Duplicate Content Question
-
Currently, we manage a site that generates content from a database based on user search criteria such as location or type of business. ..Although we currently rank well -- we created the website based on providing value to the visitor with options for viewing the content - we are concerned about duplicate content issues and if they would apply.
For example, the listing that is pulled up for the user upon one search could have the same content as another search but in a different order. Similar to hotels who offer room booking by room type or by rate.
Would this dynamically generated content count as duplicate content?
The site has done well, but don't want to risk a any future Google penalties caused by duplicate content. Thanks for your help!
-
Thank you for your provided example, that's exactly what I meant.
You have the following "default" display:
http://www.neworleansrestaurants.com/restaurants/
and the following one which is a "variant" of the first one:
http://www.neworleansrestaurants.com/restaurants/?loc=all
You are actually showing the "same" listings ordered differently... so, a rel=canonical in my opinion will put you safe:
-
I can't give you the specific example of the site because it's undergoing redesign
However, we have a similar issue on a sister site. It has 2 separate pages with the same listings but different categories:
By location: http://www.neworleansrestaurants.com/restaurants/?loc=all
By type of restaurant http://www.neworleansrestaurants.com/restaurants/
Thanks for the feed and information Fabrizo.
-
I don't understand why the content of those 2 pages are the same if they show different categories... are same listings ordered differently? Can we have a look at those pages?
-
On our site only difference is that different pages show up different results. I.e., the page with results A will have a title tag and content related to page A. The page results for page B will also have a unique page with a unique title tag. In that case, the listings are the same.. but they appear on two pages, each with a unique category that should have its own page. In this case, the categories are “location” and “type.”
-
I would need to have a look at your website to understand how it is structured, but I have a very similar case on my site virtualsheetmusic.com, and I think it is a common case for e-commerce websites in general as well, and I think the best way to avoid any issues is to use a rel=canonical tag.
For example, if your page URL for a search can vary in the following way:
http://www.yoursite.com/search.php [assuming this is the "default" page display]
http://www.yoursite.com/search.php?sort=title
http://www.yoursite.com/search.php?sort=title&filter=NY
I would put a rel-canonical like:
pointing to the "default" version of the page. That would avoid any duplicate issues very easily!
Also, if you have paginated content (2 or more pages results) you may want to add the rel=prev and rel=next definitions as suggested by Google:
http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2011/09/pagination-with-relnext-and-relprev.html
I hope this helps.
-
Hi, if you're trying to make your website better for the end user you almost can't lose. Google wants what the end-user wants fast page loads times relevant content and easy navigation to name a few of the things that are important to Google & visitors. You'll find that if you match the two you will almost always get it right.
I hope this is been of help sincerely,
Thomas
-
Thanks for the feedback Thomas. I should note that this situation is all on one website.
-
I believe the easiest way to answer this. Is if you have website A & B. Well I get the exact same answer if I query whatever the keyword "example" is? From both websites? If so I always get the same answer?
If the answer to that is yes I will get the same answer to make this query the same.
From each website then I would say will have trouble with the content however if the answer is no I would say you want to examine further for how much of is identical.
I'm not fan of having identical content especially when you control it. if it is the same result. Then yes you'll get to content issues with Google and I would not recommend creating an additional website to order content from the same database because it sounds to me like you will be getting identical answers for queries is this correct?
Do understand how your gathering content from the database so it would have to be identical right? If this is the case then I would not create additional website I would created this website if you need to do different subject but if you have one already just focus on creating a better version of that website.
I hope this is of help,
Thomas
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
-
How to answer questions when there no questions for my keyword
Hello, Let's say I want to rank on "Alsace bike tour" whatever tool I use Moz keyword explorer, google suggest , keyword.io, answer the public ... there are not questions... so... what do I need to answer ? I imagine that for google there are some questions more relevant than others ? Should I answer do I need to bring my own bike or where will I go... ? and will google give me "points " for answering those questions even though people don't have questions... For the keyword title tag, it is easy, people ask the character limit, title tag generator and so on but for may keywords like that ones I am targeting people have NO Questions ! Thank you,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seoanalytics0 -
Duplicate Content Question With New Domain
Hey Everyone, I hope your day is going well. I have a question regarding duplicate content. Let's say that we have Website A and Website B. Website A is a directory for multiple stores & brands. Website B is a new domain that will satisfy the delivery niche for these multiple stores & brands (where they can click on a "Delivery" anchor on Website A and it'll redirect them to Website B). We want Website B to rank organically when someone types in " <brand>delivery" in Google. Website B has NOT been created yet. The Issue Website B has to be a separate domain than Website A (no getting around this). Website B will also pull all of the content from Website A (menus, reviews, about, etc). Will we face any duplicate content issues on either Website A or Website B in the future? Should we rel=canonical to the main website even though we want Website B to rank organically?</brand>
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | imjonny0 -
How do we avoid duplicate/thin content on +150,000 product pages?
