Is a "Critical Acclaim" considered duplicate content on an eCommerce site?
-
I have noticed a lot of wine sites use "Critical Acclaims" on their product pages. These short descriptions made by industry experts are found on thousands of other sites. One example can be found on a Wine.com product page. Wine.com also provides USG through customer reviews on the page for original content.
Are the "Critical Acclaim" descriptions considered duplicate content? Is there a way to use this content and it not be considered duplicate (i.e. link to the source)?
-
I think you have to be a little careful here, and not just from an SEO standpoint. Now, you're talking about potentially taking someone else's content from behind their paywall and posting it publicly. I don't know the context or the industry very well, but you may be encroaching on a legal gray-area.
-
I think it's all a matter of degree, which is why these questions are tricky. Generally, I agree with @Crimson - it's like a testimonial. If you use them sparingly to supplement your own, unique content, they're fine. If you build a site out of a line of text and 20 "Acclaims" that are plastered across 500 other website, then you're site is going to look thin. It won't rank for much, and it could even be filtered out or penalized.
So, are they bad? Not necessarily - they can even be good. They should only be a piece of the puzzle, though. Any content re-use should be done sparingly, to enrich your site experience.
-
I totally agree that option 1 is best but the site is based on being a resource for these reviews because you can't get access to the reviews directly from the review site unless you pay for a subscription, which brings me to my next question. I can link directly to the page where the quote was taken but the quote is not shown on that page because you need to be a registered user on that site to get access to the reviews. Is it best to link to that page anyway or link to the site homepage where the review was originated? Also, should I be using a NoFollow link?
-
Well in that case you have 2 options really:
-
Rewrite and incorporate critical acclaims into your content in a way that is unique and useful to your visitors rather than just regurgitating acclaims word for word.
-
Link to the critical acclaim. If you are using this method then be sure to link to the original site that created the critical acclaim rather than just a third party site who is quoting the original acclaim.
Option 1 would be better as it is generally best practice to create content that is unique and valuable. Google and Matt Cutts always recommends going down this route.
-
-
I have seen SEOmoz (Rand) say these descriptions/acclaims are considered duplicate because they are found on potentially thousands of pages online. I am really asking whether or not you can use them in a way that is not considered duplicate like linking to the source of the content?
Rewriting them is always an option too, I guess.
-
These types of critical acclaim or testimonials are not really considered duplicate content. It is no different from quoting from a book. Google is clever enough to know that this is not duplicate content and if you are still considered about possible duplicate content issues then you could slightly rewrite or shorten testimonials to make them more unique e.g.
"Great wine.......thumbs up from me!"
original testimonial would read "Great wine, really fruity flavour and subtle notes, thumbs up from me!"
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 ecommerce sites, SEO implications & others?
We have an established eCom site built out with custom php, dedicated SERPs, traffic, etc.. The question has arisen on how to extend commerce on social and we have found a solution with Shopify. In order to take advantage of this, we'd need to build out a completely new site in Shopify and would have to have the site live in order to have storefronts on Pinterest and Twitter. Aside from the obvious problem with having two databases, merchant processing, etc, does anyone know whether there are SEO implications to having two live sites with duplicate products? Could we just disavow a Shopify store in Webmaster Tools? Any other thoughts or suggestions? TIA!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | PAC31350 -
301 or Canonical - Ecommerce Site Question
We are making a change to our Navigation and this includes having to change the URL structure of a few pages of our site. Due to issues with the CMS (that are out of my control) we are unable to keep the current URL structure of two of our highest ranking pages. Our site is an E-commerce Site The Structure is changing from..... www.domain.com/page/highrankingpage <----OLD PAGE RANKED WELL to www.domain.com/category/highrankingpage <----NEW PAGE Generally I would have 301 'd this page but I found out that our Tech team added a Canonical to this page instead....(showing the high ranking page to the Search Engines) and on our site the visitors are able to browse the website getting the new page. BOTH PAGES ARE BASICALLY IDENTICAL (Same Content) http://searchenginewatch.com/sew/how-to/2288690/how-and-when-to-use-301-redirects-vs-canonical# Thoughts?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | CMcMullen0 -
Artist Bios on Multiple Pages: Duplicate Content or not?
