Duplicate content for hotel websites - the usual nightmare? is there any solution other than producing unique content?
-
Hiya Mozzers I often work for hotels. A common scenario is the hotel / resort has worked with their Property Management System to distribute their booking availability around the web... to third party booking sites - with the inventory goes duplicate page descriptions sent to these "partner" websites.
I was just checking duplication on a room description - 20 loads of duplicate descriptions for that page alone - there are 200 rooms - so I'm probably looking at 4,000 loads of duplicate content that need rewriting to prevent duplicate content penalties, which will cost a huge amount of money.
Is there any other solution? Perhaps ask booking sites to block relevant pages from search engines?
-
Hi Kurt - very true - they should be taking the time for sure. I think part of problem is legacy of duplicate content - glad I'm not in their shoes!
Yup - rewriting is what I'm doing for those guys - inc new ideas for engaging content. Will let you know how it goes - an interesting project for me as never worked with a directory before!
-
Happy to help.
You may actually want to recommend to the brokers that they take the time to create original content. It's in their best interest since I assume they get paid for booking rooms/properties and they'd probably book more if they got more traffic by having original content.
In regards to that directory site, it's likely Google just decided they weren't the version of the content they wanted to display. If everything else is fine with that site, I'd bet just rewriting the pages to have original content (not just spun) would change their situation dramatically.
-
Thanks for your wise feedback EGOL - appreciated.
-
Hi Kurt and thanks for your great feedback there - funnily enough have just been writing unique content for these TPIs this week - so they have something different to work if they don't want to grapple with duplicate content issues - I've noticed the clever guys are now employing their own copywriters to produce unique content, yet many do not.
Just been looking at stats for a certain directory site and they've progressively lost traffic since panda struck - there's absolutely nothing wrong with their website (just completed site audit) beyond heavy duplication issues (as they've been copying and pasting property descriptions through to own site).
-
This is exactly the kind of situation where rel=canonical is supposed to be used. Rarely is there going to be 100% exact match because in most cases the use of the duplicated content is on different sites which have different headers, footers, nav menus, etc.
Put the canonical tag on your own site and then ask the booking sites if they would put them on their pages, indicating that your page is the canonical page. If they won't, then publish your page a week or so before you give out the content to the booking sites, making sure to use the canonical tag on your own site. That way, Google can find it first.
Another option would be to write unique content for your own site and then send out something different to all the booking sites. Yes, they will all have duplicate content, but your site won't. So, you should rank just fine and they will have to compete to see who can get in the listings.
Keep in mind that there isn't really a duplicate content penalty. When Google sees duplicates, they just don't include all of the duplicates in their search results. They choose the one they think it the canonical version and the others are left out. Not every page gets listed, but no site is penalized either.
Kurt Steinbrueck
OurChurch.Com -
I agree with EGOL and was going to suggest the same thing rel=canonical
-
It is supposed to be used on exact match duplicates. However, I know that it works on less than exact match. How far it can be stretched, I have no idea.
-
Can you use rel=canonical effectively if the duplication of a page is extensive yet only partial? in this instance I'm sometimes seeing say 3 paragraph room descriptions - e.g. 1st para carbon copy, yet para 2 and 3 include duplicate content and some new content.
-
rel=canonical (if you started with original content and can get everyone everywhere to use it and none of it gets stolen)
-
Hi luke,
I guess using the noindex parameter would be the best option here, no?
