Templated content = duplicate content?
-
I'm curious where the line is drawn for "duplicate content" by the search engines. Obviously the same article, or even the same article with minor edits, can and should be detected as duplicate.
I have a use case where there is a database of similar, but not duplicate, content that changes as time passes. I want to serve this content up via html template but don't want the 1000 pages to be considered duplicates of each other.
Example: Imagine local weather. You could create a template for city name, longitude, latitude, altitude, and current weather conditions. The values for all fields would be different for each of the 1000 database entries (cities) and one of the "current weather conditions" would change frequently (hourly, let's say).
Now, if I have a nice heirarchical index pages (first one maybe points to 50 state sub-pages, and each state page points to 20 city pages) that point to the 1000 city-specific pages, would the city-specific pages be considered 'duplicate' since they are based on the same HTML template but all have different values in key areas? Does the answer change based on the % of the template (or visible text) that changes for each city?
My goal is to get these 1000 subpages as part of my site, have them indexable, and have them each flow a little bit of link juice to my home page.
Best practices? What should I be careful of?
Thanks!
-
I'd like to know the answer too...
Our page is an e-commerce site, and Google sometimes gives the duplicate content reports for pages that don't match, but haven't got much of unique content. Thought maybe you solved the problem?
-
Don't you get any duplicate content messages at Google webmaster tools?
-
Hi Mike,
I'm wondering what you decided to do here, and if you have any interesting results that you'd be willing to share with the Q&A community. Thanks!
-
Figured it wasn't weather based... just sticking with the theme.
How's that saying go... "The good thing about the internet is that you can always test it, the bad thing is that you are always testing."
-
It's a single site. It's not a weather app; I was using weather as an example. I have another (non-weather) data set that has similar characteristics -- 6 or 8 unique data points per item (a couple of which are dynamic and change as time passes). And several thousand of these items. I want to display them via template.
I guess I'll try it and see if Webmaster tools complains about dup content. Thanks for the ideas, guys...
-
Often wondered myself
i think google makke the right choice. they would of thought about this and i am sure they get it right.i have much the same thing on one of my sites, and they rank quite well, so i dont think they are seen as duplicates.
-
Excellent point. The more unique the content the higher the value.
-
Hi Mike,
This is an interesting question. Depending on the nature of the content, you might want to try to get user generated content on those pages to make them more unique and valuable.
Best regards,
Guillaume Voyer. -
If you are running this on a single site then I would say per your example that you have enough unique variables that it wouldn't be considered duplicate content on your website. Giving each City, State, Weather, on a page should solve your problem. As long as the titles and headers of the pages are not all the same. But the only real way to know would be to test it. Validate it with webmaster tools, it will tell you if your pages are too similar.And if you do pull this off let me know. I am always interested in GEO specific content for our pest control service areas.
The problem I see you running into is creating enough unique content so that it's not duplicate content from other weather sites. Maybe run it against a copyscape.com query. That should let you know if the weather info is unique enough. I would test this on a small scale prior to launching the entire project. Just hand create 10 pages and run it against copyscape.
Now if you are trying to create a content generator for mulitple websites based on this same data set then you may run into duplicate content issues. ...But there may still be some value in this.
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
-
Content Marketing: What to say when calling prospects
Hello, We have a useful article on a topic that there isn't much information on in our niche. Some of these organizations which we're outreaching to have general phone contact numbers. Would it be a good idea to call them? If so, can you give me some pointers as what to say? Thanks
Link Building | | BobGW0 -
How to get started with a brand new site and domain name and prioritize content creation?
Hi there. I just bought a Moz Pro membership with the goal to start with a new domain name and create a content channel. The domain name is completely fresh so it doesn't have any authority or trust associated with it. I did initial keyword research with the Google Keyword Tool for the niche I want to address and know what content I can get out. I would like to prioritize content creation based on what will rank easily in Google and then work my way up from there. Do you have ideas on how I could best prioritize these keywords to this? How can I identify the low hanging fruit for getting some incoming links to my website such that there is already some incoming link juice? (without using any black hat tricks) Any hints or tips are greatly appreciated. Thanks! PS: The website is in Europe where the blogosphere is really underdeveloped for the niche.
