Duplicate Page Titles in Crawl Errors (although Google is rewriting in serps ??)
-
Hi
Im working on a client/project and crawl report is showing thousands of dupe page titles
In the case of the blog/news section its aprox 50 since aprox 50 posts and they all have the same meta-title:
"Brand News | Brand"
as opposed to:
"Title Unique to Page/Topic/KW Relating to Content | Brand"
Since these are the main content pages we want to rank (in addition to the main site category pages) then i have instructed dev must prioritise populating these pages meta-titles with the actual post/article titles, as per the latter version of the above example. (I should mention that i have requested they fix all dupe titles but main content pages are the priority).
Whilst this will reduce the number of dupe titles in crawl error/warning report which is a good thing, is it actually likely to increase the ranking of these news/content pages given that Google does seem to be rewriting the titles correctly in the serps based on the page content ?
Many Thanks in advance for your input
-
Many thanks Mike
-
Even though Google is rewriting the title, it is only rewriting the title for specific search queries that it feels you are relevant for despite not having the correct title and may not always do that for every similar search. So ultimately it is better to fix your titles and rank properly for what you are intending to rank for than it is to hope Google continues to find you relevant to queries you wouldn't otherwise have show for & change your titles for everyone all of the time. If Google still occasionally rewrites them, that's fine... just don't leave your SEO up to Google like that all of the time when its so easy to do it better yourself.
Getting rid of duplicate titles can help but it may not noticeably improve rankings. That would be dependent on how well you're ranking already and whether the title catches the users it is intended for so there are increases in traffic, decreases in bounce rate, higher conversions and so on.
-
Google is already rewrting the titles in the serps, what I'm asking is once we actually rewrite them in the meta title can further ranking improvements be expected ?
-
Yes. If your website has clear and interesting titles, more people will click on them (as compared to same repeating brand stuff). So, as more people engage with your website, the chance that they talk about your website or link to it increases.
So, this is an additional bonus you get besides the bonus you got when Google Bot understood your content better.
-
What i mean is if Google are already correctly entitling the page in the listing with kw etc can further ranking improvements be expected from actually populating the title in the page meta title area ?
-
Hi Dan,
Yes, for sure. Assuming that the content of the news pages is unique and valuable.
Having same title gives Google Bot mixed signals which has side effects. Check this post by Rand, I think you'll understand everything:
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
-
Google is showing the "wrong" page in the serps for user queries
Our site, cpuboss.com has two main types of pages: comparisons of CPUs, and pages about individual CPUs. When I google search for "fx8350", a keyword for the cpu "AMD FX-8350", I hoped to see our CPU page ranking, instead I see a comparison of this CPU against another. http://i.imgur.com/QwNczDj.png?1 (Our page ranks #5) Any idea? Many of our comparisons rank for CPU keywords, when I think it'd be a better experience for the user if our cpu pages ranked instead. This particular CPU page is linked to on our homepage with appropriate anchor text, and linked to on that comparison also. I would have hoped the relevance of the cpu page to this keyword would be stronger than the comparison page, and google might use that relevance signal to show the user the right page. thoughts?
On-Page Optimization | | cdnventure0 -
404 errors on page urls that don't even exist
The Seomoz crawler found 404error of pages dont even exist. Ho can that be possible?? Pages like: URL: http://www.yoxo.it/catalog/seo_sitemap/category/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/falli/
On-Page Optimization | | yoxo0 -
Page Title in Local SEO Title Tags?
Hi All, Still working on my title tag usage for local SEO, and I was hoping for some more feedback. My question is this: In Local SEO titles, I'm using location + keyword combinations, unique on each page. However, since each page has a specific title for the client, I figure I should be placing that at the front. My thought here was that this helps with the overall usability to the reader of the website. Ex. Contact Us page for Pizza shop Contact Us | Springfield IN Gourmet Pizza | Moe's Italian Pizza Anyone have thoughts on this one? Thank you!
On-Page Optimization | | kbaltzell0 -
High Volume Duplicate Title and Content Errors: Scale of 1-10 How bad is this?
I have 15k pages and 1.5K have duplicate title and content errors. the reason is I have a ring parent page with child pages for each of the size variations. On a scale of 1-10 how big an issue is this and does it need fixing?
On-Page Optimization | | Tippman0 -
Duplicate page content,
Hi, in my campaign crawls diagnostic, I have a lot of Duplicate page content, but we use canonicalization and I used webmastertool to make sure the campaign parameters are not consider by the Google bot. Can you see what could be my problem, or do you have a tip for me or things to look at ? Thank You VB
On-Page Optimization | | Vale70 -
Avoiding "Duplicate Page Title" and "Duplicate Page Content" - Best Practices?
We have a website with a searchable database of recipes. You can search the database using an online form with dropdown options for: Course (starter, main, salad, etc)
On-Page Optimization | | smaavie
Cooking Method (fry, bake, boil, steam, etc)
Preparation Time (Under 30 min, 30min to 1 hour, Over 1 hour) Here are some examples of how URLs may look when searching for a recipe: find-a-recipe.php?course=starter
find-a-recipe.php?course=main&preperation-time=30min+to+1+hour
find-a-recipe.php?cooking-method=fry&preperation-time=over+1+hour There is also pagination of search results, so the URL could also have the variable "start", e.g. find-a-recipe.php?course=salad&start=30 There can be any combination of these variables, meaning there are hundreds of possible search results URL variations. This all works well on the site, however it gives multiple "Duplicate Page Title" and "Duplicate Page Content" errors when crawled by SEOmoz. I've seached online and found several possible solutions for this, such as: Setting canonical tag Adding these URL variables to Google Webmasters to tell Google to ignore them Change the Title tag in the head dynamically based on what URL variables are present However I am not sure which of these would be best. As far as I can tell the canonical tag should be used when you have the same page available at two seperate URLs, but this isn't the case here as the search results are always different. Adding these URL variables to Google webmasters won't fix the problem in other search engines, and will presumably continue to get these errors in our SEOmoz crawl reports. Changing the title tag each time can lead to very long title tags, and it doesn't address the problem of duplicate page content. I had hoped there would be a standard solution for problems like this, as I imagine others will have come across this before, but I cannot find the ideal solution. Any help would be much appreciated. Kind Regards5