How to avoid duplicate content when blogging from a site
-
I have a wordpress plastic surgery website. I have a wordpress blog on the site.
My concern is avoiding duplicate content penalties when I blog. I use my blog to add new information about procedures that have pages on the same topic on the main site. Invariably same keywords and phrases can appear in the blog-will this be considered Duplicate content?
Also is it black hat to insert anchor text in a blog linking back to site content-ie internal link or is one now and then helpful
-
Jane,
Thank you very much. That is what I try to do-blog on a sub topic to add more depth to the page topic. I have just been paranoid after Penguin about trying to avoid similar key words and phrases that can be in page-but impossible for blog to make sense without some repetition.
Dr. Seckel
-
Hi,
If you have a page on a certain procedure, a blog post about that procedure should aim to expand on the existing content rather than repeat it in an attempt to create fresh content. You're naturally going to mention the same topics, but this is normal and Google sees "similar" content all over the web all the time. What you'd be looking to do with a blog to make it both useful for search engines and people, is take a topic where you have basic information on a "product" page and consider exploring the following for a blog post (please excuse a lack of surgery knowledge here!):
- Gather the latest medical research on the procedure and talk about how it has changed over time
- Go into more detail about how a procedure is different for men and woman (if it is) and what needs to be considered when treating patients
- Tips for how to maximise results after the procedure is complete
- Common recovery issues and how to resolve them or watch out for them
Any new or different information you can include will add to the status of the blog post as a new, relevant piece of content, rather than something that has been repurposed from a product page.
You can link internally in the way described above, but make sure you're always linking with the intention of explaining what the linked-to page is about, rather than with the idea that you are trying to manipulate how search engines view the page.
-
Thank you for your helpful advice
-
Hello,
As long as the content is not identical then you should not have any issues with duplicate content. If the same keywords or phrases appear that is alright, but try not to over due it and mix it up as best you can. As for the internal linking, it is ok to link internally, but again, mix it up. Don't use the same keywords in the anchor text over and over, use different phrases and always, make it sound natural. Focus on the content and don't over optimize your pages.
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
-
Effects of forwarding content to another site?
Our e-commerce store is moving away from a set of products. Instead of just redirecting these to an another section of our site, we were considering redirecting them to another site that sells the product. I don't mind losing that traffic, but I don't want it to inadvertently hurt our other product lines. Any thoughts on the impact of 301 redirecting a certain section of traffic to another domain? Anything I should we on the lookout for or consider?
Technical SEO | | CPollock0 -
Simple duplicate content query
Hello Community, One of my clients runs a job board website. They are having some new framework installed which will lead to them having to delete all their jobs and re-add them. The same jobs will be re-posted but with a different reference number which in turn with change each URL. I believe this will cause significant duplicate content issues, I just thought I would get a second opinion on best practice for approaching a situation like this. Would a possible solution be to delete jobs gradually and 301 re-direct old URLs to new URLs? Many thanks in advance, Adam
Technical SEO | | SO_UK0 -
Duplicate content on charity website
Hi Mozers, We are working on a website for a UK charity – they are a hospice and have two distinct brands, one for their adult services and another for their children’s services. They currently have two different websites which have a large number of pages that contain identical text. We spoke with them and agreed that it would be better to combine the websites under one URL – that way a number of the duplicate pages could be reduced as they are relevant to both brands. What seamed like a good idea initially is beginning to not look so good now. We had planned to use CSS to load different style sheets for each brand – depending on the referring URL (adult / Child) the page would display the appropriate branding. This will will work well up to a point. What we can’t work out is how to style the page if it is the initial landing page – the brands are quite different and we need to get this right. It is not such an issue for the management type pages (board of trustees etc) as they govern both identities. The issue is the donation, fundraising pages – they need to be found, and we are concerned that users will be confused if one of those pages is the initial landing page and they are served the wrong brand. We have thought of making one page the main page and using rel canonical on the other one, but that will affect its ability to be found in the search engines. Really not sure what the best way to move forward would be, any suggestions / guidance would be much appreciated. Thanks Fraser .
Technical SEO | | fraserhannah0 -
How different does content need to be to avoid a duplicate content penalty?
I'm implementing landing pages that are optimized for specific keywords. Some of them are substantially the same as another page (perhaps 10-15 words different). Are the landing pages likely to be identified by search engines as duplicate content? How different do two pages need to be to avoid the duplicate penalty?
Technical SEO | | WayneBlankenbeckler0 -
Multiple Sites Duplicate Content Best Practice
Hi there, I have one client (atlantawidgets.com) who has a main site. But also has duplicate sites with different urls targeting specific geo areas. I.e. (widgetmakersinmarietta.com) Would it be best to go ahead and create a static home page at these add'l sites and make the rest of the site be nonindexed? Or should I go in and allow more pages to be indexed and change the content? If so how many, 3, 5, 8? I don't have tons of time at this point. 3)If I change content within the duplicate sites, what % do I need to change. Does switching the order of the sentences of the content count? Or does it need to be 100%fresh? Thanks everyone.
Technical SEO | | greenhornet770 -
Shopify duplicate content issue
We recently moved out site to shopify but now have a duplicate content issue as we have the same products in different collections. I have added canonical code to get rid of this but my webmaster tools still shows hundreds of duplicate pages. How can I tell if the code I added is working? How long will it take for google to recognise this and drop the duplicates from their index and is this likely to have a significant impact on SERPS? Our we page is www.devoted2vintage.co.uk. Thanks Paul
Technical SEO | | devoted2vintage1 -
Duplicate Content Caused By Blog Filters
We are getting some duplicate content warnings based on our blog. Canonical URL's can work for some of the pages, but most of the duplicate content is caused by blog posts appearing on more than 1 URL. What is the best way to fix this?
Technical SEO | | Marketpath0 -
Duplicate content and URL's
Hi Guys, Hope you are all well. Just a quick question which you will find nice and easy 🙂 I am just about to work through duplicate content pages and URL changes. Firstly, With the duplicate content issue i am finding the seo friendly URL i would normally direct to in some cases has less links, authority and root domain to it than some of the unseo friendly URL's. will this harm me if i still 301 redirect them to the seo friendly URL. Also, With the url changed it is going to be a huge job to change all the url so they are friendly and the CMS system is poor. Is there a better way of doing this? It has been suggested that we create a new webpage with a friendly URL and redirect all the pages to that. Will this lose all the weight as it will be a brand new page? Thank you for your help guys your legends!! Cheers Wayne
Technical SEO | | wazza19850