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On my site, there are two different category bases leading to the exact same page. My developer claims that this is a common — and natural — occurrence when using WordPress, and that there's not a duplicate content issue to worry about. Is this true? Here's an example of the correct url. and... Here's an example of the same exact content, but using a different url. Notice that one is coming from /topics and the other is coming from /authors base. My understanding is that this is bad. Am I wrong?

Hello, I'm hoping to find some advice on how to proceed with a site I started last year — Quotery. I've spent a ton of time and money on it, tried my best to build value to what is typically a copycat niche, and adhered to Google's SEO recommendations (I believe, anyway). Yet, subpar sites rank well above mine. Now I'm wondering if I should find a buyer for the site and cut my losses. Does anyone have any suggestions on what the next steps might be in order to rank higher? Here is what we've tried/accomplished so far: We were mentioned on Netted. We built a well-designed and easy to navigate site that works on all devices. We've added topic descriptions and images, unique author descriptions and pictures, and exclusive picture quotes. We built a well-designed and useful WordPress plugin, and kept the backlinks nofollow (note: our main competitor also has a subpar WordPress plugin with dofollow backlinks, yet they don't get penalized for it). We've published curated blog posts, along with infographics that have been shared millions of time #1, #2, #3. We've built up significant social media profiles on Facebook, Twitter, and elsewhere. We even tried hiring 97thFloor (highly recommended on Moz) for 4 months, although most of their efforts seemed spammy and/or very basic to me (and cost a fortune), so we decided to take SEO into our own hands afterwards. We've added sources, pictures, and relevant information for thousands of quotes (e.g. example seen here). We started working on user profiles, and had plans for much more down the road. However, despite these efforts, sites like BrainyQuote dominate Google's rankings. So is it truly value that will earn you rankings... or is it still all about gaming the system? Of course, any suggestions in my case specifically would be much appreciated.