Website and eshop with the same product descrition is duplicate content
-
Hi there!
I'm building a website that is divided in a "marketing" and "shop" sections. The 2 sites are being authored by two companies (my company is doing the marketing one). The marketing site has all the company products while the shop will sell just some of those. I'm facing the problem of duplicated content and want to ask you guys if it will be a problem/mistake to use the same product description (and similar url) for the same product in both sites, and the right way to do it (without rewriting product descriptions).
the main site will be : www.companyname.com
the shop will be: shop.companyname.comthanks
Francesco -
You may find someone else who is happy to provide additional advice on how else this can be handled Francesco, but it is a little outside my comfort zone as it borders on grey-hat and I would hate to be responsible to causing you problems.
I'll drop you a quick PM over with something that may help with the re-writing though.
-Andy
-
Andy,
the customer choosed another company to run the shop but we're responsable for the marketing website. Also not all products are for sell in the eshop say 300 off 1000 (in the mktg site).
So it seems that it is necessary to rewrite descriptions for the shop, any suggestion about how to differentiate the same product description for the shop?
bye
Francesco
-
On the same domain, yes, but what you are wanting to do may as well be a new domain as that is how Google treats subdomains.
What you need to remember is that canonicalization is used when run the risk of duplication on a site, or want to suggest to Google which page should be delivered to people searching - but it is just a suggestion.
Why would you not want to just SEO the shop site and keep it all on there? There is no reason not to have a site that has the product information and the shop in the same place. You can SEO that site and not have to worry about penalties and problems.
-Andy
-
Andy,
Sorry for this but as I metioned earlier the two sites will be on the same domain:
www.companyname.com and
shop.companyname.comso the canonical link will be on the same domain isn't it right?
Thanks for your time!
Francesco -
I wouldn't advise using canonicalization from one site to another for this purpose. That is going to look odd to Google. In their eyes, why have you got two sites with the same content?
In fact, here is what Google say about doing this:
"Can rel="canonical" be used to suggest a canonical URL on a completely different domain?
There are situations where it's not easily possible to set up redirects. This could be the case when you need to migrate to a new domain name using a web server that cannot create server-side redirects. In this case, you can use the rel="canonical" link element to specify the exact URL of the domain preferred for indexing. While the rel="canonical" link element is seen as a hint and not an absolute directive, we do try to follow it where possible."
- Andy
-
I Andy, Thanks for your response,
So do you think there's no way to mantain the same product description even using canonical link or other tricks?
-
This is a resounding yes. It will cause you untold headaches with the same content on both sites.
Presumably you are wanting both sites to rank for various phrases? If not, and you only wanted the marketing site to rank, you could completely close out the sales site from Google, but then it would only ever be a shop. You wouldn't be able to link to it or do any SEO work.
The only safe way to do this is to have separate content written for each site. You are sure not to annoy Google at any point then.
I forgot to mention, that this is one of the reasons that ecommerce / affiliate sites have had such a hard time recently.
Spend a bit of time and money and have someone re-write this for you. Depending on how much there is, it shouldn't have to cost the earth.
-Andy
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
-
Unsolved Duplicate LocalBusiness Schema Markup
Hello! I've been having a hard time finding an answer to this specific question so I figured I'd drop it here. I always add custom LocalBusiness markup to clients' homepages, but sometimes the client's website provider will include their own automated LocalBusiness markup. The codes I create often include more information. Assuming the website provider is unwilling to remove their markup, is it a bad idea to include my code as well? It seems like it could potentially be read as spammy by Google. Do the pros of having more detailed markup outweigh that potential negative impact?
Local Website Optimization | | GoogleAlgoServant0 -
Proper SEO structure for Franchise/ Franchisee websites
Hi Neighbors, Franchise website design and development can be difficult, there’s no doubt about it. I had to find the right balance between a unique and unified brand identity, and a localized experience that accurately reflects the individual franchisees and their efforts. Due to the many benefits, I have structured the to read _domain.com/location _ domain.com = TLD /location = subfolder (location page) I have also built a customized CMS (e.g. Drupal) and have given each location access to manage their location page (subfolder). To accommodate local SEO optimization, franchisees have complete control in terms of optimizing their location page (subfolder). Title tags, meta description, Alt tags, etc... Will any local optimization performed in the subfolder (location page) be stiffened because it was not done in the TLD but in the subfolder ?
