How will engines deal with duplicate head elements e.g. title or canonicals?
-
Obviously duplicate content is never a good thing...on separate URL's. Question is, how will the engines deal with duplicate meta tags on the same page.
Example Head Tag:
<title>Example Title - #1</title>
<title>Example Title - #2</title>
My assumption is that Google (and others) will take the first instance of the tag, such that "Example Title - #1" and canonical = "http://www.example.com" would be considered for ranking purposes while the others are disregarded.
My assumption is based on how SE's deal with duplicate links on a page. Is this a correct assumption?
We're building a CMS-like service that will allow our SEO team to change head tag content on the fly. The easiest solution, from a dev perspective, is to simply place new/updated content above the preexisting elements. I'm trying to validate/invalidate the approach.
Thanks in advance.
-
I presume that the engines simply disregard one of the tags vs. building a penalty based rule, but because we'll also use this solution for canonical tags, there's just too much risk with the approach.
I still think it may be a solid (simple) test, so if I manage to get some free time, I'll set something up and post results.
Consensus says...don't do it!
Thanks for confirming my fears
-
Hey Shane,
I completely agree, code duplication should be avoided wherever possible. I've found very little recent info on this specific topic so it seems ripe for a quick test. Stay tuned and thanks for your 2 cents.
Stefan
-
While there is no authoritative answer from Google or Mr. Cutts, general consensus amongst my SEO peers that were just IM'd by me seems to be multiple titles on a page is bad. I agree with the consensus.
Years ago, multiple <title>s was a common blackhat technique.This is back when you could successfully stuff meta keywords and it'd actually work. As for now if it would just be neutral or actively negative...I don't know, but my gut leans to it'd be actively negative to some degree.</p></title>
-
Interesting, as I suspected. Looks like they've got a few other issues to e.g. first meta keyword tag was not closed so looks like it includes the meta description.
Thanks for the example!
-
Here's the only example I know of: http://www.kbzk.com/home/
If you go into the source you will see the KBZK.com Title tag, and then a Title tag with their Tag Line. The search engine only recognizes the first one, as well as any browser that you would use.
-
is to simply place new/updated content above the preexisting elements. I'm trying to validate/invalidate the approach.
Others may have differing opinions but i personally would not do this just based off of best practices. The more tags (code) you put in the head, the more data to be read, and since crawlers in general only crawl a certain amount of your page adding superfluous code would not be recommended.
but yes, I believe in theory the duplicate title would just be ignored, and probably no penalty would be incurred.
As to the duplicate canonical.... I am not sure about that one, I would think it would be ignored, but do not want to give you bad info as that could really mess you up if canonicals are incorrectly received by Google Algo.
w00t!
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
-
Duplicate Content Home Page http Status Code Query
Hi All, We have just redone a site wide url migration (from old url structure to new url structure) and set up our 301's etc but have this one issue whereby I don't know if' it's a problem of not. We have 1 url - www.Domain.co.uk**/** which has been set up to 301 redirect back to www.domain.co.uk However, when I check the server response code, it comes back as 200. So although it appears to visually 301 redirect if I put the url in the tool bar, the status code says different. Could this be seen as a potential duplicate home page potentially and if so , any idea how I could get around it if we can't solve the root cause of it. This is on a cake php framework, thanks PEte
Web Design | | PeteC120 -
Retina Design or NOT for e-commerce selling gifts
We are planning to relaunch our ecommerce site selling gifts on Magento EE . I want to know weather we should go for retina or not. My only concern is page loading. Any advise will be appreciated.
Web Design | | Jvalops0 -
ECWID How to fix Duplicate page content and external link issue
I am working on a site that has a HUGE number of duplicate pages due to ECWID ecommerce platform. The site is built with Joomla! How can I rectify this situation? The pages also show up as "external " links on crawls... Is it the ECWID platform? I have never worked on a site that uses this. Here is an example of a page with the issue (there are 6280 issues) URL: http://www.metroboltmi.com/shop-spare-parts?Itemid=218&option=com_rokecwid&view=ecwid&ecwid_category_id=3560081
Web Design | | Atlanta-SMO0 -
Website Redesign - Will it hurt SERP?
Hi - I am planning to redesign my blog and I was wondering if this will affect my rankings? The new website template (custom designed) is much more user and seo friendly. The content, url structure, internal linking structure, meta tags, and site structure will remain exactly the same, but the visual design will be different (new sidebar widgets, and slightly different layout on inner pages). The current website is ranking very well (mostly top 5), has a healthy backlink profile, strong social media presence, and great traffic. I have heard that switching to a new template will dramatically hurt the rankings. Is this true? Are there any exceptions? Any ways I can prevent the rankings from dropping? Would really appreciate your input. Thanks in advance. Howard
Web Design | | howardd0 -
Will changing our URL's to MVC friendly URL's have a positive or negative affect on our rankings and link juice?
We've recently changed our site over to a new hosting system, we've got similar pages and are now looking at changing the URL's to ensure we do not loose our link juice from our previous site. My question is regarding the URL's, is it worth us changing our URL's to MVC friendly URL have a good or bad affect on our rankings and or link juice? Thanks
Web Design | | SimonDixon0 -
Spammy page titles and the consequences
Hiya Mozzers! A pal who works in SEO has suggested I add the following type <title>tag structure to my pages:<br /><br />Bars in New York - Bars New York [no brand name]</p> <p>Pizzas in New York - Pizzas New York [no brand name]</p> <p>Firstly, I think this looks spammy, secondly, can't understand the logic of both combinations, thirdly, my understanding is brand name lessens importance of keyphrases, but it's still important from a branding point of view.</p> <p>Fourthly, is this sustainable? I mean, Google could identify this as spammy in the future, with penalty, no? Any feedback on these points would be very useful.</p> <p>Also, he said that I should play around with title tags on an ongoing basis, but I haven't changed any single title tag more than once/6 months for fear of being flagged for manipulative SEO practice by Google. Guidance here would be great as well.</p> <p>Thanking you in advance, Luke</p></title>
Web Design | | McTaggart0 -
Will Switching To a CMS System Help Rankings
I would like to transform our 400 page website to a CMS system. We rank failrly well for most of our keywords and not so much for others. Our website is currently optimized with lots of unique content, but we need to transform to a more professional website with lots of options. Will doing this transformation affect our rankings if Redirects are correct ? Any recommedations for a Easy CMS that is very SEO Friendly?
Web Design | | hfranz0