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.
Duplicate content on partner site
-
I have a trade partner who will be using some of our content on their site. What's the best way to prevent any duplicate content issues?
Their plan is to attribute the content to us using rel=author tagging. Would this be sufficient or should I request that they do something else too?
Thanks
-
Cross-domain canonical is the most viable option here. As Mike and Chris said, it is possible for Google to ignore the tag in some cases, but it's a fairly strong suggestion. There are two main reasons I'd recommend it:
(1) Syndicated content is the entire reason Google allowed the use of rel=canonical across domains. SEOs I know at large publishers have used it very effectively. While your situation may not be entirely the same, it sounds similar to a syndicated content scenario.
(2) It's really your only viable option. While a 301-redirect is almost always honored by Google, as Chris suggested, it's also very different. A 301 will take the visitors on the partner site page directly to your page, and that's not your intent. Rel=canonical will leave visitors on the partner page, but tell search engines to credit that page to the source. Google experimented with a content syndication tag, but that tag's been deprecated, so in most cases rel=canonical is the best choice we have left.
-
As far as I'm aware and webmaster guide lines are the following is true :
"Can rel="canonical" be used to suggest a canonical URL on a completely different domain?
There are situations where it's not easily possible to set up redirects. This could be the case when you need to migrate to a new domain name using a web server that cannot create server-side redirects. In this case, you can use the
rel="canonical"link element to specify the exact URL of the domain preferred for indexing. While therel="canonical"link element is seen as a hint and not an absolute directive, we do try to follow it where possible."canonical is for on page more than off site.
Supporting this Matt Cutts mentions that they prefer 301
So bit of truth in it
-
My favorite answer... Canonicals. If your trade partner's site places rel="canonical" tags pointing back to the original source of the content on your site then there shouldn't be any duplicate content issue. Of course Canonicals are suggestions not directives so the search engines reserve the right not to follow the tag if they deem it irrelevant. Using the tag in this way will essentially pass all the equity to your site and rank your page instead of your trade partner. Your trade partner would basically get no benefit of having your content as far as Search is concerned. The better option for everyone would likely be to write unique and relevant content.
-
Hi,
You may want to read the following :
https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/66359?hl=en
Technically you should be fine though I never recommend duplicate content across sites It reduced the quality across both sites. As long as there is a link back to original source you should be ok.
-
Hi Chris. I don't care about the trade partner. But are you saying I could receive a penalty if they copy and paste content off my website? Surely that's not fair!
-
Easy fix - don't use duplicate content!
You will still receive a penalty it's better to take the time to rewrite or get fresh content.
They can link to your site if they want to use the content as the user would still see the content but just putting a duplicate of the content on their site will result in a drop for the both of you although it may not happen right away it will over time
Hope this help, and good luck!
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
-
Does using Yoast variables for meta content overwrite any pages that already have custom meta content?
The question is about the Yoast plugin for WP sites. Let's say I have a site with 200 pages and custom meta descriptions / title tags already in place for the top 30 pages. If I use the Yoast variable tool to complete meta content for the remaining pages (and make my Moz issue tracker look happier), will that only affect the pages without custom meta descriptions or will it overwrite even the pages with the custom meta content that I want? In this situation, I do want to keep the meta content that is already in place on select pages. Thanks! Zack
On-Page Optimization | | rootandbranch0 -
Duplicate content with tagging and categories
Hello, Moz is showing that a site has duplicate content - which appears to be because of tags and categories. It is a relatively new site, with only a few blog publications so far. This means that the same articles are displayed under a number of different tags and categories... Is this something I should worry about, or just wait until I have more content? The 'tag' and 'category' pages are not really pages I would expect or aim for anyone to find in google results anyway. Would be glad to here any advice / opinions on this Thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | wearehappymedia1 -
How does Indeed.com make it to the top of every single search despite of having aggregated content or duplicate content
How does Indeed.com make it to the top of every single search despite of having duplicate content. I mean somewhere google says they will prefer original content & will give preference to them who have original content but this statement contradict when I see Indeed.com as they aggregate content from other sites but still rank higher than original content provider side. How does Indeed.com make it to the top of every single search despite of having aggregated content or duplicate content
On-Page Optimization | | vivekrathore0 -
Duplicate page titles and Content in Woocommerce
Hi Guys, I'm new to Moz and really liking it so far!
On-Page Optimization | | jeeyer
I run a eCommerce site on Wordpress + WooCommerce and ofcourse use Yoast for SEO optimalisation I've got a question about my first Crawl report which showed over 600 issues! 😐 I've read that this is something that happens more often (http://moz.com/blog/setup-wordpress-for-seo-success). Most of them are categorized under:
1. Duplicate Page Titles or;
2. Duplicate Page Content. Duplicate Page Titles:
These are almost only: product category pages and product tags. Is this problem beeing solved by giving them the right SEO SERP? I see that a lot of categories don't have a proper SEO SERP set up in yoast! Do I need to add this to clear this issue, or do I need to change the actual Title? And how about the Product tags? Another point (bit more off-topic) I've read here: http://moz.com/community/q/yoast-seo-plugin-to-index-or-not-to-index-categories that it's advised to noindex/follow Categories and Tags but isn't that a wierd idea to do for a eCommerce site?! Duplicate Page Content:
Same goes here almost only Product Categories and product tags that are displayed as duplicate Page content! When I check the results I can click on a blue button for example "+ 17 duplicates" and that shows me (in this case 17 URLS) but they are not related to the fist in any way so not sure where to start here? Thanks for taking the time to help out!
Joost0 -
Stolen Content reposted on other sites. How does this affect ranking?
Visitors often copy and paste my content and post it elsewhere... on Facebook, on Tumblr, on forums and sometimes on competing websites... but they don't link to me. How does Google treat this duplicated content? What is the best way to handle it? File DCMA claims or ask them for a link?
On-Page Optimization | | brianflannery0 -
Duplicate Content - Blog Rewriting
I have a client who has requested a rewrite of 250 blog articles for his IT company. The blogs are dispersed on a variety of platforms: his own website's blog, a business innovation website, and an IT website. He wants to have each article optimised with keyword phrases and then posted onto his new website thrice weekly. All of this is in an effort to attract some potential customers to his new site and also to establish his company as a leader in its field. To what extent would I need to rewrite each article so as to avoid duplicating the content? Would there even be an issue if I did not rewrite the articles and merely optimised them with keywords? Would the articles need to be completely taken by all current publishers? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
On-Page Optimization | | StoryScout0 -
Multilingual site with untranslated content
We are developing a site that will have several languages. There will be several thousand pages, the default language will be English. Several sections of the site will not be translated at first, so the main content will be in English but navigation/boilerplate will be translated. We have hreflang alternate tags set up for each individual page pointing to each of the other languages, eg in the English version we have: etc In the spanish version, we would point to the french version and the english version etc. My question is, is this sufficient to avoid a duplicate content penalty for google for the untranslated pages? I am aware that from a user perspective, having untranslated content is bad, but in this case it is unavoidable at first.
On-Page Optimization | | jorgeapartime0 -
Percentage of duplicate content allowable
Can you have ANY duplicate content on a page or will the page get penalized by Google? For example if you used a paragraph of Wikipedia content for a definition/description of a medical term, but wrapped it in unique content is that OK or will that land you in the Google / Panda doghouse? If some level of duplicate content is allowable, is there a general rule of thumb ratio unique-to-duplicate content? thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | sportstvjobs0