Using Brand Descriptions
-
We have an online site with approximately 800 products. When we add new products we typically use the photos and product description provided by the brand. The problem is there are numerous other sites using the same descriptions. All other content on the site is original.
Is having small blocks of content that are the same on multiple sites likely to cause problems with Google?
-
This is something that I am very familiar with. We are in almost the exact same situation. Matt Cutts at Google is pretty responsive on this subject. Here is a video where he describes in detail how Google views duplicate content : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQZY7EmjbMA
My professional opinion is that you should try to get as much unique content on the page as possible. I have been successful at getting my customer reviews to appear on site and in the source code of the page. I believe this has directly helped the rankings of my product pages. If everyone has the same content there is really nothing to separate its relevancy in the eyes of the engine and most times the searcher as well. If you are all on the same level where is your competition? What sets you apart from their pages.
Customer reviews, in my opinion, are the holy grail of on page content. If you have no product reviews (tsk tsk) then you can implement in house reviews, like a manager's review or have someone in the company write, in their own words, some informative article between 500-600 words to help give you content that is unique.
Content is king, even duplicate relevant content can be harmful in my opinion. Just because it won't cause a Panda penalty doesn't necessarily mean that the content isn't negatively effecting your SEO.
-
No, this won't cause problems big problems, assuming your original content makes up a good chunk of the overall page content. Would it be better if you had your own descriptions and photos? Yes.
I know it's hard to scale writing unique descriptions or taking photos for products, so you should focus on a smaller chunk. Find a way to prioritize the products you want to boost. Maybe it's keyword volume, best sellers, high margin, or a combo of each. Write unique descriptions for 20-50 of them. See if it improves organic performance. If you see an ROI, move on to the next batch of products.
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
-
Using images from Wikipedia, The right way to give credit for them?
Hi, I am writing my first blog post and I have downloaded 9 images from Wikipedia, After reading the confusing legal stuff, I am under the impression that all those images are allowed to be used for other purposes with citing/ giving credit to the owner. At least the ones I download the author said its ok to use them anywhere, for anything So how do i do that? Should I have something like this: Image, underneath-- image credit to xyz (link to Wikipedia page where i downloaded the image) ??? Thanks for you time and explanation.
Content Development | | Davit19850 -
Using Product Descriptions in Meta Description
Hi All We have over 10000 Products and a while ago we spent some time adding Product Descriptions to the Product Pages, For Example we have Product - Black Snazaroo Face Paint Product Description - Great for Childrens parties, fundraising events, Halloween or other festive faces. An easy makeup to apply and remove. All Snazaroo face paints are Non toxic, Fragrance free and Skin friendly. Snazaroo is suitable for all skin types, however it is always recommended you do a skin patch test on a small area before full application. Unfortuantly our Meta Descriptions really need some work, for example this same page contains the following meta descriptions We realise this could be holding our site back. Is it ok to use the same Product Description inside the Meta Description Tags also, for example can we use the Meta Description for this Page - Thanks
Content Development | | AMG1000 -
If we use content copied from another site ( assuming we have not plagerized), does it hurt our Google Rankings?
We have permission from another company to copy their content and use it on our site. This happens when we are describing a manufacturer's product and we copy pages from their site and add these pages to our site in order to describe the product we are selling. Is this considered duplicate content? Can this practice hurt us?
Content Development | | huskers0 -
What is the best practice for using the same content on two pages?
I have two websites in a very similar niche(s)...I have good unique content article that I would like to use on both sites because it adds value to the visitor experience.. Example: Science of Colors would be very useful for my seattle house painting paint colors page. I want to have content so they do not need to leave the site to navigate to second site. Would the identical content trigger a penalty or would it be crawled, ignored, and not indexed. Does having a rel=authorship on one site trump the site..Or is it a pile of BAD.
Content Development | | johnshearer0 -
How to make use of blog networks?
I read on a forum recently that someone was using blog networks as his primary tool for SEO. I'm not sure what he meant beyond this, however... Can anyone provide tips on how I might use one, and which are some of the best? Thank you very much in advance.
Content Development | | ZakGottlieb710 -
What plugins & tactics are you using for Wordpress meta SEO?
Currently I use All-In-One SEO and I quite like how simple it is to setup and it's stable. Is that still one of the best ones? What are you using these days? Is it worth stripping out the superfluous meta tags that Wordpress now puts in? Is there any value to adding meta descriptions to all my Tag pages and if so, is there a good plugin that will auto magically create unique descriptions for these pages? Same goes for my paginated archives. Thanks!
Content Development | | flowsimple0 -
Using testimonials to build quality content
I don't see a lot of talk on here about using testimonials to build good content. From what I have seen, the search engines love client testimonials. I haven't found a good service provider for this yet. I'm thinking something combined with Twitter or FB that also allows you to show the content on your site would be great. Can anyone recommend a service like this? I'm checking out a service called, "Quick Vouch" but I haven't tested it yet.
Content Development | | BradBorst0