Duplicate content issues, I am running into challenges and am looking for suggestions for solutions. Please help.
-
So I have a number of pages on my real estate site that display the same listings, even when parsed down by specific features and don't want these to come across as duplicate content pages. Here are a few examples:
http://luxuryhomehunt.com/homes-for-sale/lake-mary/hanover-woods.html?feature=waterfront
http://luxuryhomehunt.com/homes-for-sale/lake-mary/hanover-woods.html
This happens to be a waterfront community so all the homes are located along the waterfront. I can use a canonical tag, but I not every community is like this and I want the parsed down feature pages to get index.
Here is another example that is a little different:
http://luxuryhomehunt.com/homes-for-sale/winter-park/bear-gully-bay.html
http://luxuryhomehunt.com/homes-for-sale/winter-park/bear-gully-bay.html?feature=without-pool
http://luxuryhomehunt.com/homes-for-sale/winter-park/bear-gully-bay.html?feature=4-bedrooms
http://luxuryhomehunt.com/homes-for-sale/winter-park/bear-gully-bay.html?feature=waterfront
So all the listings in this community happen to have 4 bedrooms, no pool, and are waterfront. Meaning that they display for each of the parsed down categories. I can possible set something that if the listings = same then use canonical of main page url, but in the next case its not so simple.
So in this next neighborhood there are 48 total listings as seen at:
http://luxuryhomehunt.com/homes-for-sale/windermere/isleworth.html
and being that it is a higher end neighborhood, 47 of the 48 listings are considered "traditional listings" and while it is not exactly all of them it is 99%.
Any recommendations is appreciated greatly.
-
Endorsing Jared for the full thread/follow-up. Unfortunately, when it comes to indexing all of these pages, you can't really have your cake and eat it too in 2012. These pages do look thin to Google - honestly, when the results don't change (and I get that that's just because the filters don't always impact the search), then it starts to look like you're just spinning out duplicates to target new keywords in the header. At high volume, that could get you into trouble (and is the kind of thing Panda has targeted).
You're right, though, if you canonical these pages, they won't get indexed and ranked. These days, my gut reaction is that the trade-off is worth it. If you focus your ranking power, the core category/neighborhood/etc. pages will get more authority, you'll reduce the risks of thin content, and you'll land search users on core pages that they can use to navigate to the options they want.
There's no solution that doesn't involve a trade-off, but I think focusing your index would be a positive trade-off. Keep in mind, too, that Google isn't really that fond of search pages - ultimately, you want them indexing the core property listings. The key is to have clear paths to those listings and to index and ranking prominent category pages. If you try to rank for every variations of ever search/sort/etc., you'll just end up diluting your ranking ability in most cases.
-
I see, and yes it will.
I know for my real estate clients, the main listings page usually ranks naturally for info that is found in listings so for example "4 bedrooms" - we have a real estate client that ranks for "x real estate" and "x homes for sale" but also ranks for "4 bedroom homes for sale in x" simply because the listings summary have number of bedrooms in them (like yours does).
However for other variables, like "no pool", its gets trickier since no one lists a house on MLS citing "no pool".
The only two ways around this are: write unique content on every main page, and include the keywords you want like 'no pool' or
write some unique content for each variable - ie write some unique copy on the "no pool" page, write some unique copy on the 'waterfront' page, etc. Even then you are still running a risk of duplicate copy. Having the titles, breadcrumbs and h1's dynamically change just might not be enough. I would put all of my efforts (including linkbuilding) to the main landing page and just make sure to include the keywords i want (thats just an opinion).
What is the data showing now - are you being penalized? Are you ranking for any "without pool" or "waterfront" terms and if so, are they getting traffic?
-
First, thanks again for responding. The challenge I have with using the canonical tag for the variable pages is that, won't it prevent google from indexing the variable pages that include some terms/ phrases I am trying to rank for?
Like Hanover Woods foreclosure homes for sale or Hanover 4 bedroom homes for sale
-
Hi Joshua,
There are a number of ways to stop Google from counting your dynamic urls as duplicates. Its unclear from your question why you can't use canonical tags for this. If you went here:
http://luxuryhomehunt.com/homes-for-sale/lake-mary/hanover-woods.html
And add the canonical tag in the HEAD section:
It will solve your issue of duplication when people choose property variables like waterfront or bedroom #. I think you were trying to point out the reason this wont work at the end of your question but Im not exactly sure what you are eluding to there?
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 issue on Magento platform
We have a lot of duplicate pages (600 urls) on our site (total urls 800) built on the Magento e-commerce platform. We have the same products in a number of different categories that make it easy for people to choose which product suits their needs. If we enable the canonical fix in Magento will it dramatically reduce the number of pages that are indexed. Surely with more pages indexed (even though they are duplicates) we get more search results visibility. I'm new to this particular SEO issue. What do the SEO community have to say on this matter. Do we go ahead with the canonical fix or leave it?