Link Building | | JohnDE0 -
Which is More Powerful? Content or Backlinks: Ecommerce Sales
Hello, Which do you guys think would bring in more sales: doubling the content across all category pages and top 30 products, or getting 10% more good unique root domain backlinks from broken link building? 350 products in total 50 main categories 150 subcategories. Product page content would be frequently asked questions for the product and would be added by the site owner who is an expert. Thanks.
Link Building | | BobGW0 -
Duplicate Content Question
Hi Mozers! I have a client who, before coming to me, created a good site with about 100 pages of useful unique content however used services that landed them with a link profile that included 100's of backlinks with the same anchor text (for each pages' few targeted keywords). There are so many backlinks that trying to escape the filters naturally would be nearly impossible...and not really worth the effort if it were possible. While the approach was bad, due to G's new anchor text filters, my question is really about the content on the site itself. There is nothing wrong with it. It is unique, kw targeted without being spammy and helpful to the reader. There are two approaches I'm thinking here: 1. Scrap the whole site (as it wasn't all that architecturally sound anyhow) and try to keep the content for another new site...done the right way from the start. 2. Delete the site's pages where the bad anchor text profiles are pointing and create a new page/URL, using the same content...to get out of the filter frenzy. It is a bit of a weird situation I know, but would Google see that as duplicate content, even if I went into Webmaster tools and tried to remove the pages from the index first? Is this a reasonable solution or is the content a lost cause? Even if I do delete all those pages that have the poor link profiles, would all of those spammy backlinks pointing to a non-existent page on my clients' site effect the site overall? Any insights would be greatly appreciated! Thanks in advance-
Link Building | | Vincent160 -
Curating Content. used to avoid, but now i'm having second thoughts
It's really hitting me now, because content curating is extremely common in a lot of other forms of media. I always avoided it because I didn't know the extent of any negatives that I might see from the search engines (duplicate content). Does anybody else curate content for their blogs? The main problem that I am having is that I just don't have enough time to publish the amount of content that I need. Outsourcing is the best alternative, and quite frankly, unless your high school English teacher needs extra money, it really isn't a very good one. Basically, i'm looking at content curating as a really good way to publish a lot of content, on more topics, a lot easier. What extent do you consider reasonable? How do you go about creating your content? What would you say is the easiest way to create content efficiently?
Link Building | | TylerAbernethy0 -
Guest Blog Etiquette & Re-using "Expired" Content
Hi everyone, There's two parts to this Q, which is why the title's sort of split in half. We wrote a guest blog post that we were really proud of, which took a good few hours of work. It went live about a month ago, but I just happened to notice recently that it had disappeared off the person's website - I now get a 404 error and I can't find it either using a 'site:' search in Google or via the site's own search tool. I've tried getting in touch with the webmaster, but he's no longer responding to my emails. I really don't know if a) it disappeared by accident (for whatever reason), or b) they purposefully wanted to remove it and now they're avoiding me. My two Q's: Do you think it's cheeky to re-use the content, by giving it to someone else? Or would you say it goes against guest blogging etiquette? It seems a shame to waste it, for it to disappear. If I were to re-use it, would there be any implications regarding Panda, given the fact that it was content that was once live (i.e. effectively 'duplicate', once upon a time), even if the 'original' content is no longer indexed by Google? Would it even be considered a duplicate if published again now? Many thanks in advance!
Link Building | | Gmorgan0 -
Companies Copy Content with links
One of our customers has been getting a whole bunch of really relevant links recently as many of his competitors are actually going to his site copying the text from his page and forgetting to remove the links that are within the text. Its amazing we have links from major UK providers of his products totally for free. This is where linking to the actual page itself is coming into play and we are gaining good back links. Has anyone else experienced this before ?
Link Building | | onlinemediadirect0 -
What to do with outdated (but ranking) content?
I'm SEOing for a theatre. We've got show pages that rank when searching for the business, but are outdated as the shows are from past years. The pages aren't accessible at all from the site now, but still exist in domain and are linked to by google. If you search the business, the results are: 1. [biz name] 2. [biz name] - tickets 3-6. outdated shows Should these pages be left up, or taken down and redirected home? Would there be any seo boost to the homepage from 301ing them home, or do you think it'd be more beneficial to have more results available as entry points into the site?
Link Building | | RyanWhitney150