Duplicate categories how to make sure I don't get penalized for this

[edward-may]

Hi there

How would I go about fixing duplicate categories?

My products sell in multiple category areas and some overlap the other - how can I go about making sure that I don't get penalised for this?  Each category and content is unique but my advisors offer different tools and insights.

[edward-may]

Thanks for your response Patrick! This has helped alot!!! So clear! Thanks for going into more details about the canonical tags - as this part was confusing! lol

Thanks I have set it to www as the preferred

With regards to the canonical tags - should I use this for ALL pages? or just the category pages? Or just pages I feel have similar content? Would it be just safe to add it to every page?

[PatrickDelehanty]

Hi Justin

When it comes to canonical tags, it's a best practice. I just like to apply them so that each page "owns" the content on that page in the eyes of the search engine. Especially when some content is on more than page, like a portion of your staff's profiles - I would definitely put a canonical tag on the psychic's profile pages since some of their bios appear on other pages.

The reason I brought up the non www. URL is because if for some reason someone links to the non www. version of your site or a page on your site, it's going to return a 404 error like you are seeing. You'll notice that if you goto http://www.zenory.com/profile/psychic-ginny it automatically redirects to where it is supposed to go. This is just to cover your bases in case there is a linking error somewhere.

Since your site is using "www." - I would use that version. You'll see under Set Your Preferred Domain in Google Webmaster Tools that they recommend staying consistent in your preferred domain and how your site is set up.

Hope this helps! Let me know if you have any questions or comments! Good luck!

[edward-may]

Hi Patrick

Thanks alot for your response, and sorry for my vague explanation.

Yes, you are correct - I was concerned that my staff are listed in the categories section as duplicate.  Every page is going to be unique in content.  Thanks for the heads up!  Should I apply the canonical tag for every page?  And could you please explain the non-www url?  I see there is a settings in WMT that I need to apply - under the add your preferred version should I set this up to - Display URLs as http://bit.ly/1yhz96v

[PatrickDelehanty]

Hi Justin

I am not entirely sure I am following, but are you worried about your staff appearing on multiple categories? From what I can, that's not an issue - you have unique content to the page and service. The list of psychics shouldn't be an issue.

I would check your canonical tag situation, though. I noticed the site doesn't have any, just a heads up.

Also, your non www. URLs don't work - here is an example.

Let me know if I am understanding!