How would you handle this duplicate content - noindex or canonical?

[KateWaite]

Hello

Just trying look at how best to deal with this duplicated content.

On our Canada holidays page we have a number of holidays listed (PAGE A)
http://www.naturalworldsafaris.com/destinations/north-america/canada/suggested-holidays.aspx

We also have a more specific Arctic Canada holidays page with different listings (PAGE B)
http://www.naturalworldsafaris.com/destinations/arctic-and-antarctica/arctic-canada/suggested-holidays.aspx

Of the two, the Arctic Canada page (PAGE B) receives a far higher number of visitors from organic search.

From a user perspective, people expect to see all holidays in Canada (PAGE A), including the Arctic based ones. We can tag these to appear on both, however it will mean that the PAGE B content will be duplicated on PAGE A.

Would it be the best idea to set up a canonical link tag to stop this duplicate content causing an issue. Alternatively would it be best to no index PAGE A?

Interested to see others thoughts. I've used this (Jan 2011 so quite old) article for reference in case anyone else enters this topic in search of information on a similar thing:

Duplicate Content: Block, Redirect or Canonical - SEO Tips

[Linda-Vassily]

OK, I think I understand what you are asking now.

Canonicals are for identical or near-identical pages. I don't know that those two pages would be considered to be identical, even after you added the arctic listings to the Canada page, especially as the above-the-fold content is different.

Keep in mind that the "penalty" for duplicate content is that Google will choose only one page to show, depending on which one it thinks is most relevant. And if you have one page that gets a lot more traffic and engagement, that is likely to be the one Google chooses, anyway.

If I were you, I'd probably make sure the description sections at the top of those pages each has a good bit of unique content and maybe I'd change the titles and h1s to make them a little more different from each other (if you can do that) then I'd just leave it at that and see what Google makes of it.

If it seems that your higher traffic page starts to lose traffic, you can always add the canonicals then, and resubmit the URL through Fetch as Google in Webmaster Tools.

[KateWaite]

Hi both

Thank you.

Linda - It's people arriving at the Canada page who want to see all Canada, not the other way round. People select Canada as a destination but  are also interested in our Arctic Canada trips.

The Canada page itself doesn't rank well or act as a landing page portal, however it is important in terms of site structure as people check that destination to see if we do trips there once they reach the site. People equally come onto the site looking for a trip to the Arctic as a destination so we do need both within the site in terms of the user journey.

The canonical tag would be my preference - if there is enough unique content on both pages do you think it matters if the holidays list is the same - this could be an alternative although we won't escape a percentage of duplication?

[MonicaOConnor]

I don't recommend no following either page. The Canonical tag should help with the duplicate content errors. If it were my site I would list all of the holidays on one page only by combining the two pages together. If you use the Canonical tag you will decrease your chances of having both pages rank, however you will be telling the engines which page is the authoritative page.

[Linda-Vassily]

First, are you sure that the people who are arriving at the arctic page really want to see all of the holidays and not the arctic ones? The arctic page is pretty well optimized for "arctic", and it is in the title and description. Take a look in your Webmaster Tools at those pages and see which keywords are bringing them up.

If you have a good reason to think that people really want the more general page (page A) but it is not getting a lot of traffic, putting that content on the arctic page (page B) probably won't solve your problem as there is obviously some reason page A is not doing as well and you are just spreading around the content that is not working.

I don't think your answer lies in making the pages duplicates--you should actually be making them more different from each other so the arctic one is very clearly specific for arctic trips and the overview one for general inquiries.

And in the meantime you could put a prominent link at the top of your arctic page linking back to the overview page, saying something like, "For more ideas, see all of our suggested holidays." (In fact there should be a link like that on each of your specialty pages, pointing back to the general page--that will help build the authority of page A and help it rank higher in the SERPs.)