Best reagrds,
Michel
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 avoid duplicate content
Hi there, Our client has an ecommerce website, their products are also showing on an aggregator website (aka on a comparison website where multiple vendors are showing their products). On the aggregator website the same photos, titles and product descriptions are showing. Now with building their new website, how can we avoid such duplicate content? Or does Google even care in this case? I have read that we could show more product information on their ecommerce website and less details on the aggregator's website. But is there another or better solution? Many thanks in advance for any input!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Gabriele_Layoutweb0 -
Geographic site clones and duplicate content penalties
We sell wedding garters, niche I know! We have a site (weddinggarterco.com) that ranks very well in the UK and sell a lot to the USA despite it's rudimentary currency functions (Shopify makes US customers checkout in £gbp; not helpful to conversions). To improve this I built a clone (theweddinggarterco.com) and have faked a kind of location selector top right. Needless to say a lot of content on this site is VERY similar to the UK version. My questions are... 1. Is this likely to stop me ranking the USA site? 2. Is this likely to harm my UK rankings? Any thoughts very welcome! Thanks. Mat
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | mat20150 -
Manage category pages and duplicate content issues
Hi everybody, I am now auditing this website www.disfracessimon.com
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | teconsite
this website has some issues with canonicals and other things. But right now I have found something that I would like to know your opinion. When I was checking parts of the content in google to find duplicate content issues I found this: I google I searched: "Chaleco de streck decorado con botones" and found First result: "Hombre trovador" is the one I was checking -> Correct
The following results are category pages where the product is listed in. I was wondering if this could cause any problem related with duplicated content. Should I no index category pages or should I keep it?
The first result in google was the product page. And category pages I think are good for link juice transfer and to capture some searchs from Google. Any advice? Thank you0 -
Can videos be considered duplicate content?
I have a page that ranks 5 and to get a rich snippet I'm thinking of adding a relevant video to the page. Thing is, the video is already on another page which ranks for this keyword... but only at position 20. As it happens the page the video is on is the more important page for other keywords, so I won't remove it. Will having the same video on two pages be considered a duplicate?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Brocberry0 -
Duplicate Content on Product Pages
I'm getting a lot of duplicate content errors on my ecommerce site www.outdoormegastore.co.uk mainly centered around product pages. The products are completely different in terms of the title, meta data, product descriptions and images (with alt tags)but SEOmoz is still identifying them as duplicates and we've noticed a significant drop in google ranking lately. Admittedly the product descriptions are a little bit thin but I don't understand why the pages would be viewed as duplicates and therefore can be ranked lower? The content is definitely unique too. As an example these three pages have been identified as being duplicates of each other. http://www.outdoormegastore.co.uk/regatta-landtrek-25l-rucksack.html http://www.outdoormegastore.co.uk/canyon-bryce-adult-cycling-helmet-9045.html http://www.outdoormegastore.co.uk/outwell-minnesota-6-carpet-for-green-07-08-tent.html
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | gavinhoman0 -
Having a hard time with duplicate page content
I'm having a hard time redirecting website.com/ to website.com The crawl report shows both versions as duplicate content. Here is my htaccess: RewriteEngine On
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | cgman
RewriteBase /
#Rewrite bare to www
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^mywebsite.com
RewriteRule ^(([^/]+/)*)index.php$ http://www.mywebsite.com/$1 [R=301,L] RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME}.php -f
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ $1.php [NC,L]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^.localhost$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.+)/$ http://%{HTTP_HOST}$1 [R=301,L] I added the last 2 lines after seeing a Q&A here, but I don't think it has helped.0 -
I have a duplicate content problem
The website guy that made the website for my business Premier Martial Arts Austin disappeared and didn't set up that www. was to begin each URL, so I now have a duplicate content problem and don't want to be penalized for it. I tried to show in Webmaster tools the preferred setup but can't get it to OK that I'm the website owner. Any idea as what to do?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | OhYeahSteve0 -
Removing Duplicate Content Issues in an Ecommerce Store
Hi All OK i have an ecommerce store and there is a load of duplicate content which is pretty much the norm with ecommerce store setups e.g. this is my problem http://www.mystoreexample.com/product1.html
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ChriSEOcouk
http://www.mystoreexample.com/brandname/product1.html
http://www.mystoreexample.com/appliancetype/product1.html
http://www.mystoreexample.com/brandname/appliancetype/product1.html
http://www.mystoreexample.com/appliancetype/brandname/product1.html so all the above lead to the same product
I also want to keep the breadcrumb path to the product Here's my plan Add a canonical URL to the product page
e.g. http://www.mystoreexample.com/product1.html
This way i have a short product URL Noindex all duplicate pages but do follow the internal links so the pages are spidered What are the other options available and recommended? Does that make sense?
Is this what most people are doing to remove duplicate content pages? thanks 🙂0