(Necessary) Duplicate Content On Your Site Can Now Be Controlled
There is an Ethical Way to Handle Duplicate Content
Good news everybody. Just the other day, Google, Yahoo! and MSN came together to “endorse” an acceptable way to handle the issue of “necessary” duplicate content on your website or blog. When I say “necessary”, I mean it is unavoidable that multiple URLs may show up for the same content.
It’s called a Canonical tag, which looks like this example:
<link rel=”canonical” href=”http://www.example.com/product.php?item=swedish-fish” />
This simple bit of HTML coding sits up in the <head> section of your website and “tells” the spiders how to deal with the page if it is a page of duplicate content that you want to control as far as indexing is concerned.
There are various reasons that may dictate the need to have duplicate content. One possibility (and quite a common one) could be due to the fact you have an e-commerce store. As an example, you may have to provide the same information about a product under different categories on different pages, thusly different URLs will be generated.
As long as you aren’t producing duplicate pages of content out of sheer copywriting laziness to utilize a keyword phrase you’re trying to rank highly for, then I have nothing against one of my clients having duplicate content on their site. As long as the duplicate content pages are serving a useful purpose for the website visitor, then there is no getting around the need for it.
However, it used to prove to be a not-so-good thing SEO-wise. There were other work-arounds, but things just got a little easier. Now there is a great solution!
I don’t need to repeat great information that is already sitting out there on the web, so I’ll give you a taste and the link to this full article:
Specify your canonical
Google Webmaster Central Blog; Thursday, February 12, 2009 at 12:30 PM
“Carpe diem on any duplicate content worries: we now support a format that allows you to publicly specify your preferred version of a URL. If your site has identical or vastly similar content that’s accessible through multiple URLs, this format provides you with more control over the URL returned in search results. It also helps to make sure that properties such as link popularity are consolidated to your preferred version.”
“Let’s take our old example of a site selling Swedish fish. Imagine that your preferred version of the URL and its content looks like this …” To read the full article: Specify your canonical.
And for a quick watch here’s a great interview with Google’s own Matt Cutts discussing the subject:
Penalties for Duplicate Pages of Content?
Will Search Engines Penalize a Site for Pages of Duplicate Content? True … or False?
As a professional SEO consultant, I am naturally involved in the issue of content that my clients have on their existing websites, or will be inserting into their new websites. I have to be on the look-out for duplicate content issues, for sure. I know that duplicate content is not clearly understood by many people, as far as it is concerned with the search engines, so let me touch upon this issue in today’s post.
You Won’t Get Penalized, but You Will Get Your Hand Slapped!
Yes, if you are my client, I will give you a loving hand-slap! Because duplicate content just isn’t good practice. If you want to utilize the same keyword phrase in more than one article, then provide content that isn’t identical to another article.
I am sure there are ways that most of us can come up with to write about a topic, but with a different slat. If you think that littering your site with duplicate content helps raise your search engine rankings for that specific keyword phrase … you are dead wrong. Don’t do it!
Here’s the simple nitty-gritty: though Google, MSN and Yahoo! are NOT going to harshly “penalize” you by totally banning your website from ever getting listed in the SERPs (as many people seem to think will happen), what REALLY does happen is that your duplicate content will confuse the search engine spiders.
Those busy little spiders won’t know which page you consider the most important page of information. Many e-commerce sites encounter the issue of duplicate pages of content because they may have to cross reference a product under more than one category listing. There are ways to combat this, and you’ll find a newly introduced solution to the handling of “necessary” duplicate content here in my article on: Canonical Tags.
And so … out of all the different URLs that comprise the duplicate pages sitting on a website, only one will normally be indexed. However, you may find some or all of the URLs listed, it just depends upon the search engine (and a few other factors). There is a bit of a grey area as regards to this issue, as we often find in matters of SEO!
But a bit worse than what I’ve just mentioned, is that you are diluting your site’s internal link popularity, which isn’t the best thing to do, as far as your rankings are concerned.
So the best thing to do as I mentioned above, is to come up with unique content on your site if you want to utilize the same keyword phrase you’ve optimized on another page. It is done all the time, as most keyword phrases can probably be utilized in quality articles that provide many different facets of information.
So … no duplicate content! Put your thinking cap on, get creative, and provide your site’s visitors with informative and unique articles to read.
Claudia is a professional SEO consultant who offers a complimentary consultation to anyone sincerely interested in learning what they can do to improve their website or blog’s rankings, visitor traffic and conversion rates.
