Duplicate URL's in Sitemap? Is that a problem?
-
I submitted a sitemap to on Search Console - but noticed that there are duplicate URLs, is that a problem for Google?
-
Hi Luciana! If Logan and/or Matthew answered your question, mind marking one or both of their responses as a "Good Answer" (down in the lower-right of the responses)? It helps us keep track of things, and it gives them a few extra MozPoints.
-
Thank you everyone!
Basically for some reason the system I used to generate the sitemap just has some (not a whole lot) of duplicate URLs, they are exact duplicates. I figured Google would just overlook that.
This was helpful!
Thanks again,
Luciana
-
Generally speaking, this isn't the worst problem you can have with your XML sitemap. In an ideal world, you'll be able to remove duplicate URLs from the sitemap and only submit a single URL for each page. In reality, most larger sites I've encountered have some amount of duplicate content in their XML sitemap with no real major problems.
Duplicate content is really only a major problem if it is "deceptive" in nature. So long as this is just a normal consequence of your CMS, or similar, vs. an attempt to game the rankings you are probably fine. For more about that check out this support article.
The other problem you may encounter is with your search results for those duplicate pages. That article makes mention that Google will pick the URL they think is best (more about that here as well) and the URL they deem the best will be the URL that surfaces in the search results. That may or may not be the same URL you or your visitors would deem best. So, what you might find is Google picked a not great URL (like one with extra parameters) and with the not great URL appearing in the SERPs, your search result isn't as compelling to click on as some other version of the URL may be.
-
Hi,
This isn't necessarily a problem, but XML sitemaps should be as clean as possible before they're uploaded. i.e., no 301'd URLs, no 404s, no dupes, no parameter'd URLs, no canonicalized, etc..
Are they duplicates in the sense that one has caps, and the other doesn't? As in /example.html and /Example.html. If so, you'll want to fix that.
If they're identically formatted URLs, there should be no problem, but you're at duplicate content risk if they're different in anyway and not canonicalized.
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
-
Toxic URL???
Hi I have a URL that produced page 1, number 1 to 3 for most of our industries top phrases. Then we received a google penalty, (as did several of our competitors on the same day). We were effectively wiped from google. After much disavowing we were allowed back into the search results, this took about 3 months. I have employed the services of a top London SEO company for over a year now and have seen no significant improvement. I believe they are doing there best, however there results are VERY poor. According to the various tools, (searchmetrics, woorank, semrush) to name but a few, our site scores very well, yet we are not getting the results. Page one seems to be full of totally new websites, most of which I have never heard of, and have appeared from nowhere. Should I scrap our URL and put up a completely new one, and put a redirect from the original one? This would be a biggy since our url has been around for 20 years. Thanks for reading. Andy
On-Page Optimization | | First-VehicleLeasing0 -
Hiding body copy with a 'read more' button
Hi Whats the consequences of hiding half of the lovingly crafted body copy/written content (good quality modern version of what we used to call seo text) i have written for a clients main site sections and then having a 'read more' button to reveal ? I have written 500+ words for each page but client wants to reduce word count displayed since thinks looks too 'wordy'! I know that this is possible and used to be fine if done in a manner that was still crawlable, is this still the case ? Cheers Dan
On-Page Optimization | | Dan-Lawrence0 -
My site's articles seem to never show up in Google.
This is in regards to a previous post that was answered for me:
On-Page Optimization | | Ctrl-Alt-Success
http://moz.com/community/q/my-site-s-name-not-ranking-in-google I was talking to a friend and he suggested I try to type in an article in google with the exact name followed by my site's domain name without the .com For example, I have an article entitled: "MULTITASKING IS BAD FOR YOU, MKAY?" Obviously it's a title most would not word in that way. I typed it in and followed it up with my site's domain minus .com. So "MULTITASKING IS BAD FOR YOU, MKAY? ctrl-alt-success" But I'm not even getting listed in the search. There's got to be something I'm missing. I understand backlinks are important for ranking, but when I'm trying to find an exact match along with my site's url minus the .com? I just have this strong hunch that something is awry. NOTE: It seems this is only with google. If I use Bing or Yahoo, it comes up just fine.0 -
I'm using Canonical URL but still receiving message - Appropriate Use of Rel Canonical
Hello, I checked my site and it looks like everything is setup correctly for canonical url but I keep getting the message that it's not. Am I doing something wrong? SORRY I FIGURED IT OUT! THANK YOU! HOW DO I DELETE THIS?
On-Page Optimization | | seohlp440 -
URL parameters
Hello, Currently, I paginated a content to 5 pages eg: http://abc.com/faqs.html?&page=2 Is it right? and how to check it is correct or not?
On-Page Optimization | | JohnHuynh0 -
Is Googlebot seeing text in my 'Read More' bar and could they even be penalising me for it?
Hi guys. Our web developers have put a read more bar that contains the on page SEO text for our webpage. By default, the read more bar is not expanded and you cannot see the text within. If you click 'Read More', the box expands and the text is shown on the page. I was wondering if googlebot is seeing this text at all - it's really important that it does because it contains all the on-page SEO text. I also wondered if this type of approach is still considered 'white hat'? If it's not, could google be penalising us for it? Thanks,
On-Page Optimization | | CarlDarby0 -
Duplicate content problem
I am having an issue with duplicate content that I can't seem to figure out. I got rid of the www.mydomain.com by modifying the htaccess file but I can't figure out how to fix theproblem of mydomain.com/ and mydomain.com
On-Page Optimization | | ayetti0 -
Duplicate Content
We offer Wellness programs for dogs and cats. A lot of the information is the same except for specifics that relate to young vs. senior pets. I have these different pages: Senior Wellness Kitten Wellness Puppy Wellness Adult Wellness Can each page have approx. 75% of the same text? Or should I rewrite each page so the information (though the same) appears unique.
On-Page Optimization | | PMC-3120870