Duplicate Contact Information
-
My clients has had a website for many years, and his business for decades. He has always had a second website domain which is basically a shopping module for obtaining information, comparisons, and quotes for tires. This tire module had no informational pages or contact info. Until recently, we pulled this information in through iframes.
Now however the tire module is too complex and we do not bring in this info through iframes, and because of the way this module is configured (or website framework), we are told we can not place it as a sub-directory.
So now this tire module resides on another domain name (although similar to the client's "main site" domain name) with some duplicate informational pages (I am working through this with the client), but mainly I am concerned about the duplicate contact info -- address and phone.
Should I worry that this other tire website has duplicated the client's phone and address, same as their main website?
And would having a subdomain (tires.example.com) work better for Google and SEO considering the duplicate contact info?
Any help is much appreciated.
ccee bar
(And, too, The client is directing AdWords campaigns to this other website for tires, while under the same AdWords account directing other campaigns to their main site? - I have advised an entirely separate AdWords account for links to the tire domain. BTW the client does NOT have separate social media accounts for each site -- all social media efforts and links are for the main site.)
-
Laura,
Yes thank you for your reply, this helps greatly.
Right now for the client, because they lack a good strategy for organic SEO, AdWords generates their greatest traffic. I hope to leverage this with a better organic approach for SEO, and help create a better AdWords strategy.
But all that said, I just wasn't sure about the contact info and address... now I can move on. Thanks again!
-
First of all, backlinks from Adwords campaigns do not help you with organic search rankings at all.
Secondly, this kind of duplicate content issue may not be as big a problem as you think. If Google detects two pages have the same or very similar content, it will choose the best one to display in search results and filter the other one out. So, you may not need to do anything.
On the other hand, if you are particular about which website should appear in search results for that content, you'll want to use the rel="canonical" tag to let Google know which page you prefer. You'll find more info about the canonical tag at the two links below.
- https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/139066?hl=en
- https://moz.com/learn/seo/canonicalization
I hope that helps!
-
Laura,
Thanks so much for your response.
I guess what I was thinking is if online directories have duplicate info that would be expected.
But if duplicate content information, and business name, were on two different websites ((each set up as a service or consulting business)), would it look like the two websites were trying to capitalize on search results -- especially if some outbound links (like AdWords) were coming to one site (tires, say) and also to the "main site" (brakes, and some tires).
Still you think this is OK?
ccee bar
-
Having the same phone number and address on two websites is not a duplicate content issue. It's very common because of business directories all over the web. If that's the only duplicate content you're worried about, then you're fine.
-
Subdomain is better than separate domain if you cannot have a subdirectory.
As for the duplicate content, regardless of a separate domain, subdomain, or subdirectory, I would canonical any of the duplicate pages to the authoritative content. If it's the main site, then I would canonical the other domain to it. Not sure of a reason why you would prefer the other domain to be the authoritative source, but if that is the case, then you would canonical the main site to the other domain.
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
-
Supplier Videos & Duplicate Content
Hi, We have some supplier videos the product management want to include on these product pages. I am wondering how detrimental this is for SEO & the best way to approach this. Do we simply embed the supplier YouTube videos, or do we upload them to our YouTube - referencing the original content & then embed our YouTube videos? Thank you!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BeckyKey0 -
Duplicate ecommerce sites, SEO implications & others?
We have an established eCom site built out with custom php, dedicated SERPs, traffic, etc.. The question has arisen on how to extend commerce on social and we have found a solution with Shopify. In order to take advantage of this, we'd need to build out a completely new site in Shopify and would have to have the site live in order to have storefronts on Pinterest and Twitter. Aside from the obvious problem with having two databases, merchant processing, etc, does anyone know whether there are SEO implications to having two live sites with duplicate products? Could we just disavow a Shopify store in Webmaster Tools? Any other thoughts or suggestions? TIA!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | PAC31350 -
Duplicate meta descriptions
Hi All Does having quite a few Duplicate meta descriptions hurt SEO. I am worried that I have too many and thinking this could be the reason for my recent drop in search visibility. Thanks in Advance. Andy
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Andy-Halliday0 -
How do I use public content without being penalized for duplication?
