Long tail keywords / Close variations of keywords / Duplicate Content
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In a classified site, people usually search for the same item with different keywords which are often very close to each other and point to same set of results: e.g.
honda civic for sale
used honda civic for sale
civic for sale
used civic for sale
used civicAll the above keywords should actually lead to same results i.e honda civic for sale. Our competitor is creating a page for each one of these
www.sitename.com/q/honda-civic-for-sale/
www.sitename.com/q/used-honda-civic-for-sale/
... and so onBasically they create a page for each high traffic keyword they encounter where as we have very structure search.
How to compete with that ? They are ranking on all these long tail keywords because of separate landing pages though most of the pages are duplicate of each other. 98% same content (all are showing honda civics)
Should we go that route OR optimize our single page focusing on keyword with highest traffic and hope google will rank us for the related keywords as well ?
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Muhammad,
If a page targeting multiple keywords has enough authority it may certainly rank for them--especially if they are as closely related as the ones on your list. In the example you give, I would optimize a single page focused on "used honda civic for sale" (and maybe include your city name) and work on building its authority. With a little time and effort, that page should be able to rank for all of those variations.
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Its quite hard to answer the question until you provide us both URL.Domain authority,Current internal links structure of both site and many other factors are necessary to answer this question why they are ranking well and how you guys reach there.
If they are creating doorway pages just to manipulate rank.Go ahead report it to Google.If you are going to report make sure you do not show up who you are.
If you legally want to beat him.Check out his link profile and his tactics carefully. Analyze and prepare action plans accordingly.
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