Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Google keeps marking different pages as duplicates
-
My website has many pages like this:
mywebsite/company1/valuation
mywebsite/company2/valuation
mywebsite/company3/valuation
mywebsite/company4/valuation
...
These pages describe the valuation of each company.
These pages were never identical but initially, I included a few generic paragraphs like what is valuation, what is a valuation model, etc... in all the pages so some parts of these pages' content were identical.
Google marked many of these pages as duplicated (in Google Search Console) so I modified the content of these pages: I removed those generic paragraphs and added other information that is unique to each company. As a result, these pages are extremely different from each other now and have little similarities.
Although it has been more than 1 month since I made the modification, Google still marks the majority of these pages as duplicates, even though Google has already crawled their new modified version. I wonder whether there is anything else I can do in this situation?
Thanks
-
Google may mark different pages as duplicates if they contain very similar or identical content. This can happen due to issues such as duplicate metadata, URL parameters, or syndicated content. To address this, ensure each page has unique and valuable content, use canonical tags when appropriate, and manage URL parameters in Google Search Console.
-
Yes, there are a few other things you can do if Google is still marking your pages as duplicates after you have modified them to be unique:
-
Check your canonical tags. Canonical tags tell Google which version of a page is the preferred one to index. If you have canonical tags in place and they are pointing to the correct pages, then Google should eventually recognize that the duplicate pages are not actually duplicates.
-
Use the URL parameter tool in Google Search Console. This tool allows you to tell Google which URL parameters it should treat as unique and which ones it should ignore. This can be helpful if you have pages with similar content but different URL parameters, such as pages for different product categories or pages with different sorting options.
-
Request a recrawl of your website. You can do this in Google Search Console. Once Google has recrawled your website, it will be able to see the new, modified versions of your pages.
If you have done all of the above and Google is still marking your pages as duplicates, then you may need to contact Google Support for assistance.
-
-
If Google is marking different pages on your website as duplicates, it can negatively impact your website's search engine rankings. Here are some common reasons why Google may be doing this and steps you can take to address the issue:
Duplicate Content: Google's algorithms are designed to filter out duplicate content from search results. Ensure that your website does not have identical or near-identical content on multiple pages. Each page should offer unique and valuable content to users.
URL Parameters: If your website uses URL parameters for sorting, filtering, or tracking purposes, Google may interpret these variations as duplicate content. Use canonical tags or the URL parameter tool in Google Search Console to specify which version of the URL you want to be indexed.
Pagination: For websites with paginated content (e.g., product listings, blog archives), ensure that you implement rel="next" and rel="prev" tags to indicate the sequence of pages. This helps Google understand that the pages are part of a series and not duplicates.
www vs. non-www: Make sure you have a preferred domain (e.g., www.example.com or example.com) and set up 301 redirects to the preferred version. Google may treat www and non-www versions as separate pages with duplicate content.
HTTP vs. HTTPS: Ensure that your website uses secure HTTPS. Google may view HTTP and HTTPS versions of the same page as duplicates. Implement 301 redirects from HTTP to HTTPS to resolve this.
Mobile and Desktop Versions: If you have separate mobile and desktop versions of your site (e.g., responsive design or m.example.com), use rel="alternate" and rel="canonical" tags to specify the relationship between the two versions.
Thin or Low-Quality Content: Pages with little or low-quality content may be flagged as duplicates. Improve the content on such pages to provide unique value to users.
Canonical Tags: Implement canonical tags correctly to indicate the preferred version of a page when there are multiple versions with similar content.
XML Sitemap: Ensure that your XML sitemap is up-to-date and accurately reflects your website's structure. Submit it to Google Search Console.
Avoid Scraped Content: Ensure that your content is original and not scraped or copied from other websites. Google penalizes sites with duplicate or plagiarized content.
Check for Technical Errors: Use Google Search Console to check for crawl errors or other technical issues that might be causing duplicate content problems.
Structured Data: Ensure that your structured data (schema markup) is correctly implemented on your pages. Incorrectly structured data can confuse search engines.
Regularly monitor Google Search Console for any duplicate content issues and take prompt action to address them. It's essential to provide unique and valuable content to your website visitors while ensuring that search engines can correctly index and rank your pages.