The NHTSA produces a list of all recalls for automobiles. In their "terms of use" it states that the information can be copied. I want to add that to our site, so there is an up-to-date list for our audience to see. However, I'm just copying and pasting. I'm allowed to according to NHTSA, but google will probably flag it right? Is there a way to do this without being penalized? Thanks, Ruben
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | KempRugeLawGroup1 -
Best tools for identifying internal duplicate content
Hello again Mozzers! Other than the Moz tool, are there any other tools out there for identifying internal duplicate content? Thanks, Luke
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | McTaggart0 -
Penalised for duplicate content, time to fix?
Ok, I accept this one is my fault but wondering on time scales to fix... I have a website and I put an affiliate store on it, using merchant datafeeds in a bid to get revenue from the site. This was all good, however, I forgot to put noindex on the datafeed/duplicate content pages and over a period of a couple of weeks the traffic to the site died. I have since nofollowed or removed the products but some 3 months later my site still will not rank for the keywords it was ranking for previously. It will not even rank if I type in the sites' name (bright tights). I have searched for the name using bright tights, "bright tights" and brighttights but none of them return the site anywhere. I am guessing that I have been hit with a drop x place penalty by Google for the duplicate content. What is the easiest way around this? I have no warning about bad links or the such. Is it worth battling on trying to get the domain back or should I write off the domain, buy a new one and start again but minus the duplicate content? The goal of having the duplicate content store on the site was to be able to rank the category pages in the store which had unique content on so there were no problems with that which I could foresee. Like Amazon et al, the categories would have lists of products (amongst other content) and you would click through to the individual product description - the duplicate page. Thanks for reading
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Grumpy_Carl0 -
How to prevent duplicate content within this complex website?
I have a complex SEO issue I've been wrestling with and I'd appreciate your views on this very much. I have a sports website and most visitors are looking for the games that are played in the current week (I've studied this - it's true). We're creating a new website from scratch and I want to do this is as best as possible. We want to use the most elegant and best way to do this. We do not want to use work-arounds such as iframes, hiding text using AJAX etc. We need a solid solution for both users and search engines. Therefor I have written down three options: Using a canonical URL; Using 301-redirects; Using 302-redirects. Introduction The page 'website.com/competition/season/week-8' shows the soccer games that are played in game week 8 of the season. The next week users are interested in the games that are played in that week (game week 9). So the content a visitor is interested in, is constantly shifting because of the way competitions and tournaments are organized. After a season the same goes for the season of course. The website we're building has the following structure: Competition (e.g. 'premier league') Season (e.g. '2011-2012') Playweek (e.g. 'week 8') Game (e.g. 'Manchester United - Arsenal') This is the most logical structure one can think of. This is what users expect. Now we're facing the following challenge: when a user goes to http://website.com/premier-league he expects to see a) the games that are played in the current week and b) the current standings. When someone goes to http://website.com/premier-league/2011-2012/ he expects to see the same: the games that are played in the current week and the current standings. When someone goes to http://website.com/premier-league/2011-2012/week-8/ he expects to the same: the games that are played in the current week and the current standings. So essentially there's three places, within every active season within a competition, within the website where logically the same information has to be shown. To deal with this from a UX and SEO perspective, we have the following options: Option A - Use a canonical URL Using a canonical URL could solve this problem. You could use a canonical URL from the current week page and the Season page to the competition page: So: the page on 'website.com/$competition/$season/playweek-8' would have a canonical tag that points to 'website.com/$competition/' the page on 'website.com/$competition/$season/' would have a canonical tag that points to 'website.com/$competition/' The next week however, you want to have the canonical tag on 'website.com/$competition/$season/playweek-9' and the canonical tag from 'website.com/$competition/$season/playweek-8' should be removed. So then you have: the page on 'website.com/$competition/$season/playweek-9' would have a canonical tag that points to 'website.com/$competition/' the page on 'website.com/$competition/$season/' would still have a canonical tag that points to 'website.com/$competition/' In essence the canonical tag is constantly traveling through the pages. Advantages: UX: for a user this is a very neat solution. Wherever a user goes, he sees the information he expects. So that's all good. SEO: the search engines get very clear guidelines as to how the website functions and we prevent duplicate content. Disavantages: I have some concerns regarding the weekly changing canonical tag from a SEO perspective. Every week, within every competition the canonical tags are updated. How often do Search Engines update their index for canonical tags? I mean, say it takes a Search