Duplicate content for hotel websites - the usual nightmare? is there any solution other than producing unique content?
-
Hiya Mozzers I often work for hotels. A common scenario is the hotel / resort has worked with their Property Management System to distribute their booking availability around the web... to third party booking sites - with the inventory goes duplicate page descriptions sent to these "partner" websites.
I was just checking duplication on a room description - 20 loads of duplicate descriptions for that page alone - there are 200 rooms - so I'm probably looking at 4,000 loads of duplicate content that need rewriting to prevent duplicate content penalties, which will cost a huge amount of money.
Is there any other solution? Perhaps ask booking sites to block relevant pages from search engines?
-
Hi Kurt - very true - they should be taking the time for sure. I think part of problem is legacy of duplicate content - glad I'm not in their shoes!
Yup - rewriting is what I'm doing for those guys - inc new ideas for engaging content. Will let you know how it goes - an interesting project for me as never worked with a directory before!
-
Happy to help.
You may actually want to recommend to the brokers that they take the time to create original content. It's in their best interest since I assume they get paid for booking rooms/properties and they'd probably book more if they got more traffic by having original content.
In regards to that directory site, it's likely Google just decided they weren't the version of the content they wanted to display. If everything else is fine with that site, I'd bet just rewriting the pages to have original content (not just spun) would change their situation dramatically.
-
Thanks for your wise feedback EGOL - appreciated.
-
Hi Kurt and thanks for your great feedback there - funnily enough have just been writing unique content for these TPIs this week - so they have something different to work if they don't want to grapple with duplicate content issues - I've noticed the clever guys are now employing their own copywriters to produce unique content, yet many do not.
Just been looking at stats for a certain directory site and they've progressively lost traffic since panda struck - there's absolutely nothing wrong with their website (just completed site audit) beyond heavy duplication issues (as they've been copying and pasting property descriptions through to own site).
-
This is exactly the kind of situation where rel=canonical is supposed to be used. Rarely is there going to be 100% exact match because in most cases the use of the duplicated content is on different sites which have different headers, footers, nav menus, etc.
Put the canonical tag on your own site and then ask the booking sites if they would put them on their pages, indicating that your page is the canonical page. If they won't, then publish your page a week or so before you give out the content to the booking sites, making sure to use the canonical tag on your own site. That way, Google can find it first.
Another option would be to write unique content for your own site and then send out something different to all the booking sites. Yes, they will all have duplicate content, but your site won't. So, you should rank just fine and they will have to compete to see who can get in the listings.
Keep in mind that there isn't really a duplicate content penalty. When Google sees duplicates, they just don't include all of the duplicates in their search results. They choose the one they think it the canonical version and the others are left out. Not every page gets listed, but no site is penalized either.
Kurt Steinbrueck
OurChurch.Com -
I agree with EGOL and was going to suggest the same thing rel=canonical
-
It is supposed to be used on exact match duplicates. However, I know that it works on less than exact match. How far it can be stretched, I have no idea.
-
Can you use rel=canonical effectively if the duplication of a page is extensive yet only partial? in this instance I'm sometimes seeing say 3 paragraph room descriptions - e.g. 1st para carbon copy, yet para 2 and 3 include duplicate content and some new content.
-
rel=canonical (if you started with original content and can get everyone everywhere to use it and none of it gets stolen)
-
Hi luke,
I guess using the noindex parameter would be the best option here, no?
Best reagrds,
Michel
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
Let's say a blog is publishing original content. Now let's say a second blog steals that original content via bot and publishes it as it's own. Now further assume the original blog doesn't notice this for several years. How much damage could this do to blog A for Google results? Any opinions?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | CYNOT0 -
Content Of Dead Websites Can be resused?
