Website and eshop with the same product descrition is duplicate content
-
Hi there!
I'm building a website that is divided in a "marketing" and "shop" sections. The 2 sites are being authored by two companies (my company is doing the marketing one). The marketing site has all the company products while the shop will sell just some of those. I'm facing the problem of duplicated content and want to ask you guys if it will be a problem/mistake to use the same product description (and similar url) for the same product in both sites, and the right way to do it (without rewriting product descriptions).
the main site will be : www.companyname.com
the shop will be: shop.companyname.comthanks
Francesco -
You may find someone else who is happy to provide additional advice on how else this can be handled Francesco, but it is a little outside my comfort zone as it borders on grey-hat and I would hate to be responsible to causing you problems.
I'll drop you a quick PM over with something that may help with the re-writing though.
-Andy
-
Andy,
the customer choosed another company to run the shop but we're responsable for the marketing website. Also not all products are for sell in the eshop say 300 off 1000 (in the mktg site).
So it seems that it is necessary to rewrite descriptions for the shop, any suggestion about how to differentiate the same product description for the shop?
bye
Francesco
-
On the same domain, yes, but what you are wanting to do may as well be a new domain as that is how Google treats subdomains.
What you need to remember is that canonicalization is used when run the risk of duplication on a site, or want to suggest to Google which page should be delivered to people searching - but it is just a suggestion.
Why would you not want to just SEO the shop site and keep it all on there? There is no reason not to have a site that has the product information and the shop in the same place. You can SEO that site and not have to worry about penalties and problems.
-Andy
-
Andy,
Sorry for this but as I metioned earlier the two sites will be on the same domain:
www.companyname.com and
shop.companyname.comso the canonical link will be on the same domain isn't it right?
Thanks for your time!
Francesco -
I wouldn't advise using canonicalization from one site to another for this purpose. That is going to look odd to Google. In their eyes, why have you got two sites with the same content?
In fact, here is what Google say about doing this:
"Can rel="canonical" be used to suggest a canonical URL on a completely different domain?
There are situations where it's not easily possible to set up redirects. This could be the case when you need to migrate to a new domain name using a web server that cannot create server-side redirects. In this case, you can use the rel="canonical" link element to specify the exact URL of the domain preferred for indexing. While the rel="canonical" link element is seen as a hint and not an absolute directive, we do try to follow it where possible."
- Andy
-
I Andy, Thanks for your response,
So do you think there's no way to mantain the same product description even using canonical link or other tricks?
-
This is a resounding yes. It will cause you untold headaches with the same content on both sites.
Presumably you are wanting both sites to rank for various phrases? If not, and you only wanted the marketing site to rank, you could completely close out the sales site from Google, but then it would only ever be a shop. You wouldn't be able to link to it or do any SEO work.
The only safe way to do this is to have separate content written for each site. You are sure not to annoy Google at any point then.
I forgot to mention, that this is one of the reasons that ecommerce / affiliate sites have had such a hard time recently.
Spend a bit of time and money and have someone re-write this for you. Depending on how much there is, it shouldn't have to cost the earth.
-Andy
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
-
Add Content to Page or Create New Page?
We are doing some local SEO for our business which is in 10 cities. We have built a city page with unique content for each city and linked to a unique contact page with contact information unique for each city. The content on our existing page is fairly thin. 2/3 of it is the same amongst all pages as our services are the exact same from city to city so the description ad menu of our services. Then 1/3 of the content is unique to the city which is a stock photo and 1-2 paragraphs of text containing about 175 words. We have another chunk of content for each city which is probably 2-3 paragraphs but each paragraph will be short so probably in total 200 words in 1-3 paragraphs. The subject of the content is related to one of the most popular search queries that are location specific. For example, if we were a company that provided say, environmental remodeling services in city X, this second chunk of content might be about required building permits when doing remodeling in City X and how to get them, how much they cost. If the original content on the pre-existing landing page is already pretty thin, is the SEO effect going to most likely be better to add the content to the existing page or, even though it's less than 200 words, add the content to a separate page and cross link between the main city page and the city contact page.
Local Website Optimization | | SEO18051 -
Hreflang | Should I implement hreflang for regional targeted but - different content of websites?