Engine a week to visit a page, crawl a page and process a canonical tag correctly, then the Search Engines will be a week behind on figuring out the actual structure of the hierarchy. On top of that: what do the changing canonical URLs to the 'quality' of the website? In theory this should be working all but I have some reservations on this. If there is a canonical tag from 'website.com/$competition/$season/week-8', what does this do to the indexation and ranking of it's subpages (the actual match pages) Option B - Using 301-redirects Using 301-redirects essentially the user and the Search Engine are treated the same. When the Season page or competition page are requested both are redirected to game week page. The same applies here as applies for the canonical URL: every week there are changes in the redirects. So in game week 8: the page on 'website.com/$competition/' would have a 301-redirect that points to 'website.com/$competition/$season/week-8' the page on 'website.com/$competition/$season' would have a 301-redirect that points to 'website.com/$competition/$season/week-8' A week goes by, so then you have: the page on 'website.com/$competition/' would have a 301-redirect that points to 'website.com/$competition/$season/week-9' the page on 'website.com/$competition/$season' would have a 301-redirect that points to 'website.com/$competition/$season/week-9' Advantages There is no loss of link authority. Disadvantages Before a playweek starts the playweek in question can be indexed. However, in the current playweek the playweek page 301-redirects to the competition page. After that week the page's 301-redirect is removed again and it's indexable. What do all the (changing) 301-redirects do to the overall quality of the website for Search Engines (and users)? Option C - Using 302-redirects Most SEO's will refrain from using 302-redirects. However, 302-redirect can be put to good use: for serving a temporary redirect. Within my website there's the content that's most important to the users (and therefor search engines) is constantly moving. In most cases after a week a different piece of the website is most interesting for a user. So let's take our example above. We're in playweek 8. If you want 'website.com/$competition/' to be redirecting to 'website.com/$competition/$season/week-8/' you can use a 302-redirect. Because the redirect is temporary The next week the 302-redirect on 'website.com/$competition/' will be adjusted. It'll be pointing to 'website.com/$competition/$season/week-9'. Advantages We're putting the 302-redirect to its actual use. The pages that 302-redirect (for instance 'website.com/$competition' and 'website.com/$competition/$season') will remain indexed. Disadvantages Not quite sure how Google will handle this, they're not very clear on how they exactly handle a 302-redirect and in which cases a 302-redirect might be useful. In most cases they advise webmasters not to use it. I'd very much like your opinion on this. Thanks in advance guys and galls!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | StevenvanVessum0 -
"Duplicate" Page Titles and Content
Hi All, This is a rather lengthy one, so please bear with me! SEOmoz has recently crawled 10,000 webpages from my site, FrenchEntree, and has returned 8,000 errors of duplicate page content. The main reason I have so many is because of the directories I have on site. The site is broken down into 2 levels of hierachy. "Weblets" and "Articles". A weblet is a landing page, and articles are created within these weblets. Weblets can hold any number of articles - 0 - 1,000,000 (in theory) and an article must be assigned to a weblet in order for it to work. Here's how it roughly looks in URL form - http://www.mysite.com/[weblet]/[articleID]/ Now; our directory results pages are weblets with standard content in the left and right hand columns, but the information in the middle column is pulled in from our directory database following a user query. This happens by adding the query string to the end of the URL. We have 3 main directory databases, but perhaps around 100 weblets promoting various 'canned' queries that users may want to navigate straight into. However, any one of the 100 directory promoting weblets could return any query from the parent directory database with the correct query string. The problem with this method (as pointed out by the 8,000 errors) is that each possible permutation of search is considered to be it's own URL, and therefore, it's own page. The example I will use is the first alphabetically. "Activity Holidays in France": http://www.frenchentree.com/activity-holidays-france/ - This link shows you a results weblet without the query at the end, and therefore only displays the left and right hand columns as populated. http://www.frenchentree.com/activity-holidays-france/home.asp?CategoryFilter= - This link shows you the same weblet with the an 'open' query on the end. I.e. display all results from this database. Listings are displayed in the middle. There are around 500 different URL permutations for this weblet alone when you take into account the various categories and cities a user may want to search in. What I'd like to do is to prevent SEOmoz (and therefore search engines) from counting each individual query permutation as a unique page, without harming the visibility that the directory results received in SERPs. We often appear in the top 5 for quite competitive keywords and we'd like it to stay that way. I also wouldn't want the search engine results to only display (and therefore direct the user through to) an empty weblet by some sort of robot exclusion or canonical classification. Does anyone have any advice on how best to remove the "duplication" problem, whilst keeping the search visibility? All advice welcome. Thanks Matt
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Horizon0