my site around those keywords. For example, my site (All Things Nature) sells a brand of wooden sculptures (Woodsculp) and I would like to rank for keywords related to that brand, the brand by animal, the brand by collection and the brand by release date.
Content Development | | nb2e4fg
Examples of keywords could be: Brand by Animal: Woodsculp Dogs, Woodsculp Cats, Woodsculp Elephants
Brand by Collection: Woodsculp Pets, Woodsculp Safari
Brand by Release Date: Woodsculp Christmas 2023, Woodsculp Summer 2022 I would create each of these keywords as a category so that they can be found by a search engine and by users. I would then structure as follows: All Things Nature -> Woodsculp -> Woodsculp by Animal -> Woodsculp Dogs
All Things Nature -> Woodsculp -> Woodsculp by Animal -> Woodsculp Elephants
All Things Nature -> Woodsculp -> Woodsculp by Collection -> Woodsculp Pets
All Things Nature -> Woodsculp -> Woodsculp by Collection -> Woodsculp Safari
All Things Nature -> Woodsculp -> Woodsculp by Release Date -> Woodsculp Christmas 2023
All Things Nature -> Woodsculp -> Woodsculp by Release Date -> Woodsculp Summer 2022 The only problem with this structure is it would take more than 3 clicks (4) for the user to reach a product. How critical is this for good SEO and user experience? Would I be better off getting rid of the ‘Woodsculp by Animal’, ‘Woodsculp by Collection’ and ‘Woodsculp by Release Date’ categories? Structure would look as follows: All Things Nature -> Woodsculp -> Woodsculp Dogs
All Things Nature -> Woodsculp -> Woodsculp Elephants
All Things Nature -> Woodsculp -> Woodsculp Safari
All Things Nature -> Woodsculp -> Woodsculp Christmas 2023 The only thing with this is there would be a lot of categories under the brand name which might make it more difficult for search engines and users to logically follow. Would I be better off getting rid of the brand category and replace them with the keyword categories? Structure would look as follows: All Things Nature -> Woodsculp by Animal -> Woodsculp Dogs
All Things Nature -> Woodsculp by Animal -> Woodsculp Elephants
All Things Nature -> Woodsculp by Collection -> Woodsculp Safari
All Things Nature -> Woodsculp by Release Date -> Woodsculp Christmas 2023 This would organise things more logically but I would then lose the brand category (and the potential of the brand keyword ranking?) Would I be better off choosing one main keyword to use as a category and then use tags for the other categories? Categories: All Things Nature -> Woodsculp -> Woodsculp Dogs
All Things Nature -> Woodsculp -> Woodsculp Elephants Tags: Woodsculp Safari
Woodsculp Christmas 2023 The next issue I have is that I have products which could fall under several different categories. A product called Elijah Elephant, for example could fall under Woodsculp Elephants, Woodsculp Safari and Woodsculp Summer 2022. In previous e-commerce sites I have never assigned multiple categories to one product (I instead have used tags). Is it good practice to organise products under multiple categories for an e-commerce site? Thanks in advance for any help and advice.0 -
Can I use expired domain content on My Blog
Hello Expert, I wanted to know, can I use expired domain content on my blog channel. I have done many searches on google but couldn't find a satisfactory answer. Please help me to find out this.
Content Development | | vijay77960 -
Duplicate content between my web and Youtube
I have a web with 90 vídeos hosted in my Youtube channel and each video have an description in single url, but Youtube videos have no description. If I copy description from my web and paste to Youtube description, this is duplicate content for Google ?
Content Development | | VisualService1 -
Using Product Descriptions in Meta Description
Hi All We have over 10000 Products and a while ago we spent some time adding Product Descriptions to the Product Pages, For Example we have Product - Black Snazaroo Face Paint Product Description - Great for Childrens parties, fundraising events, Halloween or other festive faces. An easy makeup to apply and remove. All Snazaroo face paints are Non toxic, Fragrance free and Skin friendly. Snazaroo is suitable for all skin types, however it is always recommended you do a skin patch test on a small area before full application. Unfortuantly our Meta Descriptions really need some work, for example this same page contains the following meta descriptions We realise this could be holding our site back. Is it ok to use the same Product Description inside the Meta Description Tags also, for example can we use the Meta Description for this Page - Thanks
Content Development | | AMG1000 -
Multiple listings for the same product - how to avoid duplication?
Hi everyone, We are working on an e-commerce site that has three different physical stores that each hold different products in stock. A listing is created on the website for each product in each location but if the same product is in all three stores the images and description are duplicate content We can't have one product page and tag locations to it as this would then require keeping two different stock systems updated, but is there a way to avoid the three pages being duplicates of each other? Many thanks for the advice!
Content Development | | A_Q0 -
Can I post my MailChimp articles on my blog without getting hit for duplicate content?
I would like to post my newsletters on my blog, but am afraid of duplicate content since you can click a link on the MailChimp email blast to view the Newsletter online. Is this considered dup content?
Content Development | | RoxBrock0 -
Duplicate Content
I have a service based client that is interested in optimizing his website for all the services that he provides in all the locations that he provides them in. For example: Service 1, location 1 Service 1, location 2 Service 2, location 1 Service 2, location 2 He wants to essentially create an individual page for each of the above, but i'm concerned that he will be penalized for duplicate content. Each of the pages would have the keyword in the url, page title and within the main body of content. We would certainly alter the content somewhat, but not sure how much a difference this would make. Any thoughts or advice would be greatly appreciated.
Content Development | | embracedarrenhughes1 -
Duplicate Content behind a Paywall
We have a website that is publicly visible. This website has content. We'd like to take that same content, put it on another website, behind a paywall. Since Google will not be able to crawl those pages behind the paywall is there any risk to ua doing this? Thanks! Mike
Content Development | | FOTF_DigitalMarketing0