I am currently working on an eComm site for a company that sells art prints. On each print's page, there is a bio about the artist followed by a couple of paragraphs about the print. My concern is that some artists have hundreds of prints on this site, and the bio is reprinted on every page,which makes sense from a usability standpoint, but I am concerned that it will trigger a duplicate content penalty from Google. Some people are trying to convince me that Google won't penalize for this content, since the intent is not to game the SERPs. However, I'm not confident that this isn't being penalized already, or that it won't be in the near future. Because it is just a section of text that is duplicated, but the rest of the text on each page is original, I can't use the rel=canonical tag. I've thought about putting each artist bio into a graphic, but that is a huge undertaking, and not the most elegant solution. Could I put the bio on a separate page with only the artist's info and then place that data on each print page using an <iframe>and then put a noindex,nofollow in the robots.txt file?</p> <p>Is there a better solution? Is this effort even necessary?</p> <p>Thoughts?</p></iframe>
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | sbaylor0 -
Duplicate content across internation urls
We have a large site with 1,000+ pages of content to launch in the UK. Much of this content is already being used on a .nz url which is going to stay. Do you see this as an issue or do you thin Google will take localised factoring into consideration. We could add a link from the NZ pages to the UK. We cant noindex the pages as this is not an option. Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | jazavide0 -
Two Sites Similar content?
I just started working at this company last month. We started to add new content to pages like http://www.rockymountainatvmc.com/t/49/-/181/1137/Bridgestone-Motorcycle-Tires. This is their main site. Then i realized it also put the new content on their sister site http://www.jakewilson.com/t/52/-/343/1137/Bridgestone-Motorcycle-Tires. the first site is the main site and I think will get credit for the unique new content. The second one I do not think will get credit and will more than likely be counted as duplicate content. We are changing this so it will no longer be the same. However, I am curious to see ways people think we could fix this issues? Also is it effecting both sits for just the second one?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | DoRM0 -
End of March we migrated our site over to HubSpot. We went from page 3 on Google to non existent. Still found on page 2 of Yahoo and Bing. Beyond frustrated...HELP PLEASE "www.vortexpartswashers.com"
End of March we migrated our site over to HubSpot. We went from page 3 on Google to non existent. Still found on page 2 of Yahoo and Bing under same keywords " parts washers" Beyond frustrated...HELP PLEASE "www.vortexpartswashers.com"
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | mhart0 -
Duplicate content for images
On SEOmoz I am getting duplicate errors for my onsite report. Unfortunately it does not specify what that content is... We are getting these errors for our photo gallery and i am assuming that the reason is some of the photos are listed in multiple categories. Can this be the problem? what else can it be? how can we resolve these issues?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SEODinosaur0 -
Why my site is "STILL" violating the Google quality guidelines?
Hello, I had a site with two topics: Fashion & Technology. Due to the Panda Update I decided to change some things and one of those things was the separation of these two topics. So, on June 21, I redirected (301) all the Fashion pages to a new domain. The new domain performed well the first three days, but the rankings dropped later. Now, even the site doesn't rank for its own name. So, I thought the website was penalized for any reason, and I sent a reconsideration to Google. In fact, five days later, Google confirmed that my site is "still violating the quality guidelines". I don't understand. My original site was never penalized and the content is the same. And now when it is installed on the new domain becomes penalized just a few days later? Is this penalization only a sandbox for the new domain? Or just until the old URLs disappear from the index (due to the 301 redirect)? Maybe Google thinks my new site is duplicating my old site? Or just is a temporal prevention with new domains after a redirection in order to avoid spammers? Maybe this is not a real penalization and I only need a little patience? Or do you think my site is really violating the quality guidelines? (The domain is http://www.newclothing.co/) The original domain where the fashion section was installed before is http://www.myddnetwork.com/ (As you can see it is now a tech blog without fashion sections) The 301 redirect are working well. One example of redirected URLs: http://www.myddnetwork.com/clothing-shoes-accessories/ (this is the homepage, but each page was redirected to its corresponding URL in the new domain). I appreciate any advice. Basically my fashion pages have dropped totally. Both, the new and old URLs are not ranking. 😞
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | omarinho0