SEOMOZ and non-duplicate duplicate content
-
Hi all,
Looking through the lovely SEOMOZ report, by far its biggest complaint is that of perceived duplicate content. Its hard to avoid given the nature of eCommerce sites that oestensibly list products in a consistent framework.
Most advice about duplicate content is about canonicalisation, but thats not really relevant when you have two different products being perceived as the same.
Thing is, I might have ignored it but google ignores about 40% of our site map for I suspect the same reason. Basically I dont want us to appear "Spammy". Actually we do go to a lot of time to photograph and put a little flavour text for each product (in progress).
I guess my question is, that given over 700 products, why 300ish of them would be considered duplicates and the remaning not?
Here is a URL and one of its "duplicates" according to the SEOMOZ report:
http://www.1010direct.com/DGV-DD1165-970-53/details.aspx
http://www.1010direct.com/TDV-019-GOLD-50/details.aspxThanks for any help people
-
The point I'm trying to get across is this:
"I asked the question of why these pages are considered duplicate, the answer appears to be : because textually they are even if visually they are not."
I don't think that's the complete answer, or even the most important part of the answer. Surely having mostly similar content across pages won't help, but as I've tried to point out, there are other factors that come into play here. It's not just about the content, but putting the content into context for the search engines. In order for them to understand what it is they're looking it, there's more that's important than just the content.
Michel
-
I think this highlights the fundamental problem with SEO and
eCommerce sites.We are all aware that the ultimate aim for search engines and
therefore ultimately SEO is to add value to users. But is "value" the
same for an eCommerce site as it is for a blog, or a travel information site or
a site offering information on health and advice?In my opinion, it is not. If I am looking to make a purchase, I
am looking for a site that is responsive, easy to navigate, has good imagery to
help me visualise, is secure and doesn’t clutter with in-your-face promotional
info, and of course offers value for money.Unique content therefore doesn’t really factor into it too much. Its hard enough for us, but I can only imagine how difficult it is for a company selling screws or rope, just how much creativity does that take to provide unique content for 3.5 inch brass screws over 2.5 inch steel ones?
The current mantra is to stop worrying about SEO tricks, and
focus on building a site with value. But this particular issue is an indication
we are still not there with that utopia yet.For example, as pointed out in the posts above .. these pages are considered duplicate, because by percentage the variable information is minimal; If you look at our product page we put the functionality of filling in your prescription below the product to make it
easier for the customer, but in order to solve the "percentage unique" issue, we would need to move that onto another page. Basically, we need to reduce value (convenience) to appear to add value (uniqueness).Anyway, little point complaining, I asked the question of why these pages are considered duplicate, the answer appears to be : because textually they are even if visually they are not.
I could be worrying about nothing, I believe all these pages are indexed (through crawling), its just a good proportion of our sitemap is being overlooked, I am assuming its perceived duplication as suggested in SEOMOZ. That in turn makes me concerned google is marking us down as spammy.
I appreciate all your comments.
Thanks
Paul
-
I do not agree. I see these kinds of pages on e-commerce websites on a daily basis. For webshops that sell only a certain kind of product, almost all product pages will look alike.
In this case, the H1 is different, the page title is different, and the description is different. This is only a small portion of the page but that's not uncommon, so I would argue that it cannot be just that.
I would look into URLs, marking up your data using http://schema.org/Product, possibly making small changes to accomodate the tags. For instance splitting up brand, color etc. so that you can mark them accordingly.
-
Tom has this spot on. Google doesn't only look for direct duplication, but also very similar, and these really are I'm afraid.
You need to find ways to make each page unique in its own right - let Google see that no two pages are the same and there is a real reason to rank them.
-
I wonder if the details.aspx has something to do with it?
www.1010direct.com/TDV-019-GOLD-50/details.aspx
www.1010direct.com/DGV-DD1165-970-53/details.aspxBasically, both pages are called details.aspx. Depending on how you look at it, you have 2 pages that are named the same (with mostly similar content, though not unusual for e-commerce websites) in different subfolders. I'm not sure if there's some kind of difference in the way Moz works, and if that's part of why Moz marks this as duplicate content?
Are you unable to create 'prettier' URL's? Such as:
www.1010direct.com/tim-dilsen-019-gold-50-glasses.aspx
www.1010direct.com/dolce-gabbana-dd1165-970-53-glasses.aspxWith or without the aspx of course.
-
I'm not surprised Moz is flagging those pages as duplicate content and I wouldn't be totally surprised if Google did in the future.
Put it this way, the pages are identical bar for a single sentence title description, a price and roughly a 20 word section describing the product. Everything else is identical. It's duplicate.
Look at it another through Google's eyes. Here's how the two pages look when crawled by Google:
(If that doesn't work, try yourself at http://www.seo-browser.com/)
Just look at how much text and HTML is shared between the two pages. Yes, there are key differences on the pages (namely the product), but the Google bot nor the Mozbot is going to recognise those elements when it crawls it.
