Duplicate Content
-
Hi, I have a website with over 500 pages.
The website is a home service website that services clients in different areas of the UK.
My question is, am I able to take down the pages from my URL, leave them down for say a week, so when Google bots crawl the pages, they do not exist.
Can I then re upload them to a different website URL, and then Google wont penalise me for duplicate content?
I know I would of lost juice and page rank, but that doesnt really matter, because the site had taken a knock since the Google update.
Thanks for your help.
Chris,
-
Just to second what Mike said - it's always tough to speak in generalities, but I can't think of any benefit to this approach. Typically, 301s are the preferred method for changing URLs. If you just kill the old pages and introduce new ones with the same content, you not only may experience some short-term duplicate content issues, but you lose inbound links and ranking signals to those old URLs.
Are you concerned about transferring a penalty via 301s? I'm just not clear on what the goal is here.
-
In good conscious I cant think of how that would be a good ongoing process to move forward with. What I would do is start an overhaul and merge scenario where you identify the most valuable unique content within the site and start merging less valuable content pages with stronger ones. As well as 301 any old pages to like items or the home page as well as make sure 404's and 410'are in place as well.
With that many pages I know it can be a daunting task to think about but if you truly care for the site and it seems that you do I would not take this approach as it can lead to further damage down the road. I would be trying to make sure I do not get hit again by P & P.
In the end if it seems like a spammy or fishy tactic it probably is or will be at some point.
Good luck my friend
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
-
Impact of wiping content on a subdomain
Hi, I've been asked to look at the impact of bulk deleting content on a blog subdomain and how it could impact the SEO of a linked www subdomain. Can deleting content on one subdomain have a negative impact on other linked subdomains? Thanks
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | think-web0 -
Somebody took an article from my site and posted it on there own site but gave it credit back to my site is this duplicate content?
Hey guys, This question may sound a bit drunk, but someone copied our article and re-posted it on their site the exact article, however the article was credited to our site and the original author of the article had approved the other site could do this. We created the article first though, Will this still be regarded as duplicate content? The owner of the other site has told us it wasn't because they credited it. Any advice would be awesome Thanks
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | edward-may0 -
Does Duplicate Content Actually "Penalize" a Domain?
Hi all, Some co-workers and myself were in a conversation this afternoon regarding if duplicate content actually causes a penalty on your domain. Reference: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/66359?hl=en http://searchengineland.com/googles-matt-cutts-duplicate-content-wont-hurt-you-unless-it-is-spammy-167459 Both sources from Google do not say "duplicate content causes a penalty." However, they do allude to spammy content negatively affecting a website. Why it came up: We originally were talking about syndicated content (same content across multiple domains; ex: "5 explanations of bad breath") for the purpose of social media sharing. Imagine if dentists across the nation had access to this piece of content (5 explanations of bad breath) simply for engagement with their audience. They would use this to post on social media & to talk about in the office. But they would not want to rank for that piece of duplicated content. This type of duplicated content would be valuable to dentists in different cities that need engagement with their audience or simply need the content. This is all hypothetical but serious at the same time. I would love some feedback & sourced information / case studies. Is duplicated content actually penalized or will that piece of content just not rank? (feel free to reference that example article as a real world example). **When I say penalized, I mean "the domain is given a negative penalty for showing up in SERPS" - therefore, the website would not rank for "dentists in san francisco, ca". That is my definition of penalty (feel free to correct if you disagree). Thanks all & look forward to a fun, resourceful conversation on duplicate content for the other purposes outside of SEO. Cole
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | ColeLusby0 -
Keyword Duplication in the title
Hello, I read on this great SEO Blueprint Article here that you don't want to duplicate any words in the title tag, even one duplicate. But what if your branding and keywords both have the same word in it. For example, making the title here like this: NLP Training and Certification Center | NLP and Coaching Institute which is 66 characters by the way. Your thoughts on the duplicate word "NLP"?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | BobGW0 -
What are your views on recent statements regarding "advertorial" content?
Hi, Recently, there's been a lot said and written about how Google is going to come down hard on 'advertorial' content. Many B2B publishers provide exposure to their clients by creating and publishing content about them -----based on information/ content obtained from clients (for example, in the form of press releases) or compiled by the publisher. From a target audience/ user perspective, this is useful information that the publication is bringing to its audience. Also, let's say the publishers don't link directly to client websites. In such a case, how do you think Google is likely to look at publisher websites in the context of the recent statements related to 'advertorial' type content? Look forward to views of the Moz community. Thanks, Manoj
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | ontarget-media0 -
Links via scraped / cloned content
Just been looking at some backlinks on a site - a good proportion of them are via Scraped wikipedia links or sites with similar directories to those found on DMOZ (just they have different names). To be honest, many of these sites look pretty dodgy to me, but if they're doing illegal stuff there's absolutely no way I'll be able to get links removed. Should I just sit and watch the backlinks increase from these questionable sources, or report the sites to Google, or do something else? Advice please.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | McTaggart0 -
Tricky Decision to make regarding duplicate content (that seems to be working!)
I have a really tricky decision to make concerning one of our clients. Their site to date was developed by someone else. They have a successful eCommerce website, and the strength of their Search Engine performance lies in their product category pages. In their case, a product category is an audience niche: their gender and age. In this hypothetical example my client sells lawnmowers: http://www.example.com/lawnmowers/men/age-34 http://www.example.com/lawnmowers/men/age-33 http://www.example.com/lawnmowers/women/age-25 http://www.example.com/lawnmowers/women/age-3 For all searches pertaining to lawnmowers, the gender of the buyer and their age (for which there are a lot for the 'real' store), these results come up number one for every combination they have a page for. The issue is the specific product pages, which take the form of the following: http://www.example.com/lawnmowers/men/age-34/fancy-blue-lawnmower This same product, with the same content (save a reference to the gender and age on the page) can also be found at a few other gender / age combinations the product is targeted at. For instance: http://www.example.com/lawnmowers/women/age-34/fancy-blue-lawnmower http://www.example.com/lawnmowers/men/age-33/fancy-blue-lawnmower http://www.example.com/lawnmowers/women/age-32/fancy-blue-lawnmower So, duplicate content. As they are currently doing so well I am agonising over this - I dislike viewing the same content on multiple URLs, and though it wasn't a malicious effort on the previous developers part, think it a little dangerous in terms of SEO. On the other hand, if I change it I'll reduce the website size, and severely reduce the number of pages that are contextually relevant to the gender/age category pages. In short, I don't want to sabotage the performance of the category pages, by cutting off all their on-site relevant content. My options as I see them are: Stick with the duplicate content model, but add some unique content to each gender/age page. This will differentiate the product category page content a little. Move products to single distinct URLs. Whilst this could boost individual product SEO performance, this isn't an objective, and it carries the risks I perceive above. What are your thoughts? Many thanks, Tom
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | SoundinTheory0 -
IP-Based Content on Homepage?
We're looking to redesign one of our niche business directory websites and we'd like to place local content on the homepage catered to the user based on IP. For instance, someone from Los Angeles would see local business recommendations in their area. Pretty much a majority of the page would be this kind of content. Is this considered cloaking or in any way a bad idea for SEO? Here are some examples of what we're thinking: http://www.yellowbook.com http://www.yellowpages.com/ I've seen some sites redirect to a local version of the page, but I'm a little worried Google will index us with localized content and the homepage would not rank for any worthwhile keywords. What's the best way to handle this? Thanks.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | newriver0