Hey guys! We got a rather large product range (books) on our eCommerce site (+150,000 titles). We get book descriptions as meta data from our publishers, which we display on the product pages. This obviously is not unique, as many other sites display the same piece of description of the book. It is important for us to rank on those book titles, so my question to You is: How would you go about it? I mean, it seems like a rather unrealistic task to paraphrase +150,000 (and growing) book descriptions. As I see it, there are these options: 1. Don't display the descriptions on the product pages (however then those pages will get even thinner!)
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Jacob_Holm
2. Display the (duplicate) descriptions, but put no-index on those product pages in order not to punish the rest of the site (not really an option, though).
3. Hire student workers to produce unique product descriptions for all 150,000 products (seems like a huge and expensive task) But how would You solve such a challenge?
Thanks a lot! Cheers, Tommy.0 -
Contextual FAQ and FAQ Page, is this duplicate content?
Hi Mozzers, On my website, I have a FAQ Page (with the questions-responses of all the themes (prices, products,...)of my website) and I would like to add some thematical faq on the pages of my website. For example : adding the faq about pricing on my pricing page,... Is this duplicate content? Thank you for your help, regards. Jonathan
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JonathanLeplang0 -
Duplicate content on subdomains
Hi All, The structure of the main website goes by http://abc.com/state/city/publication - We have a partnership with public libraries to give local users access to the publication content for free. We have over 100 subdomains (each for an specific library) that have duplicate content issues with the root domain, Most subdomains have very high page authority (the main public library and other local .gov websites have links to this subdomains).Currently this subdomains are not index due to the robots text file excluding bots from crawling. I am in the process of setting canonical tags on each subdomain and open the robots text file. Should I set the canonical tag on each subdomain (homepage) to the root domain version or to the specific city within the root domain? Example 1:
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | NewspaperArchive
Option 1: http://covina.abc.com/ = Canonical Tag = http://abc.com/us/california/covina/
Option 2: http://covina.abc.com/ = Canonical Tag = http://abc.com/ Example 2:
Option 1: http://galveston.abc.com/ = Canonical Tag = http://abc.com/us/texas/galveston/
Option 2: http://galveston.abc.com = Canonical Tag = http://abc.com/ Example 3:
Option 1: http://hutchnews.abc.com/ = Canonical Tag = http://abc.com/us/kansas/hutchinson/
Option 2: http://hutchnews.abc.com/ = Canonical Tag = http://abc.com/ I believe it makes more sense to set the canonical tag to the corresponding city (option 1), but wondering if setting the canonical tag to the root domain will pass "some link juice" to the root domain and it will be more beneficial. Thanks!0 -
Duplicate Content For E-commerce
On our E-commerce site, we have multiple stores. Products are shown on our multiple stores which has created a duplicate content problem. Basically if we list a product say a shoe,that listing will show up on our multiple stores I assumed the solution would be to redirect the pages, use non follow tags or to use the rel=canonical tag. Are there any other options for me to use. I think my best bet is to use a mixture of 301 redirects and canonical tags. What do you recommend. I have 5000+ pages of duplicate content so the problem is big. Thanks in advance for your help!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | pinksgreens0 -
Duplicate peices of content on multiple pages - is this a problem
I have a couple of WordPress clients with the same issue but caused in different ways: 1. The Slash WP theme which is a portfolio theme, involves setting up multiple excerpts of content that can then be added to multiple pages. So although the pages themselves are not identical, there are the same snippets of content appearing on multiple pages 2. A WP blog which has multiple categories and/or tags for each post, effectively ends up with many pages showing duplicate excerpts of content. My view has always been to noindex these pages (via Yoast), but was advised recently not to. In both these cases, even though the pages are not identical, do you think this duplicate content across multiple pages could cause an issue? All thoughts appreciated
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Chammy0 -
Duplicate content on subdomains.
Hi Mozer's, I have a site www.xyz.com and also geo targeted sub domains www.uk.xyz.com, www.india.xyz.com and so on. All the sub domains have the content which is same as the content on the main domain that is www.xyz.com. So, I want to know how can i avoid content duplication. Many Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | HiteshBharucha0