Best to Fix Duplicate Content Issues on Blog If URLs are Set to "No-Index"
-
Greetings Moz Community:
I purchased a SEMrush subscription recently and used it to run a site audit.
The audit detected 168 duplicate content issues mostly relating to blog posts tags. I suspect these issues may be due to canonical tags not being set up correctly.
My developer claims that since these blog URLs are set to "no-index" these issues do not need to be corrected. My instinct would be to avoid any risk with potential duplicate content. To set up canonicalization correctly. In addition, even if these pages are set to "no-index" they are passing page rank. Further more I don't know why a reputable company like SEMrush would consider these errors if in fact they are not errors.
So my question is, do we need to do anything with the error pages if they are already set to "no-index"? Incidentally the site URL is www.nyc-officespace-leader.com. I am attaching a copy of the SEMrush audit.
Thanks, Alan
-
Thanks for cleaning that up, Dennis. That is great advice.
-
I encounter sometimes that with my clients. The basic thing to do is just to add a canonical since they are already noindexed especially for themes that utilize certain pages within a page. Crazy sounding but some themes actually does this so you can't remove the duplicate page, so noindexing it then adding a canonical is already good enough.
But since you mentioned these are just tags, then simply noindexing them is fine. (I'm assuming these are just basic wordpress tags)
As for your pagination question, use a canonical to link to a URL where all the posts are shown. That's the basic rule for that situation and it's somewhere in Google guidelines about pagination
-
Hi Reserve:
Thanks for your response.
Google is able to view this content because of links that go to and from it? So I am not protected by the no-index tag?
I am very unfamiliar with the strange tags generated by Wordpress. Do you think that such tags as the following can be removed without any detrimental effect? If the URLS for these tags are removed should there be redirects added? http://www.nyc-officespace-leader.com/blog/tag/boutique-space, http://www.nyc-officespace-leader.com/blog/tag/meatpacking-district, http://www.nyc-officespace-leader.com/blog/tag/restaurant-space, http://www.nyc-officespace-leader.com/blog/tag/retail-space, http://www.nyc-officespace-leader.com/blog/tag/store-space, http://www.nyc-officespace-leader.com/blog/tag/the-plaza-district, http://www.nyc-officespace-leader.com/blog/tag/times-square, http://www.nyc-officespace-leader.com/blog/tag/chelsea, http://www.nyc-officespace-leader.com/blog/tag/upper-east-side, http://www.nyc-officespace-leader.com/blog/tag/upper-west-side
Also, should canonical tags be added to blog URLs even if they are set to no-index? For example:
http://www.nyc-officespace-leader.com/blog/page/2
http://www.nyc-officespace-leader.com/blog/page/3
http://www.nyc-officespace-leader.com/blog/page/4
Thanks, Alan
-
I would remove them, to be safe. Google sees them regardless of the "no-index", and I think that the cleaner you can get your data, the better off you will be in the long run. While there may be no harm at this time, things always change. I know one thing for sure, and that is that you don't want a duplicate content issue.
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
-
I have implemented rel = "next" and rel = "prev" but google console is picking up pages as being duplicate. Can anyone tell me what is going on?
I have implemented rel="next" and rel = "prev" across our site but google console is picking it up as duplications. Also individual pages show up in search result too. Here is an example linkhttp://www.empowher.com/mental-health/content/sizeismweightism-how-cope-it-and-how-it-affects-mental-healthhttp://www.empowher.com/mental-health/content/sizeismweightism-how-cope-it-and-how-it-affects-mental-health?page=0,3The second link shows up as duplicate. What can i do to fix this issue?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | akih0 -
What is considered duplicate content?
