Solved Duplicate content error affecting 142 pages
-
Hello,
Recently I noticed a new duplicate error notification.
This page: https://www.earley.com/insights/internet-things-and-product-data
is flagged as 'duplicate content' with 142 affected pages.
Here's an example of one of the affected pages:
https://www.earley.com/insights/how-ontologies-drive-digital-transformation
This is not an ecommerce site. The affected pages are blog posts. We are pretty prolific writers and over the years we have produced nearly 300 articles. We are a consulting firm and the articles are about our area of expertise and cover a wide range of topics within that space.
I just don't understand why this would be flagged as duplicate or what I'm supposed to do with this information!
Help!
Thanks!
Sharon -
@meghanpahinui said in Duplicate content error affecting 142 pages:
@eismarketing Hi Sharon!
Thanks so much for the great question! And so sorry for any confusion here.
Pages that are flagged as duplicate content are being assessed on the source code of those pages and not just the content on the page itself. Since it's not based purely on the written content of the page, this means if you're using a template of some kind or all your pages have a similar structure, they may end up being flagged as duplicate content. Pages can be marked as duplicates of each other when there isn't enough unique content on each page to distinguish them from each other.
The Moz tools have a 90% threshold for duplicate content so any pages with at least 90% of the same code will be flagged as duplicates of one another.
I've grabbed a few resources that may help:
Here is a Whiteboard Friday about duplicate content and some ways you can resolve it.
Here is an article from the Moz Learning Center regarding duplicate content.
Here is some information from Google re: duplicate content as well.At time of answering your query, you won't get a penalty for duplicate content, however anything you can do to help search engines understand what you content is about and to create value for your visitors, will support a strong content marketing and SEO strategy.
-
@eismarketing Hi Sharon!
Thanks so much for the great question! And so sorry for any confusion here.
Pages that are flagged as duplicate content are being assessed on the source code of those pages and not just the content on the page itself. Since it's not based purely on the written content of the page, this means if you're using a template of some kind or all your pages have a similar structure, they may end up being flagged as duplicate content. Pages can be marked as duplicates of each other when there isn't enough unique content on each page to distinguish them from each other.
The Moz tools have a 90% threshold for duplicate content so any pages with at least 90% of the same code will be flagged as duplicates of one another.
I've grabbed a few resources that may help:
Here is a Whiteboard Friday about duplicate content and some ways you can resolve it.
Here is an article from the Moz Learning Center regarding duplicate content.
Here is some information from Google re: duplicate content as well.At time of answering your query, you won't get a penalty for duplicate content, however anything you can do to help search engines understand what you content is about and to create value for your visitors, will support a strong content marketing and SEO strategy.
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 same copy on different domain
I have a client that currently has a .com domain (not using hreflang) . They have a new partner in the UK and they want to replicate the website and use a .co.uk domain. It will be a different brand name. Will this cause any SEO issues?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | bedynamic0 -
Can you use no-index to counter duplicate content across separate domains?
Hi Moz Community, I have a client who is splitting out a sub brand from a company website to its own domain. They have lots of content around the theme and they want to migrate most of the content out to the new domain, but they also wanted to keep that content on the main site as the main site gets lots of traffic. My question is, as they want search traffic to go to the new site, but want to keep the best content on the original site too, so it can be found in the nav, if they no-index identical content on main site and index content on the new site will they still be penalised for duplicate content? Our advice has been to keep the thematic content on both sites but make them different enough so they are not considered duplicate - we routinely write the same blog post in 50 different ways for them but their Head of Web asked if the no-index is a route, which means they don't need to pay for and wait for brand new content? They are comfortable in losing traffic until the new domain gets traction. In theory, if they are telling Google not to index or rank the main site content, the new site shouldn't be penalised but I'm not confident giving that advice as I've never been asked to do this before. Thoughts?
Technical SEO | | Algorhythm_jT0 -
How to stop /tag creating duplicate content - Wordpress
Hi, I keep getting alert for duplicate content. It seems Wordpress is creating it through a /tag https://www.curveball-media.co.uk/tag/cipr/ https://www.curveball-media.co.uk/tag/pr-agencies/ Something in the way we've got Wordpress set up?
Technical SEO | | curveballmedia0 -
Plagiarized Site Effecting Google Rankings
Can someone provides insights on a de-indexing example? I have gone through the depths of Google lack of support and requesting duplicate content flags, so no avail. Here's the scenario: Client had a competing SEO provider try to earn his business. In doing so, he copied word for word our blog that we have been producing content on over the last 5 years. He also integrated Google reviews in the structured data on this new URL. Well, fast forward 1-2 months later, our rankings started to drop. We found this 100% plagiarized site is taking away from our keyword rankings on GMB, and is no and Google search, and our site GMB is now only displaying on a branded name search as well as our search traffic has dropped. I have identified the plagiarized, duplicated content, being tied to our GMB as well, as the source of the problem. Well, I finally obtain ed control of the plagarized domain and shut down the hosted, and forwarded the URL to our URL. Well, Google still has the HTTS version of the site indexed. And it is in my professional opinion, that since the site is still indexed and is associated with the physician GMB that was ranking for our target keyword and no longer does, that this is the barrier to ranking again. Since its the HTTPS version, it is not forwarded to our domain. Its a 504 error but is still ranking in the google index. The hosting and SSL was canceled circa December 10th. I have been waiting for Google to de-index this site, therefore allowing our primary site to climb the rankings and GMB rankings once again. But it has been 6 weeks and Google is still indexing this spam site. I am incredibly frustrated with google support (as a google partner) and disappointed that this spam site is still indexed. Again, my conclusion that when this SPAM site is de-indexed, we will return back to #1. But when? and at this point, ever? Highlighted below is the spam site. Any suggestions? Capture.PNG
SEO Tactics | | WebMarkets0 -
Duplicate Content on a page that isn't duplicate?
So, I've been working on a site for a while, and they recently had one of their blog posts marked as "duplicate content" on Moz Pro: https://ashlandbreastpumps.com/blog/breast-milk-storage-guidelines/ Reviewing this post, there's nothing here to suggest that it should be considered duplicate. Link is marked canonical, there are no weird domain shenanigans to cause confusion, the content is distinct, and there's a lot of content there that prevents it from being overcome by coding white noise (So "more content" wouldn't be a solution here). So I'm trying to figure out why this particular post was flagged. Did Moz Pro make a mistake?
Product Support | | YYSeanBrady0 -
Can't reactivate account - duplicate transaction. Anyone experienced this?
as Q explains, my card expired, tried to renew subscription and get a message saying declined, duplicate transaction?
Product Support | | paulazoid0 -
I have removed a subdomain from my main domain. We have stopped the subdomain completely. However the crawl still shows the error for that sub-domain. How to remove the same from crawl reports.
Earlier I had a forum as sub-domain and was mentioned in my main domain. However i have now discontinued the forum and have removed all the links and mention of the forum from my main domain. But the crawler still shows error for the sub-domain. How to make the crawler issues clean or delete the irrelevant crawl issues. I dont have the forum now and no links at the main site, bu still shows crawl errors for the forum which doesnt exist.
Product Support | | potterharry0 -
Is the MOZ billing page down for everyone?
I am unable to update billing information as the link (https://moz.com/billing) resolves to a blank page. Please advise Thanks
Product Support | | RedSearch010