Duplicate content site not penalized
-
Was reviewing a site, www.adspecialtyproductscatalog.com, and noted that even though there are over 50,000 total issues found by automated crawls, including 3000 pages with duplicate titles and 6,000 with duplicate content this site still ranks high for primary keywords. The same essay's worth of content is pasted at the bottom of every single page. What gives, Google?
-
Thanks SEOMAN.
My issue is that this purposeful duplicate content tactic is helping www.adspecialtyproductscatalog.com rank higher for a keyword like "ad specialty products" than http://www.advertisingproducts.net/, the former, using the same 4,000 words on every single page of it's site.
So if the goal is to rank #1 for the highest searched keyword in my category, should one employ this content tactic as part of their SEO efforts?
-
This is a common scenario, I would take issues found by crawling tools with a pinch of salt - A lot of them flag up errors that aren't actually a major problem.
Search engines aren't crawling the web to find problems with your site, they are crawling the web to find the most relevant content and deliver it to the person that requests it.
As far as I'm aware there is no such thing as a duplicate content penalty. But there is an exception, if you breach copyright you could be in legal trouble. Additionally Google does have a pirated content removal process, if you find a copied piece of content that breaches copyright you can submit it and it will most likely be removed completely from the search engine.
If you are talking about duplicate content on your own site, it isn't a major problem and Google will still pick up the pages and try and deliver the best content to the search except you are doing yourself a disservice. If you have duplicate content on your own site put a bit of effort into crafting content and targeting different keywords.
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
-
Site that's 301 redirected is ranking for brand
We own a number of foreign TLD domains for our brand. They are all 301-redirected to our main .com branded domain. One of them is appearing in our branded search results, outranking out main .com page. To be clear, this is despite there being a 301 redirect from it to the .com page. Any ideas on what is going on here?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | ipancake0 -
How to gain links to this site
Hello, How would you suggest I gain backlinks for bobweikel.com in light of all present and future Google updates? Thanks!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | BobGW0 -
Is it a duplicate content ?
Hi
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | loumi
Please check this link : http : // www . speedguide . net/news/yahoo-acquires-email-management-app-xobni-5252
it's a post where the admin just write the first 200-300 words and then insert the "read more here" which links to the original post
This make the website active as the admin always add new content but is this not against google rules as it's a duplicate content ??
Can you tell me the name of this strategy ?
Is this really work to make the website active ??
0 -
Content ideas?
We run a printing company and we are struggling to come up with unique content people will actually want to know, is there any way of getting the ball rolling? We were thinking of ideas such as exhibition guide but this seems to have been overdone. Any help would be appreciated.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | BobAnderson0 -
HELP - Site architecture of E-Commerce Mega Menu - Linkjuice flow
Hi everyone, I hope you have a couple of mins to give me your opinion. Ecommerce site has around 2000 products, in english and spanish, and around only 70 hits per day if that. We have done a lot of optimisation on the site - Page Titles, URL's, Content, H1's, etc.... Everything on page is pretty much under control, except I am starting to realise the site architecture could be harming our SEO efforts. Once someone arrives on site they are language detected and do a 302 to either domain.com/EN or domain.com/ES depending on their preferred language. Then on the homepage, we have the big MEGA MENU - and we have
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | bjs2010
CAT 1
SubCat 1
SubsubCat 1
SubsubCat 2
SubsubCat 3 Overall, there are 145 "categories". Plus links to some CMS pages, like Home, Delivery terms, etc... Each Main Category, contains the products of everything related to that category - so for example:
KITCHENWARE
COOKWARE BAKINWARE
SAUCEPANS BOWLS
FRYING PANS Kitchenware contains: ALL PRODUCTS OF SUBCATS BELOW, SO COOKWARE ITEMS, SAUCEPANS, FRYING PANS, BAKINGWARE, etc... plus links to those categories through breadcrumbs and a left hand nav in addition to the mega menu above. So once the bots hit the site, immediately they have this structure to deal with. Here is what stats look like:
Domain Authority: 18 www.domain.com/EN/
PA: 27
mR: 3.99
mT: 4.90 www.domain.com/EN/CAT 1
PA: 15
mR: 3.05
mT: 4.54 www.domain.com/EN/CAT 1/SUBCAT1
PA: 15
mR: 3.05
mT: 4.54 Product pages themselves - have a PA of 1 and no mR or mT. I really need some other opinions here - I am thinking of: Removing links in Nav menu so it only contains CAT1 and SUBCAT1 but DELETE SUBSUBCATS1 which represent around 80 links Remove products within the CAT1 page - eg., the CAT 1 would "tile" graphical links to subcategories, but not display products themselves. So products are only available right at the lowest part of the chain (which will be shortened) But I am willing to hear any other ideas please - maybe another alternative is to start building links to boost DA and linkjuice? Thanks all, Ben0 -
Site Maps
I have provided a site maps for google but although it craws my site www.irishnews.com at 6:45AM the details in the site map are not seen on google for a few days - any ideas how to get this feature working better would be great. example <url><loc>http://www.irishnews.com/news.aspx?storyId=1126126</loc>
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Liammcmullen
<priority>1</priority>
<lastmod>2012-01-23</lastmod>
<changefreq>never</changefreq></url> thanks0 -
Why doesn't Google find different domains - same content?
I have been slowly working to remove near duplicate content from my own website for different locals. Google seems to be doing noting to combat the duplicate content of one of my competitors showing up all over southern California. For Example: Your Local #1 Rancho Bernardo Pest Control Experts | 858-352 ...
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | GerryWeitz<cite>www.pestcontrolranchobernardo.com/</cite>CachedYou +1'd this publicly. UndoPest Control Rancho Bernardo Pros specializes in the eradication of all household pests including ants, roaches, etc. Call Today @ 858-352-7728. Your Local #1 Oceanside Pest Control Experts | 760-486-2807 ...
<cite>www.pestcontrol-oceanside.info/</cite>CachedYou +1'd this publicly. UndoPest Control Oceanside Pros specializes in the eradication of all household pests including ants, roaches, etc. Call Today @ 760-486-2807. The competitor is getting high page 1 listing for massively duplicated content across web domains. Will Google find this black hat workmanship? Meanwhile, he's sucking up my business. Do the results of the competitor's success also speak to the possibility that Google does in fact rank based on the name of the url - something that gets debated all the time? Thanks for your insights. Gerry
0 -
How much pain can I expect if I change the URL structure of the site again?
About 3 months ago I implemented a massive URL structure change by 'upgrading' some of the features of our CMS Prior to this URL's for catergorys and products looked something like this http://www.thefurnituremarket.co.uk/proddetail.asp?prod=OX09 I made a few changes but din't implement it fully as I felt it would be better to do it instages as the site was getting indexed more thouroughly. HOWEVER... We have just hit the first page for some key SERP's and I am wary to rock the boat again by changing the URL structures again and all the sitemaps. How much pain do you think we could feel if i went ahead and optimised the URL's fully? and What would you do? 🙂
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | robertrRSwalters0