Will having duplicate content on four websites cause a problem?
-
A client of ours has four websites for different shops they run in the surrounding area. Each website has original content as well as duplicate content. This is for things like product advice which needs to be the same
Will having duplicate content on these four websites cause a problem? How can it be mitigated? We can't refer the visitor to another website to get the product information as this will break the user experience, and of course shopping cart sessions will not pass on.
-
Hi Tom,
Are they on the same server and linking to each other? If so, then just canonical them. Im also assuming from what you said that it's just a few pages so it shouldn't be any problem. That, or just edit the pages a wee bit.
If they are on different servers and practically can't be traced to be related to each other, then I wouldn't even worry about it. Just being practical.
-
Hi Tom
It might also be worth checking if the clients e-commerce platforms will allow you to add tags into the head. Some ERP website or cloud based sites don't so worth checking from the get go
Bruce
-
Hi Tom
Short answer is that it probably won't be a problem. From what you are saying the duplication is 'natural' in the sense it is information which you might normally expect to see duplicated since it relates to similar products across multiple sites (also think privacy policy or terms and conditions pages). In this case it is unlikely to attract a penalty.
Matt Cutts covered that topic in this video (posted on SearchEngineLand): Duplicate Content Won't Hurt You Unless its Spammy.
However, it will probably mean you are leaving it up to the search engine to decide which 'version' of your duplicate content it should prioritise and serve up to people searching. If it is not important to rank for the content on these duplicate pages then again it is not really an issue.
However if you want to play safe or aim to get some rankings for a specific page - among all the duplicate versions, you can use a rel=canonical tag to let the search engines know which page is the "original" so that they will prioritise this one (ie point the link juice at a specific page). Matt Cutts talks about that in this video (although he talks about it in the context of a news article).
Check out this Moz article on Duplicate Content - it also has a short explanation on how to use the rel=canonical.
All the best
Neil
-
use the canonical tag it will let you keep the pages where they are (as well as visitors) but tell Google which page is the original. As for harm it depends on how many pages I wouldn't see it being the greatest harm but its so easy to put the tag on you might as well do that. A quick heads up though by putting the tag on pages it means one page will rank but the others will no so be aware of that.
Hope that helps.
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 SEO Blogs Divert Traffic from Main Web pages using same keywords?
Our company has drafted several SEO blogs using certain keywords. If we post these SEO blogs to our website and social media channels , and the blog keywords are also used on our main website pages, will the blogs divert or dilute traffic to our main web pages? Thank you for your expertise and insights in advance.
Content Development | | Johnenchroma0 -
I have an integrated blog on my website, but should I have another blog elsewhere? Like Blogger? Tumblr?
Is it a good or bad idea to have other blogs, for the same company??
Content Development | | Coppell0 -
Is there harm in publishing too much content, at once?
We are working on catching up with some competition, who has done a much better job over the last few years with content creation. We normally publish 1 article a day but are looking at scaling that up to 3 to 4 articles a day so we can get our content out there to compete with the other websites, in keyword space we currently aren't in. Is there a negative impact on publishing too much content at once? Is there a negative impact on publishing too much content at once? Besides the probable inability to market all of it, I don't see any issues since we will be getting our articles indexed and out there for Google to start building value on them. However, some team members are apprehensive about doing too much at once. What are your thoughts Moz Community?
Content Development | | GoAbroadKP0 -
Outsourcing content creations
I am using odesk for outsourcing content creation, but i am finding it difficult to hire quality contractors. I am trying to use the fix rate is this is the main reason for getting low quality response for my job openings. Does quality contractor on Odesk prefer hourly rate? Is hourly rate is safe for client? Some of the contractors i hired has provided me the plagiarism content. I am keen to use Odesk for outsourcing but really getting nowhere with this. Suggestions and comments are highly appreciated. Thanks you all in advance.
Content Development | | Sajiali0 -
Nearely identical content
Hi Everybody, I'm just checking the warnings from Seomoz an realized that on our site there are a lot of duplicate page content problems. In fact some of them are not really duplicated content because there are subtle differencies ie. colour or pack of products: http://www.szepsegbolt.hu/termekek/david_beckham_intimately_yours_for_man_eau_de_toilette_30_ml.html http://www.szepsegbolt.hu/termekek/david_beckham_intimately_yours_for_man_eau_de_toilette_50_ml.html What do you suggest, ignore this warning or change something on the site? Thank you in advance Balint
Content Development | | SanomaMediaseo0 -
How to deal with an media press content?
We have a company that create content and send as media press. We would like to use this content in our blog. We made it using RSS and having in our blog the same content. So right now we have some concern about duplicate content. How do you guys deal with deal? Would we be penalized by duplicated content?
Content Development | | kauelinden0 -
Blogger - Multiple partial duplicate content and canonical
In Blogger, have at least three pages produced for each post - main post, archive and tag - each has their own canonical tag - are these considered duplicate content by Google? Not sure the best way to handle this.
Content Development | | holdtheonion0 -
Blogger & Blogspot Content - Move Across To Own Domain?
Hey, A few new clients have blogs hosted on blogger & blogspot, the first advice of mine is to set up a blog hosted on their company domain. It's usually easy to convince them of the benefits. What should happen to all the content on the existing blog? One blog in question has over 100 entries, good content with a lot of links back to the business domain. The blog itself has less than 10 links pointing in but a domain mozrank 3.5. In this example, my gut is telling me to leave it as is, and start fresh on the own domain. What about if there's less then 10 posts? At what point should the content be moved over to the new blog? Thanks for your thoughts.
Content Development | | LukeyJamo0