Technical SEO | | PeterDavies0 -
SEO Issues with Avactis Shopping Cart Please Help(Resolved)
I am seeking advise or help with several issues I am having with Avactis. First is Title Duplicates or adds the same on every CMS page Seal It Green Sealants - Non-Toxic Organic Sealant Products so for instance it say Contact Us-Seal It Green Sealants - Non-Toxic Organic Sealant Products or Whats the Difference Seal It or Xtreme -Seal It Green Sealants - Non-Toxic Organic Sealant Products every cms page it adds Seal It Green Sealants - Non-Toxic Organic Sealant Products to the title description. which in turn makes my Title Descriptions TOO LONG! Second is the very lengthy urls. I came into this project after the site was developed and there are more issues than I ever imagined. Duplicated Pages, Titles etc all over the place. Trying to work on one issue at a time. ( I think re-building the site using something else would of been a quicker solution) But Client didn't want to do that. Any advise or tips to get through this process with this platform would be extremely appreciated.
Technical SEO | | MACameron0 -
How unique does a page need to be to avoid "duplicate content" issues?
We sell products that can be very similar to one another. Product Example: Power Drill A and Power Drill A1 With these two hypothetical products, the only real difference from the two pages would be a slight change in the URL and a slight modification in the H1/Title tag. Are these 2 slight modifications significant enough to avoid a "duplicate content" flagging? Please advise, and thanks in advance!
Technical SEO | | WhiteCap0 -
How much to change to avoid duplicate content?
Working on a site for a dentist. They have a long list of services that they want us to flesh out with text. They provided a bullet list of services, we're trying to get 1 to 2 paragraphs of text for each. Obviously, we're not going to write this off the top of our heads. We're pulling text from other sources and trying to rework. The question is, how much rephrasing do we have to do to avoid a duplicate content penalty? Do we make sure there are changes per paragraph, sentence, or phrase? Thanks! Eric
Technical SEO | | ericmccarty0 -
Is 100% duplicate content always duplicate?
Bit of a strange question here that would be keen on getting the opinions of others on. Let's say we have a web page which is 1000 lines line, pulling content from 5 websites (the content itself is duplicate, say rss headlines, for example). Obviously any content on it's own will be viewed by Google as being duplicate and so will suffer for it. However, given one of the ways duplicate content is considered is a page being x% the same as another page, be it your own site or someone elses. In the case of our duplicate page, while 100% of the content is duplicate, the page is no more than 20% identical to another page so would it technically be picked up as duplicate. Hope that makes sense? My reason for asking is I want to pull latest tweets, news and rss from leading sites onto a site I am developing. Obviously the site will have it's own content too but also want to pull in external.
Technical SEO | | Grumpy_Carl0 -
SEO with duplicate content for 3 geographies
The client would like us to do seo for these 3 sites http://www.cablecalc.com/ http://www.solutionselectrical.com.au http://www.calculatecablesizes.co.uk/ The sites have to targetted in US, Australia, and UK resoectively .All the above sites have identical content. Will Google penalise the sites ? Shall we change the content completly ? How do we approach this issue ?
Technical SEO | | seoug_20050 -
Canonical Link for Duplicate Content
A client of ours uses some unique keyword tracking for their landing pages where they append certain metrics in a query string, and pulls that information out dynamically to learn more about their traffic (kind of like Google's UTM tracking). Non-the-less these query strings are now being indexed as separate pages in Google and Yahoo and are being flagged as duplicate content/title tags by the SEOmoz tools. For example: Base Page: www.domain.com/page.html
Technical SEO | | kchandler
Tracking: www.domain.com/page.html?keyword=keyword#source=source Now both of these are being indexed even though it is only one page. So i suggested placing an canonical link tag in the header point back to the base page to start discrediting the tracking URLs: But this means that the base pages will be pointing to themselves as well, would that be an issue? Is their a better way to solve this issue without removing the query tracking all togther? Thanks - Kyle Chandler0 -
Duplicate content
This is just a quickie: On one of my campaigns in SEOmoz I have 151 duplicate page content issues! Ouch! On analysis the site in question has duplicated every URL with "en" e.g http://www.domainname.com/en/Fashion/Mulberry/SpringSummer-2010/ http://www.domainname.com/Fashion/Mulberry/SpringSummer-2010/ Personally my thoughts are that are rel = canonical will sort this issue, but before I ask our dev team to add this, and get various excuses why they can't I wanted to double check i am correct in my thinking? Thanks in advance for your time
Technical SEO | | Yozzer0