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
-
Correct Localisation of my website on Google
I have a website which services various countries, specifically the United Kingdom and United States of America. I am now expanding the target of my website to focus on Australian and South African customers. The structure of my website is www.websitename.com/us/ for the American audience. This is also what appears on a Google search when browsing in the USA. For the United Kingdom we use just www.websitename.com which works and shows in the UK. When I have created the new versions which are:
Local Website Optimization | | A95Bennett
www.websitename.com/au/
www.websitename.com/za/ I go onto google search my company and still www.websitename.com shows (When browsing from the relevant location). When it should show the /au/ or /za/ versions. I have submitted the relevant sitemaps to Google Search Console. Yet still from Australia and South Africa the .com version of the website it what shows. Please offer any advice to how I can get the correct version of the website showing in the correct location?1 -
Question about partial duplicate content on location landing pages of multilocation business
Hi everyone, I am a psychologist in private practice in Colorado and I recently went from one location to 2 locations. I'm currently updating my website to better accommodate the second location. I also plan continued expansion in the future, so there will be more and more locations as time goes on. As a result, I am making my websites current homepage non-location specific and creating location landing pages as I have seen written about in many places. My question is: I know that location landing pages should have unique content, and I have plenty of this, but how much content is it also okay to have be duplicate across the location landing pages and the homepage? For instance, here is the current draft of the new homepage (these are not live yet): http://www.effectivetherapysolutions.com/dev/ And here are the drafts of the location landing pages: http://www.effectivetherapysolutions.com/dev/denver-office http://www.effectivetherapysolutions.com/dev/colorado-springs-office And for reference, here is the current homepage that is actually live for my single Denver location: http://www.effectivetherapysolutions.com/ As you can see, the location landing pages have the following sections of unique content: Therapist picture at the top testimonial quotes (the one on the homepage is the only thing I have I framed in this block from crawl so that it appears as unique content on the Denver page) therapist bios GMB listing driving directions and hours and I also haven't added these yet, but we will also have unique client success stories and appropriately tagged images of the offices So that's plenty of unique content on the pages, but I also have the following sections of content that are identical or nearly identical to what I have on the homepage: Intro paragraph blue and green "adult" and child/teen" boxes under the intro paragraph "our treatment really works" section "types of anxiety we treat" section Is that okay or is that too much duplicate content? The reason I have it that way is that my website has been very successful for years at converting site visitors into paying clients, and I don't want to lose aspects of the page that I know work when people land on it. And now that I am optimizing the location landing pages to be where people end up instead of the homepage, I want them to still see all of that content that I know is effective at conversion. If people on here do think it is too much, one possible solution is to turn parts of it into pictures or put them into I-frames on the location pages so Google doesn't crawl those parts of the location pages, but leave them normal on the homepage so it still gets crawled on there. I've seen a lot written about not having duplicate content on location landing pages for this type of website, but everything I've read seems to refer to entire pages being copied with just the location names changed, which is not what I'm doing, hence my question. Thanks everyone!
Local Website Optimization | | gremmy90 -
Content Strategy – Blog Channel Questions
We are currently blogging at a high volume to hit keywords for our 1,500 locations across the country. We are trying to make sure we rank well near each location and we have been using our blog to create content for that reason. With recent changes on Google, I am seeing that it is more about content topics than hitting all variations of your keywords and including state and city specific terms. We are now asking ourselves if the blog channel portion of our content strategy is incorrect. Below are some of the main questions we have and any input that is backed by experience would be helpful. 1. Can it hurt us to blog at a high volume (4 blogs per day) in an effort to include all of our keywords and attach them to state and city specific keywords (ie. "keyword one" with "keyword one city" and "keyword one different city")? 2. Is it more valuable to blog only a couple of times per month with deeper content, or more times per month with thinner connect but more keyword involvement? 3. Our customers are forced to use our type of product by the government. We are one of the vendors that provide this service. Because of this our customers may not care at all about anything we would blog about. Do we blog for them, or do we blog for the keyword and try and reach partners and others who would read the content and hope that it also ranks us high when our potential customers search? 4. Is there an advantage/disadvantage or does it matter if we have multiple blog authors? Big questions for sure, but if you have insight on any one of them, please provide and maybe we can answer them all with a group effort. Thanks to all of you who are taking the time to read this and contribute.
