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
-
Will I be flagged for duplicate content by Google?
Hi Moz community, Had a question regarding duplicate content that I can't seem to find the answer to on Google. My agency is working on a large number of franchisee websites (over 40) for one client, a print franchise, that wants a refresh of new copy and SEO. Each print shop has their own 'microsite', though all services and products are the same, the only difference being the location. Each microsite has its own unique domain. To avoid writing the same content over and over in 40+ variations, would all the websites be flagged by Google for duplicate content if we were to use the same base copy, with the only changes being to the store locations (i.e. where we mention Toronto print shop on one site may change to Kelowna print shop on another)? Since the print franchise owns all the domains, I'm wondering if that would be a problem since the sites aren't really competing with one another. Any input would be greatly appreciated. Thanks again!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | EdenPrez0 -
Are backlinks within duplicate content ignored or devalued?
From what I understand, Googles no longer has a "Duplicate Content Penalty" instead duplicate content simply isn't show in the search results. Does that mean that any links in the duplicate content are completely ignored, or devalued as far as the backlink profile of the site they are linking to? An example would be an article that might be published on two or three major industry websites. Are only the links from the first website GoogleBot discovers the article on counted or are all the links counted and you just won't see the article itself come up in search results for the second and third website?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Consult19010 -
How bad is duplicate content for ecommerce sites?
We have multiple eCommerce sites which not only share products across domains but also across categories within a single domain. Examples: http://www.artisancraftedhome.com/sinks-tubs/kitchen-sinks/two-tone-sinks/medium-rounded-front-farmhouse-sink-two-tone-scroll http://www.coppersinksonline.com/copper-kitchen-and-farmhouse-sinks/two-tone-kitchen-farmhouse-sinks/medium-rounded-front-farmhouse-sink-two-tone-scroll http://www.coppersinksonline.com/copper-sinks-on-sale/medium-rounded-front-farmhouse-sink-two-tone-scroll We have selected canonical links for each domain but I need to know if this practice is having a negative impact on my SEO.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ArtisanCrafted0 -
Thin Content to Quality Content
How should i modify content from thin to high quality content. Somehow i realized that my pages where targetted keywords didn't had the keyword density lost a massive ranking after the last update whereas all pages which had the keyword density are ranking good. But my concern is all pages which are ranking good had all the keyword in a single statement like. Get ABC pens, ABC pencils, ABC colors, etc. at the end of a 300 word content describing ABC. Whereas the pages which dropped the rankings had a single keyword repeated just twice in a 500 word article. Can this be the reason for a massive drop. Should i add the single statement like the one which is there on pages ranking good? Is it good to add just a single line once the page is indexed or do i need to get a fresh content once again along with a sentence of keyword i mentioned above?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | welcomecure1 -
3rd Party hosted whitepapers — bad idea? Duplicate content?
It is common the B2B world to have 3rd parties host your whitepapers for added exposure. Is this a bad practice from an SEO point of view? Is the expectation that the 3rd parties use rel=canonical tags? I doubt most of them do . . .
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BlueLinkERP0 -
Wordpress and duplicate content
Hi, I have recently installed wordpress and started a blog but now loads of duplicate pages are cropping up for tags and authors and dates etc. How do I do the canonical thing in wordpress? Thanks Ian
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | jwdl0 -
Why duplicate content for same page?
Hi, My SEOMOZ crawl diagnostic warn me about duplicate content. However, to me the content is not duplicated. For instance it would give me something like: (URLs/Internal Links/External Links/Page Authority/Linking Root Domains) http://www.nuxeo.com/en/about/contact?utm_source=enews&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=enews20110516 /1/1/31/2 http://www.nuxeo.com/en/about/contact?utm_source=enews&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=enews20110711 0/0/1/0 http://www.nuxeo.com/en/about/contact?utm_source=enews&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=enews20110811 0/0/1/0 http://www.nuxeo.com/en/about/contact?utm_source=enews&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=enews20110911 0/0/1/0 Why is this seen as duplicate content when it is only URL with campaign tracking codes to the same content? Do I need to clean this?Thanks for answer
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | nuxeo0 -
Load balancing - duplicate content?
Our site switches between www1 and www2 depending on the server load, so (the way I understand it at least) we have two versions of the site. My question is whether the search engines will consider this as duplicate content, and if so, what sort of impact can this have on our SEO efforts? I don't think we've been penalised, (we're still ranking) but our rankings probably aren't as strong as they should be. The SERPs show a mixture of www1 and www2 content when I do a branded search. Also, when I try to use any SEO tools that involve a site crawl I usually encounter problems. Any help is much appreciated!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ChrisHillfd0