Hi, We are working on a product page for bespoke camper vans: http://www.broadlane.co.uk/campervans/vw-campers/bespoke-campers . At the moment there is only one page but we are planning add similar pages for other brands of camper vans. Each page will receive its specifically targeted content however the 'Model choice' cart at the bottom (giving you the choice to select the internal structure of the van) will remain the same across all pages. Will this be considered as duplicate content? And if this is a case, what would be the ideal solution to limit penalty risk: A rel canonical tag seems wrong for this, as there is no original item as such. Would an iFrame around the 'model choice' enable us to isolate the content from being indexed at the same time than the page? Thanks, Celine
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | A_Q0 -
Pipe ("|") in my website's title is being replaced with ":" in Google results
Hi , One of the websites I'm promoting and working on is www.pau-brasil.co.il.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Kadel
It's wordpress-based website and as you can see the html's Title is "PauBrasil | some hebrew slogan".
(Screenshot: http://i.imgur.com/2f80EEY.gif)
When I'm searching for "PauBrasil" (Which is the brand's name) , one of the results google shows is "PauBrasil: Some Hebrew Slogan" (Screenshot: http://i.imgur.com/eJxNHrO.gif ) Why does the pipe is being replaced with ":" ?
And not just that , as you can see there's a "blank space" missing between the the ":" to the slogan.
(note: the websites has been indexed by google crawler at least 4 times so I find it hard to believe it can be the reason) I've keep on looking and found out that there's another page in that website with the exact same title
but when I'm looking for it in google , it shows the title as it really is , with pipe. ("|").
(Screenshot: http://i.imgur.com/dtsbZV2.gif) Have you ever encountered something like that?
Can it be that the duplicated title cause that weird "replacement"? Thanks in advance,
Kadel0 -
Strange URLs, how do I fix this?
I've just check Majestic and have seen around 50 links coming from one of my other sites. The links all look like this: http://www.dwww.mysite.com
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JohnPeters
http://www.eee.mysite.com
http://www.w.mysite.com The site these links are coming from is a html site. Any ideas whats going on or a way to get rid of these urls? When I visit the strange URLs such as http://www.dwww.mysite.com, it shows the home page of http://www.mysite.com. Is there a way to redirect anything like this back to the home page?0 -
Duplicate Content From Indexing of non- File Extension Page
Google somehow has indexed a page of mine without the .html extension. so they indexed www.samplepage.com/page, so I am showing duplicate content because Google also see's www.samplepage.com/page.html How can I force google or bing or whoever to only index and see the page including the .html extension? I know people are saying not to use the file extension on pages, but I want to, so please anybody...HELP!!!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | WebbyNabler0 -
Coupon Website Has Tons of Duplicate Content, How do I fix it?
Ok, so I just got done running my campaign on SEOMOZ for a client of mine who owns a Coupon Magazine company. They upload thousands of ads into their website which gives similar looking duplicate content ... like http://coupon.com/mom-pop-shop/100 and
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Keith-Eneix
http://coupon.com/mom-pop-shop/101. There's about 3200 duplicates right now on the website like this. The client wants the coupon pages to be indexed and followed by search engines so how would I fix the duplicate content but still maintain search-ability of these coupon landing pages?0 -
Duplicate Content On A Subdomain
Hi, We have a client who is currently close to completing a site specifically aimed at the UK market (they're doing this in-house so we've had no say in how it will work). The site will almost be a duplicate (in terms of content, targeted keywords etc.) of a section of the main site (that sits on the root domain) - the main site is targeted toward the US. The only difference will be certain spellings and currency type. If this new UK site were to sit on a sub domain of the main site, which is a .com, will this cause duplicate content issues? I know that there wouldn't be an issue if the new site were to be on a separate .co.uk domain (according to Matt Cutts), but it looks like the client wants it to be on a sub domain. Any help/advice would be greatly appreciated.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | jasarrow0 -
BEING PROACTIVE ABOUT CONTENT DUPLICATION...
So we all know that duplicate content is bad for SEO. I was just thinking... Whenever I post new content to a blog, website page etc...there should be something I should be able to do to tell Google (in fact all search engines) that I just created and posted this content to the web... that I am the original source .... so if anyone else copies it they get penalised and not me... Would appreciate your answers... 🙂 regards,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | TopGearMedia0