Hello, I'm implementing hreflang for my e-commerce websites which have different languages and do serve different content based on location. Currently, I'm only using hreflang for for alternate language (fr-fr, fr-be, fr-ma, ...). I wonder if it might be better or if I am allowed to add other version of my websites (IT, ES, DE,... ) even if those version are serving specific content for these specific location. So, the content (products) of Germany is different of the product of the other countries. Here is an example : www.mywebsite.com/apple-phone (selling apple phone for US with product avalaible only in US). www.mywebsite.de/apple-phone (selling apple phone for Germany with product avalaible only in Germany, the available models might be different from US and other websites). www.mywebsite.it/apple-phone (selling apple phone for Italy with product avalaible only in Italy, the available models might be different from US and other websites). www.mywebsite.es/apple-phone (selling apple phone for Spain with product avalaible only in Spain, the available models might be different from US and other websites). www.mywebsite.pt/apple-phone (selling apple phone for Portugal with product avalaible only in Portugal, the available models might be different from US and other websites).
Local Website Optimization | | manoman880 -
The best option for expanding a website to another country
Hi everyone, I have a couple questions about expanding my website from US to another country. Which option would be better to use: Country-Coded Top Level Domains, Sub-Directories or Sub-Domains? If I use a new domain, but I want to keep all the content, would canonicalization affect SEO of my new website? I want the new website (or another option) look just like the one I have, except for changing contact information, pictures and adding another language. Thank you!
Local Website Optimization | | KseniaLL0 -
Copying a Website For Better Rankings in a Specific Country
I've got a blog with some tools and business directories (https://www.webhostinghero.com). Actually my website is in English and is hosted in the US since its biggest source of traffic is from there. My second biggest traffic source is India. The issue is that while my website is really well optimized (in terms of speed), it is still slow for visitors from India. So my question is: Would it be possible to have a copy of my website on a web server located in India and use a sub-domain (ie.: in.webhostinghero.com) to access it without being penalized by Google? Would that be considered duplicate content? What would be the HREF LANG tag set to for India (EN-US, EN-GB... EN-IN??) I thought that having a sub-domain for a specific country could also help its rankings. Thanks in advance for your inputs. P.S. Sorry my english sucks.
Local Website Optimization | | sbrault740 -
Do duplicate street addresses on 2 website affect SEO?
Hi, We have 2 websites built for one client that has 2 companies running from the same physical location. Would having the same address listed on both websites affect their SEO rankings? The 2 websites mentioned are linked below: http://anastasiablinds.ca/ http://www.greenfoxwindows.ca/ Thanks for your help!
Local Website Optimization | | Web3Marketing871 -
Implementation advice on fighting international duplicate content
Hi All, Let me start by explaining that I am aware of the rel="canonical" and **rel="alternate" hreflang="x" **tags but I need advice on implementation. The situation is that we have 5 sites with similar content. Out of these 5: 2 use the same URL stucture and have no suffix 2 have a different URL structure with a .html suffix 1 has an entirely different URL structure with a .asp suffix The sites are quite big so it will take a lot of work to go through and add rel="alternate" hreflang="x" tags to every single page (as we know the tag should be applied on a page level not site level). 4 out of the 5 sites are managed by us and have the tag implemented so that makes it easier but the 5th is managed in Asia and we fear the amount of manual work required will put them off implementing it. The site is due to launch at the end of the month and we need to sort this issue out before it goes live so that we are not penalised for duplicate content. Is there an easy way to go about this or is the only way a manual addition? Has anyone had a similar experience? Your advice will be greatly appreciated. Many thanks, Emeka.
Local Website Optimization | | OptiBacUK0 -
Best practices for 301 redirect to a new location website.
We just opened a new location in a nearby city. We were already servicing this location from our main base. As such we had a special page for this location which raked fairly well. The new location will have its own website. Would it be better to 301 redirect the current location page to the new location website? Or should we simply link from the old page to the new location's website? Any best practices?
Local Website Optimization | | Vspeed0 -
Client with business website as well as franchise site
I have a client who has created a Weebly web presence alongside his provided franchise website. What is my best strategy as he does not wish for the franchise site to out-perform his Weebly presence.
Local Website Optimization | | Sans_Terra0