I have 2 websites. One website links are from spamy techniques (wrong guy hired) which still has massive links so I started a new website with a fresh domain. Now when the new website (only white hate methods used) has started to show positive movements I feel like its the right time to shut the other website down. Since, I have a lot of content on my first site (spamy links) can i reuse the content again on my new site after I shut down my first site?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | welcomecure0 -
Duplicate Content: Organic vs Local SEO
Does Google treat them differently? I found something interesting just now and decided to post it up http://www.daviddischler.com/is-duplicate-content-treated-differently-when-local-seo-comes-into-play/
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | daviddischler0 -
How can I remove duplicate content & titles from my site?
Without knowing I created multiple URLs to the same page destinations on my website. My ranking is poor and I need to fix this problem quickly. My web host doesn't understand the problem!!! How can I use canonical tags? Can somebody help, please.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ZoeAlexander0 -
Is it possible to "undo" canonical tags as unique content is created?
We will soon be launching an education site that teaches people how to drive (not really the topic, but it will do). We plan on being content rich and have plans to expand into several "schools" of driving. Currently, content falls into a number of categories, for example rules of the road, shifting gears, safety, etc. We are going to group content into general categories that apply broadly, and then into "schools" where the content is meant to be consumed in a specific order. So, for example, some URLs in general categories may be: drivingschool.com/safety drivingschool.com/rules-of-the-road drivingschool.com/shifting-gears etc. Then, schools will be available for specific types of vehicles. For example, drivingschool.com/cars drivingschool.com/motorbikes etc. We will provide lessons at the school level, and in the general categories. This is where it gets tricky. If people are looking for general content, then we want them to find pages in the general categories (for example, drivingschool.com/rules-of-the-road/traffic-signs). However, we have very similar content within each of the schools (for example, drivingschool.com/motorbikes/rules-of-the-road/traffic-signs). As you could imagine, sometimes the content is very unique between the various schools and the general category (such as in shifting), but often it is very similar or even nearly duplicate (as in the example above). The problem is that in the schools we want to say at the end of the lesson, "after this lesson, take the next lesson about speed limits for motorcycles" so there is a very logical click-path through the school. Unfortunately this creates potential duplicate content issues. The best solution I've come up with is to include a canonical tag (pointing to the general version of the page) whenever there is content that is virtually identical. There will be cases though where we adjust the content "down the road" 🙂 to be more unique and more specific for the school. At that time we'd want to remove the canonical tag. So two questions: Does anyone have any better ideas of how to handle this duplicate content? If we implement canonical tags now, and in 6 months update content to be more school-specific, will "undoing" the canonical tag (and even adding a self-referential tag) work for SEO? I really hope someone has some insight into this! Many thanks (in advance).
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JessicaB0 -
Could you use a robots.txt file to disalow a duplicate content page from being crawled?
A website has duplicate content pages to make it easier for users to find the information from a couple spots in the site navigation. Site owner would like to keep it this way without hurting SEO. I've thought of using the robots.txt file to disallow search engines from crawling one of the pages. Would you think this is a workable/acceptable solution?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | gregelwell0 -
Why does Tripadvisor rank higher than my official hotel website?
We have an official hotel website under our brand hawaiihotels.com called www.RoyalLahaina.com. It is a resort in Hawaii. However, Trip Advisor comes before our official website but it doesnt do this for the other websites. Could anyone tell me why this is happening? It is ranking higher for royal lahaina resort
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | TSpike10 -
Duplicate Content On A Subdomain
Hi, We have a client who is currently close to completing a site specifically aimed at the UK market (they're doing this in-house so we've had no say in how it will work). The site will almost be a duplicate (in terms of content, targeted keywords etc.) of a section of the main site (that sits on the root domain) - the main site is targeted toward the US. The only difference will be certain spellings and currency type. If this new UK site were to sit on a sub domain of the main site, which is a .com, will this cause duplicate content issues? I know that there wouldn't be an issue if the new site were to be on a separate .co.uk domain (according to Matt Cutts), but it looks like the client wants it to be on a sub domain. Any help/advice would be greatly appreciated.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | jasarrow0