undefined
Skip to content
Moz logo Menu open Menu close
  • Products
    • Moz Pro
    • Moz Pro Home
    • Moz Local
    • Moz Local Home
    • STAT
    • Moz API
    • Moz API Home
    • Compare SEO Products
    • Moz Data
  • Free SEO Tools
    • Domain Analysis
    • Keyword Explorer
    • Link Explorer
    • Competitive Research
    • MozBar
    • More Free SEO Tools
  • Learn SEO
    • Beginner's Guide to SEO
    • SEO Learning Center
    • Moz Academy
    • SEO Q&A
    • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
  • Blog
  • Why Moz
    • Agency Solutions
    • Enterprise Solutions
    • Small Business Solutions
    • Case Studies
    • The Moz Story
    • New Releases
  • Log in
  • Log out
  • Products
    • Moz Pro

      Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

    • Moz Local

      Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

    • STAT

      SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

    • Moz API

      Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

    • Compare SEO Products

      See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

    • Moz Data

      Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

    NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
    Moz Pro

    NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

    Learn more
  • Free SEO Tools
    • Domain Analysis

      Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

    • Keyword Explorer

      Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

    • Link Explorer

      Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

    • Competitive Research

      Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

    • MozBar

      See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

    • More Free SEO Tools

      Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

    NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
    Moz Pro

    NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

    Learn more
  • Learn SEO
    • Beginner's Guide to SEO

      The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

    • SEO Learning Center

      Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

    • On-Demand Webinars

      Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

    • How-To Guides

      Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

    • Moz Academy

      Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

    • MozCon

      Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

    Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
    Moz API

    Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

    Find your plan
  • Blog
  • Why Moz
    • Small Business Solutions

      Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

    • Agency Solutions

      Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

    • Enterprise Solutions

      Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

    • The Moz Story

      Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

    • Case Studies

      Explore how Moz drives ROI with a proven track record of success.

    • New Releases

      Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

    Surface actionable competitive intel
    New Feature

    Surface actionable competitive intel

    Learn More
  • Log in
    • Moz Pro
    • Moz Local
    • Moz Local Dashboard
    • Moz API
    • Moz API Dashboard
    • Moz Academy
  • Avatar
    • Moz Home
    • Notifications
    • Account & Billing
    • Manage Users
    • Community Profile
    • My Q&A
    • My Videos
    • Log Out

The Moz Q&A Forum

  • Forum
  • Questions
  • Users
  • Ask the Community

Welcome to the Q&A Forum

Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

  1. Home
  2. SEO Tactics
  3. On-Page Optimization
  4. Best practice for franchise sites with duplicated content

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.

Best practice for franchise sites with duplicated content

On-Page Optimization
5
13
4.9k
Loading More Posts
  • Oldest to Newest
  • Newest to Oldest
  • Most Votes
Reply
  • Reply as question
Log in to reply
This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
  • Shipyard_Agency
    Shipyard_Agency last edited by May 26, 2011, 5:23 PM

    I know that duplicated content is a touchy subject but I work with multiple franchise groups and each franchisee wants their own site, however, almost all of the sites use the same content.  I want to make sure that Google sees each one of these sites as unique sites and does not penalize them for the following issues.

    All sites are hosted on the same server therefor the same IP address

    All sites use generally the same content across their product pages (which are very very important pages) *templated content approved by corporate

    Almost all sites have the same design (A few of the groups we work with have multiple design options)

    Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

    Thanks Again

    Aaron

    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
    • Shipyard_Agency
      Shipyard_Agency @Shipyard_Agency last edited by May 27, 2011, 9:33 AM May 27, 2011, 9:33 AM

      I fully agree.  We have notified them all and let them know its in their best interest to modify the content throughout the site.  Unfortunately most of them don't and the copy remains templated.

      Thanks for your answers

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • vaibhav45
        vaibhav45 @Shipyard_Agency last edited by May 27, 2011, 7:50 AM May 27, 2011, 7:50 AM

        If the search is for Company product or service, You can take little advantage by doing local listing of each franchisee. Except This content rewriting is only option as per my knol.