Local Website Optimization | | Smart_Start0 -
Multi-Country Multi-Language content website
Hi Community! I'm starting a website that is going to have content from various countries and in several languages. What is the best URL structure in this case? I was thinking of doing something like: english name of the plant, content in english, content for USA:
Local Website Optimization | | phiber
www.flowerpedia.com/flowers/red-roses spanish name of the plant, content in spanish, content for MX:
mx.flowerpedia.com/es/rosas/rosas-rojas english name of the plant, content in english, content for MX:
mx.flowerpedia.com/roses/red-roses
this content is not the same as flowerpedia/flowers/red-roses Content for Mexico would not exist in languages other than english and spanish. So for example:
mx.flowerpedia.com/jp/flowers/red-roses would not exist and it would redirect
to the english version:
mx.flowerpedia.com/flowers/red-roses What would be the best URL structure in this case?0 -
Multiple Websites for a Large Home Service Company
I have a client who offers multiple services, the current website is already huge because they have added on so many new offerings in the last year and want everything above the fold. As I am building out the sitemap for a re-design, they continue to add more services. (HVAC, Plumbing, Solar, Windows, Electrical) I am working on a sitemap for a re-build, but I am still well over 100 pages deep with huge menu's. **My question is what are the SEO pros/cons of breaking the site up into multiple websites? **
Local Website Optimization | | Lauren_E2 -
Internationalization: 2 Websites in English for different location?
Hi guys, My customer is already well established in France. They have a good Domain Authority and a lot of Inbound Links. They're doing very well in France. They're now looking at entering the US market, however, their trademark is already registered within the US. They therefore decided to go with a new name. Basically: They open an english-only website for the US presence They add English as a language on their French website for their European presence They'll therefore have two domains: aaa.com: US Presence bbb.com: European Presence; 2 languages: French & English My main reaction was that: since the content on aaa.com and bbb.com/english/ will be the same, they'll necessarily have Duplicate Content issue. How would you look at this? What would be the best alternative for them? Thank you
Local Website Optimization | | PierreLechelle0 -
Ecommerce Site with Unique Location Pages - Issue with unique content and thin content?
Hello All, I have an Ecommerce Site specializing in Hire and we have individual location pages on each of our categories for each of our depots. All these pages show the NAP of the specific branch Given the size of our website (10K approx pages) , it's physically impossible for us to write unique content for each location against each category so what we are doing is writing unique content for our top 10 locations in a category for example , and the remaining 20 odd locations against the same category has the same content but it will bring in the location name and the individual NAP of that branch so in effect I think this thin content. My question is , I am quite sure I we are getting some form of algorithmic penalty with regards the thin/duplicate content. Using the example above , should we 301 redirect the 20 odd locations with the thin content , or should be say only 301 redirect 10 of them , so we in effect end up with a more 50/50 split on a category with regards to unique content on pages verses thin content for the same category. Alternatively, should we can 301 all the thin content pages so we only have 10 locations against the category and therefore 100% unique content. I am trying to work out which would help most with regards to local rankings for my location pages. Also , does anyone know if a thin/duplicate content penalty is site wide or can it just affect specific parts of a website. Any advice greatly appreciated thanks Pete
Local Website Optimization | | PeteC120 -
UK website to be duplicated onto 2 ccTLD's - is this duplicate content?
Hi We have a client who wishes to have a site created and duplicated onto 3 servers hosted in three different countries. United Kingdom, Australia and USA. All of which will ofcourse be in the English language. A long story short, the website will provide the user 3 options on the homepage asking them which "country site" they wish to view. (I know I can detect the user IP and autoredirect but this is not what they want) Once they choose an option it will direct the user to the appropriate ccTLD. Now the client wants the same information to appear on all 3 sites with some slight variations in products available and English/US spelling difference but for the most part, the sites will look the same with the same content on each page. So my question is, will these 3 sites been seen as duplicates of each other even though they are hosted in different countries and are on ccTLD's? Are there any considerations I should pass onto the client with this approach? Many thanks for reading.
Local Website Optimization | | yousayjump
Kris0