Presuming Google ignores the site nav, it still has a bunch of text and crawlable elements that are shared - pretty much everything under the product description. It doesn't see the individual images and the flavour text is frankly too small to make any sort of dent in the duplicate content %.
I'd seriously recommend at revising how your product pages look - there's far too much repeated content per page (you can still promote these things on each page but in a much, much smaller way) and the individual descriptions for the products, in my eyes, are not substantial enough.
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 from long Site Title
Hello! I have a number of "Duplicate Title Errors" as my website has a long Site Title: Planit NZ: New Zealand Tours, Bus Passes & Travel Planning. Am I better off with a short title that is simply my website/business name: Planit NZ My thought was adding some keywords might help with my rankings. Thanks Matt
Technical SEO | | mkyhnn0 -
Tags, Categories, & Duplicate Content
Looking for some advice on a duplicate content issue that we're having that definitely isn't unique to us. See, we are allowing all our tag and category pages, as well as our blog pagination be indexed and followed, but Moz is detecting that all as duplicate content, which is obvious since it is the same content that is on our blog posts. We've decided in the past to keep these pages the way they are as it hasn't seemed to hurt us specifically and we hoped it would help our overall ranking. We haven't seen positive or negative signals either way, just the warnings from Moz. We are wondering if we should noindex these pages and if that could cause a positive change, but we're worried it might cause a big negative change as well. Have you confronted this issue? What did you decide and what were the results? Thanks in advance!
Technical SEO | | bradhodson0 -
Duplicate content warning for a hierarchy structure?
I have a series of pages on my website organized in a hierarchy, let's simplify it to say parent pages and child pages. Each of the child pages has product listings, and an introduction at the top (along with an image) explaining their importance, why they're grouped together, providing related information, etc.
Technical SEO | | westsaddle
The parent page has a list of all of its child pages and a copy of their introductions next to the child page's title and image thumbnail. Moz is throwing up duplicate content warnings for all of these pages. Is this an actual SEO issue, or is the warning being overzealous?
Each child page has tons of its own content, and each parent page has the introductions from a bunch of child pages, so any single introduction is never the only content on the page. Thanks in advance!0 -
Duplicate content and rel canonicals?
Hi. I have a question relating to 2 sites that I manage with regards to duplicate content. These are 2 separate companies but the content is off a data base from the one(in other words the same). In terms of the rel canonical, how would we do this so that google does not penalise either site but can also have the content to crawl for both or is this just a dream?
Technical SEO | | ProsperoDigital0 -
Duplicate content or Duplicate page issue?
Hey Moz Community! I have a strange case in front of me. I have published a press release on my client's website and it ranked right away in Google. A week after the page completely dropped and it completely disappeared. The page is being indexed in Google, but when I search "title of the PR", the only results I get for that search query are the media and news outlets that have reported the news. No presence of my client's page. I also have to mention that I found two URLs of the same page: one with lower case letters and one with capital letters. Is this a duplicate page or a duplicate content issue coming from the news websites? How can I solve it? Thanks!
Technical SEO | | Workaholic0 -
Avoiding Cannibalism and Duplication with content
Hi, For the example I will use a computers e-commerce store... I'm working on creating guides for the store -
Technical SEO | | BeytzNet
How to choose a laptop
How to choose a desktop I believe that each guide will be great on its own and that it answers a specific question (meaning that someone looking for a laptop will search specifically laptop info and the same goes for desktop). This is why I didn't creating a "How to choose a computer" guide. I also want each guide to have all information and not to start sending the user to secondary pages in order to fill in missing info. However, even though there are several details that are different between the laptops and desktops, like importance of weight, screen size etc., a lot of things the checklist (like deciding on how much memory is needed, graphic card, core etc.) are the same. Please advise on how to pursue it. Should I just write two guides and make sure that the same duplicated content ideas are simply written in a different way?0 -
Duplicate content vs. less content
Hi, I run a site that is currently doing very well in google for the terms that we want. We are 1,2 or 3 for our 4 targeted terms, but havent been able to jump to number one in two categories that I would really like to. In looking at our site, I didn't realize we have a TON of duplicate content as seen by SEO moz and I guess google. It appears to be coming from our forum, we use drupal. RIght now we have over 4500 pages of duplicate content. Here is my question: How much is this hurting us as we are ranking high. Is it better to kill the forum (which is more community service than business) and have a very tight site SEO-wise, or leave the forum even with the duplicate content. Thanks for your help. Erik
Technical SEO | | SurfingNosara0 -
What is the best practice to handle duplicate content?
I have several large sections that SEOMOZ is indicating has duplicate content, even though the content is not identical. For example: Leather Passport Section - Leather Passports - Black - Leather Passposts - Blue - Leather Passports - Tan - Etc. Each of the items has good content, but it is identical, since they are the same products. What is the best practice here: 1. Have only one product with a drop down (fear is that this is not best for the customer) 2. Make up content to have them sound different? 3. Put a do-no-follow on the passport section? 4. Use a rel canonical even though the sections are technically not identical? Thanks!
Technical SEO | | trophycentraltrophiesandawards0