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
-
Unsolved Website with no backlinks and a DA of 1 ranks first. Why?
https://www.realestatephotos.melbourne does not have any backlinks and has a DA of 1.
Keyword Explorer | | garrypat
This site ranks first for keywords - real estate photography melbourne and property photography melbourne.
Not sure why.
URL contains keywords and site is ok. But other sites with many links and higher DA rank lower. Why? Garry1 -
Collections or blog posts for Shopify ecommerce seo?
Hi, hope you guys can help as I am going down a rabbit hole with this one! We have a solid-ranking sports nutrition site and are building a new SEO keyword strategy on our Shopify built store. We are using collections (categories) for much of the key product-based seo. This is because, as we understand it, Google prioritises collection/category pages over product pages. Should we then build additional collection pages to rank for secondary product search terms that could fit a collection page structure (eg 'vegan sports nutrition'), or should we use blog posts to do this? We have a quality blog with good unique content and reasonable domain authority so both options are open to us. But while the collection/category option may be best for SEO, too many collections/categories could upset our UX. We have a very small product range (10 products) so want to keep navigation fast and easy. Our 7 lead keyword collection pages do this already. More run the risk of upsetting ease/speed of site navigation. On the other hand, conversion rate from collection pages is historically much better than blog pages. We have made major technical upgrades to the blog to improve this but these are yet to be tested in anger. So at the heart of it all - do you guys recommend favouring blog posts or collection/category pages for secondary high sales intent keywords? All help gratefully received - thanks!
SEO Tactics | | WP332 -
Is there a way to get a list of all pages of your website that are indexed in Google?
I am trying to put together a comprehensive list of all pages that are indexed in Google and have differing opinions on how to do this.
Technical SEO | | SpodekandCo0 -
How to stop google from indexing specific sections of a page?
I'm currently trying to find a way to stop googlebot from indexing specific areas of a page, long ago Yahoo search created this tag class=”robots-nocontent” and I'm trying to see if there is a similar manner for google or if they have adopted the same tag? Any help would be much appreciated.
Technical SEO | | Iamfaramon0 -
How to stop my webmail pages not to be indexed on Google ??
when i did a search in google for Site:mywebsite.com , for a list of pages indexed. Surprisingly the following come up " Webmail - Login " Although this is associated with the domain , this is a completely different server , this the rackspace email server browser interface I am sure that there is nothing on the website that links or points to this.
Technical SEO | | UIPL
So why is Google indexing it ? & how do I get it out of there. I tried in webmaster tool but I could not , as it seems like a sub-domain. Any ideas ? Thanks Naresh Sadasivan0 -
Unnecessary pages getting indexed in Google for my blog
I have a blog dapazze.com and I am suffering from a problem for a long time. I found out that Google have indexed hundreds of replytocom links and images attachment pages for my blog. I had to remove these pages manually using the URL removal tool. I had used "Disallow: ?replytocom" in my robots.txt, but Google disobeyed it. After that, I removed the parameter from my blog completely using the SEO by Yoast plugin. But now I see that Google has again started indexing these links even after they are not present in my blog (I use #comment). Google have also indexed many of my admin and plugin pages, whereas they are disallowed in my robots.txt file. Have a look at my robots.txt file here: http://dapazze.com/robots.txt Please help me out to solve this problem permanently?
Technical SEO | | rahulchowdhury0 -
Home Page .index.htm and .com Duplicate Page Content/Title
I have been whittling away at the duplicate content on my clients' sites, thanks to SEOmoz's pro report, and have been getting push back from the account manager at register.com (the site was built here and the owner doesn't want to move it). He says these are the exact same page and he can't access one to redirect to the other. Any suggestions? The SEOmoz report says there is duplicate content on both these urls: Durango Mountain Biking | Durango Mountain Resort - Cascade Village http://www.cascadevillagehotel.com/index.htm Durango Mountain Biking | Durango Mountain Resort - Cascade Village http://www.cascadevillagehotel.com/ Your help is greatly appreciated! Sheryl
Technical SEO | | TOMMarketingLtd.0