Duplicate meta descriptions
-
Hi All
Does having quite a few Duplicate meta descriptions hurt SEO. I am worried that I have too many and thinking this could be the reason for my recent drop in search visibility.
Thanks in Advance.
Andy
-
thanks for your responses and clearing this up.
-
Thanks Kevin!
-
Donna--Good point. I revised my previous answer to include that meta descriptions as a display factor that could influence ctr's but not rankings. Meta KW/Descriptions do not influence rankings--instead can help to increase click through's. By including a good unique one increases chances that Google will use it and, more times than not, will have a higher ctr than the auto generated one if the meta description is not included. Great clarification.
-
Hi Andy,
Assuming you mean rankings when you say visibility, having too many meta descriptions won't have any effect because Google doesn't take them into account when ranking web pages.
That said, I've found when there are multiple meta description tags on a page, Google tends to use the first one it encounters. When there are none, it selects when it deems to be relevant from the page and displays that.
Studies have shown that using your primary keyword phrase and being different or helpful in your meta description helps increase click-thru rates. Inclusion of your primary keyword phrase reinforces the relevance of the search result and makes the search result stand out (because search terms are highlighted in bold). Being different or helpful gives the searcher what he or she wants - the solution to a problem or to be entertained.
-
As you probably know, all meta descriptions should be unique. Will a couple hurt? probably not but I advise against it as a display factor. Furthermore, some people will actually eliminate any duplicates meta descriptions and let Google auto-create one. Please see Matt Cutt's video on the topic.
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
-
SEM Rush & Duplicate content
Hi SEMRush is flagging these pages as having duplicate content, but we have rel = next etc implemented: https://www.key.co.uk/en/key/brand/bott https://www.key.co.uk/en/key/brand/bott?page=2 Or is it being flagged as they're just really similar pages?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BeckyKey0 -
Duplicate Content with URL Parameters
Moz is picking up a large quantity of duplicate content, consists mainly of URL parameters like ,pricehigh & ,pricelow etc (for page sorting). Google has indexed a large number of the pages (not sure how many), not sure how many of them are ranking for search terms we need. I have added the parameters into Google Webmaster tools And set to 'let google decide', However Google still sees it as duplicate content. Is it a problem that we need to address? Or could it do more harm than good in trying to fix it? Has anyone had any experience? Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seoman100 -
Woocommerce SEO & Duplicate content?
Hi Moz fellows, I'm new to Woocommerce and couldn't find help on Google about certain SEO-related things. All my past projects were simple 5 pages websites + a blog, so I would just no-index categories, tags and archives to eliminate duplicate content errors. But with Woocommerce Product categories and tags, I've noticed that many e-Commerce websites with a high domain authority actually rank for certain keywords just by having their category/tags indexed. For example keyword 'hippie clothes' = etsy.com/category/hippie-clothes (fictional example) The problem is that if I have 100 products and 10 categories & tags on my site it creates THOUSANDS of duplicate content errors, but If I 'non index' categories and tags they will never rank well once my domain authority rises... Anyone has experience/comments about this? I use SEO by Yoast plugin. Your help is greatly appreciated! Thank you in advance. -Marc
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | marcandre1 -
Pagination causing duplicate content problems
Hi The pagination on our website www.offonhols.com is causing duplicate content problems. Is the best solution adding add rel=”prev” / “next# to the hrefs As now the pagination links at the bottom of the page are just http://offonhols.com/default.aspx?dp=1
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | offonhols
http://offonhols.com/default.aspx?dp=2
http://offonhols.com/default.aspx?dp=3
etc0 -
Duplicate Content Issues :(
I am wondering how we can solve our duplicate content issues. Here is the thing: There are so many ways you can write a description about a used watch. http://beckertime.com/product/mens-rolex-air-king-no-date-stainless-steel-watch-wsilver-dial-5500/ http://beckertime.com/product/mens-rolex-air-king-stainless-steel-date-watch-wblue-dial-5500/ Whats different between these two? The dial color. We have a lot of the same model numbers but with different conditions, dial colors, and bands.. What ideas do you have?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | KingRosales0 -
Duplicate Content... Really?
Hi all, My site is www.actronics.eu Moz reports virtually every product page as duplicate content, flagged as HIGH PRIORITY!. I know why. Moz classes a page as duplicate if >95% content/code similar. There's very little I can do about this as although our products are different, the content is very similar, albeit a few part numbers and vehicle make/model. Here's an example:
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seowoody
http://www.actronics.eu/en/shop/audi-a4-8d-b5-1994-2000-abs-ecu-en/bosch-5-3
http://www.actronics.eu/en/shop/bmw-3-series-e36-1990-1998-abs-ecu-en/ate-34-51 Now, multiply this by ~2,000 products X 7 different languages and you'll see we have a big dupe content issue (according to Moz's Crawl Diagnostics report). I say "according to Moz..." as I do not know if this is actually an issue for Google? 90% of our products pages rank, albeit some much better than others? So what is the solution? We're not trying to deceive Google in any way so it would seem unfair to be hit with a dupe content penalty, this is a legit dilemma where our product differ by as little as a part number. One ugly solution would be to remove header / sidebar / footer on our product pages as I've demonstrated here - http://woodberry.me.uk/test-page2-minimal-v2.html since this removes A LOT of page bloat (code) and would bring the page difference down to 80% duplicate.
(This is the tool I'm using for checking http://www.webconfs.com/similar-page-checker.php) Other "prettier" solutions would greatly appreciated. I look forward to hearing your thoughts. Thanks,
Woody 🙂1 -
Duplicate Content Question
Currently, we manage a site that generates content from a database based on user search criteria such as location or type of business. ..Although we currently rank well -- we created the website based on providing value to the visitor with options for viewing the content - we are concerned about duplicate content issues and if they would apply. For example, the listing that is pulled up for the user upon one search could have the same content as another search but in a different order. Similar to hotels who offer room booking by room type or by rate. Would this dynamically generated content count as duplicate content? The site has done well, but don't want to risk a any future Google penalties caused by duplicate content. Thanks for your help!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | CompucastWeb1 -
Using PushState for Meta Data?
Wondering if anyone has had any experience using pushstate to update meta data on a AJAX page. What we are trying to is have one really long page that users can scroll through to see different portfolio pieces. We want each portfolio piece to be represented in Google as a separate page when they are technically all on the same page. An example of how the page will work is here:
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | lsujoe
http://www.scozzese.com/2011/en/#annasafroncik If you notice you scroll down and the url will update for the next piece but you are still on the same page. So if we do this for meta title, meta description - will Google be able to recognize it? Any help to achieve quality results would be helpful! If I didn't explain anything clearly please let me know!0