Local Website Optimization | | Jeffvertus1 -
HTML Page in PHP Website
Does having an HTML page in a PHP website affect SEO? I have a PHP website but one of my targeted pages have an HTML page. Will it cause any harm to the website or is it fine to have a html page in a PHP website?
Local Website Optimization | | plinggtre670 -
Franchise Content Spinning
Hey Guys, Thanks for taking the time out to read my question, I appreciate it. I know Google doesn't treat all duplicate content the same, but what about this scenario. We have a garage door company franchise that services Seattle, San Diego, & Salt Lake City. It is the same brand, but each area has a different website, catering to their own county. Say I write & post a blog about "how to maintain your garage door" to the Seattle site. This is certainly useful for the other locations as well. So would I get penalized for posting the same article to San Diego & Salt Lake City without massively changing the content to avoid duplication? Or should I dedicate the extra time to revamp the content and avoid duplication? Does Google care about this type of duplication? Thanks in advance!!
Local Website Optimization | | dwayne.jones260 -
Joomla website optimization software or tools?
Hi there, I am running joomla based website for my transportation website "Limousine Service" I have question what kind of software or tools i can use to improve the SEO on my site?
Local Website Optimization | | GarySahota0 -
Duplicate content question for multiple sites under one brand
I would like to get some opinions on the best way to handle duplicate / similar content that is on our company website and local facility level sites. Our company website is our flagship website that contains all of our service offerings, and we use this site to complete nationally for our SEO efforts. We then have around 100 localized facility level sites for the different locations we operate that we use to rank for local SEO. There is enough of a difference between these locations that it was decided (long ago before me) that there would be a separate website for each. There is however, much duplicate content across all these sites due to the service offerings being roughly the same. Every website has it's own unique domain name, but I believe they are all on the same C-block. I'm thinking of going with 1 of 2 options and wanted to get some opinions on which would be best. 1 - Keep the services content identical across the company website and all facility sites, and use the rel=canonical tag on all the facility sites to reference the company website. My only concern here is if this would drastically hurt local SEO for the facility sites. 2 - Create two unique sets of services content. Use one set on the company website. And use the second set on the facility sites, and either live with the duplicate content or try and sprinkle in enough local geographic content to create some differential between the facility sites. Or if there are other suggestions on a better way to handle this, I would love to hear any other thoughts as well. Thanks!
Local Website Optimization | | KHCreative0 -
How can I rank my .co.uk using content on my .com?
Hi, We currently have a .com site ranking second for our brand term in the .co.uk SERP. This is mainly because we don't own the exact match brand term which comes from not having a clue what we were doing when we set up the company. Would it be possible to out rank this term considering we the weighing that google puts towards exact matches in the URL? N.B - There are a few updates we could do to the homepage to make the on-page optimisation better and we have not actively done any link building yet which will obviously help. competitor SERP rank 1 - MOZ PA38 DA26 Our Site SERP rank 2 - MOZ PA43 DA32 Thanks Ben
Local Website Optimization | | benjmoz0 -
Potential sexaual harrassement issues in adding home address to website
Hello Google Local Experts I'm a little stress, to put it mildly. I have been working hard to get to grips with Google+ and Google Local. I have followed all the advice on Moz that I can lay me hands on. Following advice, I have added my private address (in rich text snippets) to the header of my own site. I've not felt particularly comfortable about doing that, but it's clearly one of the messages Google Local requires to be sure that your site is authentic. My concerns got concrete last evening when a new follower on Google+ started to send me private messages - culminating in asking where I lived. Despite family demands I went straight to my site and removed my house number. Now I know I'm messing up my NAP - but Ahh - my About section points straight to my site which at that point had my full address in Bold on each page of my site. I really am upset about this and think that Google should be rethinking their demand for displaying a companies address on the site. If you are self employed you are put in a vulnerable position which is morally questionable. Please would someone give me some advice on the best way to address my worries in the short term? Please could someone with a bit of clout point this potentail danger to women out to the powers that be in Google?
Local Website Optimization | | catherine-2793882