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • AdoptionHelp
          AdoptionHelp @Shipyard_Agency last edited by May 27, 2011, 9:31 AM May 26, 2011, 7:15 PM

          Maybe part of the literature describing your program can include the point that to be really effective the franchisee's will have to write their own content. It all depends on your business model, whether you want to make them aware that they have 100-5,000 competitors from your company alone.

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
          • Shipyard_Agency
            Shipyard_Agency @EGOL last edited by May 26, 2011, 6:11 PM May 26, 2011, 6:11 PM

            I fully agree with you EGOL "There is another problem - maybe bigger than Google's desire for unique content."

            We give each franchisee the opportunity to expand on the content and make it their own, however I would say 90% of them don't make any changes.

            I don't think that either the franchisee or corporate would want to pay the $$$ it would cost to have our Copywriters write unique copy for each site.  (50-100+ products/services) per site or franchisee.

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • Shipyard_Agency
              Shipyard_Agency @AdoptionHelp last edited by May 26, 2011, 6:08 PM May 26, 2011, 6:08 PM

              I wish we could redo the strategy but we aren't talking about small franchises here.  We are talking franchises anywhere from 100 stores all the way up to 5,000 stores.

              The products/services they offer are described very well and unfortunately the only thing we add into each product page is maybe a few location identifiers and a company name.

              I don't want to use the canonical solution because each site has to be seen as a stand along site.

              AdoptionHelp Shipyard_Agency 2 Replies Last reply May 27, 2011, 9:33 AM Reply Quote 0
              • Shipyard_Agency
                Shipyard_Agency @mosaicpro last edited by May 26, 2011, 6:05 PM May 26, 2011, 6:05 PM

                Each Franchise has their own domain.

                Each Product/Service has a single description - Each franchisee has to use the same corporate approved logo.

                All Images are named the same thing so it can matter.

                I like your suggestions though...you are going the same route we have in the past.

                vaibhav45 1 Reply Last reply May 27, 2011, 7:50 AM Reply Quote 0
                • EGOL
                  EGOL @EGOL last edited by May 26, 2011, 5:58 PM May 26, 2011, 5:57 PM

                  Information about Google using OCR...  Use this link to see an example of how google extracted and highlighted "wrigley swim" from this newspaper scan.

                  Google can determine the color of an image...  image files are actually characters and google can extract the colors.   If you go into image search there is an option limit the results by color.  Some of that is done via context (such as words in the file name or words near the image), however, some is done by extracting data from the image file.

                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • mosaicpro
                    mosaicpro @EGOL last edited by May 26, 2011, 5:43 PM May 26, 2011, 5:43 PM

                    Here we are all giving advices based on their own knowledge. So i personally think Google cannot read images or what a specific image relates to. If I'm wrong and I hope I'm not ... can i get more details EGOL

                    Thanks.

                    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                    • EGOL
                      EGOL @mosaicpro last edited by May 26, 2011, 5:39 PM May 26, 2011, 5:39 PM

                      ...Google cannot read images or colors...

                      Are you willing to bet a month's pay on that?

                      mosaicpro EGOL 2 Replies Last reply May 26, 2011, 5:57 PM Reply Quote 0
                      • EGOL
                        EGOL last edited by May 26, 2011, 5:38 PM May 26, 2011, 5:38 PM

                        I want to make sure that Google sees each one of these sites as unique sites...

                        I don't think that there is an inexpensive way to get this done and have high quality results.  If you want unique content you gotta pay the price... but you could consider.

                        Hire several writers to reauthor the content - will cost a lot less than starting from scratch.

                        Get an article spinner program - that will be cheap but you will probably not like the results.

                        Make a enthusiastic sales pitch to each franchisee with incentives to write their own content.

                        ...templated content approved by corporate...

                        There is another problem - maybe bigger than Google's desire for unique content.

                        Good luck.

