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
-
I have a client in Australia that is going to set up a website that is in Chinese to service their Asian customer base (Indonesia, Singapore, HK, China). What domain should they use?
They're website is hosted on a .com.au domain. Should they host their Chinese language pages under their current domain (.com.au) using a subdirectory (i.e. /asia) or should they use another separate domain that they own that is a regular .com? Or does it really not matter?
Local Website Optimization | | 100yards1 -
Duplicate Content - Local SEO - 250 Locations
Hey everyone, I'm currently working with a client that has 250 locations across the United States. Each location has its own website and each website has the same 10 service pages. All with identical content (the same 500-750 words) with the exception of unique meta-data and NAP which has each respective location's name, city, state, etc. I'm unsure how duplicate content works at the local level. I understand that there is no penalty for duplicate content, rather, any negative side-effects are because search engines don't know which page to serve, if there are duplicates. So here's my question: If someone searches for my client's services in Miami, and my client only as one location in that city, does duplicate content matter? Because that location isn't competing against any of my client's other locations locally, so search engines shouldn't be confused by which page to serve, correct? Of course, in other cities, like Phoenix, where they have 5 locations, then I'm sure the duplicate content is negatively affecting all 5 locations. I really appreciate any insight! Thank you,
Local Website Optimization | | SEOJedi510 -
Using geolocation for dynamic content - what's the best practice for SEO?
Hello We sell a product globally but I want to use different keywords to describe the product based on location. For this example let’s say in USA the product is a "bathrobe" and in Canada it’s a "housecoat" (same product, just different name). What this means… I want to show "bathrobe" content in USA (lots of global searches) and "housecoat" in Canada (less searches). I know I can show the content using a geolocation plugin (also found a caching plugin which will get around the issue of people seeing cached versions), using JavaScript or html5. I want a solution which enables someone in Canada searching for "bathrobe" to be able to find our site through Google search though too. I want to rank for "bathrobe" in BOTH USA and Canada. I have read articles which say Google can read the dynamic content in JavaScript, as well as the geolocation plugin. However the plugins suggest Google crawls the content based on location too. I don’t know about JavaScript. Another option is having two separate pages (one for “bathrobe” and one for “housecoat”) and using geolocation for the main menu (if they find the other page i.e. bathrobe page through a Canadian search, they will still see it though). This may have an SEO impact splitting the traffic though. Any suggestions or recommendations on what to do?? What do other websites do? I’m a bit stuck. Thank you so much! Laura Ps. I don’t think we have enough traffic to add subdomains or subdirectories.
Local Website Optimization | | LauraFalls0 -
Query results being indexed and providing no value to real estate website - best course of action?
Hi friends, I have a real estate website that has thousands of these type of query results pages indexed - http://search.myrealestatewebsite.com/l/43453/New_York_City_Rentals?per=100&start=159 What would be the best course of action to ensure those do not get indexed, as most provide no value whatsoever. 1. I'm limited to what I can do in the IDX, but I do believe I can modify the URL parameters for the website in Webmaster tools? Would this be correct? What would my parameter look like? 2. I have a webmaster tools for the website, then also the subdomain, which one would I submit the url parameter, or both?
Local Website Optimization | | JustinMurray0 -
Multiple Websites for a Large Home Service Company
I have a client who offers multiple services, the current website is already huge because they have added on so many new offerings in the last year and want everything above the fold. As I am building out the sitemap for a re-design, they continue to add more services. (HVAC, Plumbing, Solar, Windows, Electrical) I am working on a sitemap for a re-build, but I am still well over 100 pages deep with huge menu's. **My question is what are the SEO pros/cons of breaking the site up into multiple websites? **
Local Website Optimization | | Lauren_E2 -
Need Help: Trouble With Website and Analytics
Hey all, I have a client who I have been having the WORST time getting traffic and ranked for relevant keywords. I've tried so many things and have yet to see much progress after about 9 months. Site is mgmcdallas.com. I realized something REALLYY weird with this site a couple weeks ago. The business has a Dallas, TX address and really only services the Dallas/Fort Worth metro area. They recently started getting some of referral traffic from yelp.com/biz_redir. Weirdly, they've also been getting more sales calls and more salespeople filling out their contact form. Take January for example, they had 164 sessions and 119 of those were from this yelp referral. They DON'T advertise with Yelp, or get traffic from Yelp anywhere in Texas. You can see from below screenshot that they are all coming from California. analytics I've had our <acronym title="Search Engine Optimization">SEO</acronym> and developer look into and we can't figure out what's happening. Any thoughts? iubnZdu
Local Website Optimization | | BWrightTLM0 -
Draft of my new responsive website redesign any opinions?
After a couple of years of talking about having a redesign of my website I finally taken the plunge and I'm paying for responsive design version. Before they go fully into the redesign I thought I would try to get some feedback on whether the initial look and functionality looks good or not. My old website is a very basic Dreamweaver website constructed by myself and because there's only 12 holiday properties on this holiday letting website it has done the job, but you have to scroll down to see the pictures and read the information. At the end of the day I'm certainly not a professional web designer I'm fully aware. With the new very first draft of the responsive design I've asked for functionality where clicking on the property allows you to check out the photographs and information without scrolling. This is the very first stage of a redesign any opinions regarding functionality and initial look would be very gratefully received. New draft website http://www.endeavourcottage.co.uk/newsite/ Old website http://www.endeavourcottage.co.uk/
Local Website Optimization | | WhitbyHolidayCottages2 -
Does Google play fair? Is 'relevant content' and 'usability' enough?
It seems there are 2 opposing views, and as a newbie this is very confusing. One view is that as long as your site pages have relevant content and are easy for the user, Google will rank you fairly. The other view is that Google has 'rules' you must follow and even if the site is relevant and user-friendly if you don't play by the rules your site may never rank well. Which is closer to the truth? No one wants to have a great website that won't rank because Google wasn't sophisticated enough to see that they weren't being unfair. Here's an example to illustrate one related concern I have: I've read that Google doesn't like duplicated content. But, here are 2 cases in which is it more 'relevant' and 'usable' to the user to have duplicate content: Say a website helps you find restaurants in a city. Restaurants may be listed by city region, and by type of restaurant. The home page may have links to 30 city regions. It may also have links for 20 types of restaurants. The user has a choice. Say the user chooses a region. The resulting new page may still be relevant and usable by listing ALL 30 regions because the user may want to choose a different region. Altenatively say the user chooses a restaurant type for the whole city. The resulting page may still be relevant and usable by giving the user the ability to choose another type OR another city region. IOW there may be a 'mega-menu' at the top of the page which duplicates on every page in the site, but is very helpful. Instead of requiring the user to go back to the home page to click a new region or a new type the user can do it on any page. That's duplicate content in the form of a mega menu, but is very relevant and usable. YET, my sense is that Google MAY penalize the site even though arguably it is the most relevant and usable approach for someone that may or may not have a specific region or restaurant type in mind.. Thoughts?
Local Website Optimization | | couponguy0