                        Shipyard_Agency 1 Reply Last reply May 26, 2011, 6:11 PM Reply Quote 0
                        • AdoptionHelp
                          AdoptionHelp last edited by May 26, 2011, 5:37 PM May 26, 2011, 5:37 PM

                          You may want to re-think your strategy of franchising the product and the content. If the content is the same the only way to eliminate the duplicate content problem is to point to one of them as the canonical version, and that would very much impact the performance of the other versions of the other sites.

                          Shipyard_Agency 1 Reply Last reply May 26, 2011, 6:08 PM Reply Quote 0
                          • mosaicpro
                            mosaicpro last edited by May 26, 2011, 5:34 PM May 26, 2011, 5:34 PM

                            I suggest your give the products (franchise) use their own sort of domain(logo) but add    franchise [your logo].

                            1. Their Own Domain

                            2. Their own product description even if it's the same product (maybe add your logo to make sure people recognizes the brand.

                            3. Design does not matter (urls, title, description, content etc counts) as Google cannot read images or colors 🙂

                            Hope it helps.

                            EGOL Shipyard_Agency 2 Replies Last reply May 26, 2011, 6:05 PM Reply Quote -1
                            • 1 / 1
                            1 out of 13
                            • First post
                              1/13
                              Last post

                            Got a burning SEO question?

                            Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


                            Start my free trial


                            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.

                            • See all categories

                            Related Questions

                            • HonestSEOStudio

                              How do I fix my portfolio causing duplicate content issues?

                              Hi, Im new to this whole duplicate content issue. I have a website, fatcatpaperie.com that I use the portofolio feature in Wordpress as my gallery for all my wedding invitations.  I have a ton of duplicate content issues from this. I don't understand at all how to fix this. I'd appreciate any help! Below is an example of one duplicate content issue. They have slightly different names, different urls, different images and all have no text. But are coming up as duplicates. Would it be as easy as putting a different metadescription for each?? Thanks for the help! Rena | "Treasure" by Designers Fine Press - Fat Cat Paperie http://fatcatpaperie.com/portfolio-item/treasure-designers-fine-press 1 0 0 0 200 3 duplicates "Perennial" by Designers Fine Press - Fat Cat Paperie http://fatcatpaperie.com/portfolio-item/perennial-by-designers-fine-press 1 0 0 0 200 1 of 3 duplicates "Primrose" by Designers Fine Press - Fat Cat Paperie http://fatcatpaperie.com/portfolio-item/8675 1 0 0 0 200 2 of 3 duplicates "Catalina" by Designers Fine Press - Fat Cat Paperie http://fatcatpaperie.com/portfolio-item/catalina-designers-fine-press |

                              On-Page Optimization | Apr 6, 2017, 10:51 AM | HonestSEOStudio
                              0
                            • GTAMP

                              On Site Question: Duplicate H2...

                              Hi All A few on-site audit tools pull information on duplicate H2 tags on pages.  This implies it's a bad thing and should be fixed - is that the case? On one of my sites the tag-line is in H2 in the header, so appears on every page... Just wondering if this is something worth fixing. Thanks

                              On-Page Optimization | Jul 5, 2016, 5:07 PM | GTAMP
                              0
                            • SpaMedica

                              Duplicate Content with ?Page ID's in WordPress

                              Hi there, I'm trying to figure out the best way to solve a duplicate content problem that I have due to Page ID's that WordPress automatically assigns to pages. I know that in order for me to resolve this I have to use canonical urls but the problem for me is I can't figure out the URL structure. Moz is showing me thousands of duplicate content errors that are mostly related to Page IDs For example, this is how a page's url should look like on my site Moz is telling me there are 50 duplicate content errors for this page. The page ID for this page is 82 so the duplicate content errors appear as follows and so on. For 47 more pages. The problem repeats itself with other pages as well. My permalinks are set to "Post Name" so I know that's not an issue. What can I do to resolve this? How can I use canonical URLs to solve this problem. Any help will be greatly appreciated.

                              On-Page Optimization | Sep 23, 2014, 11:21 PM | SpaMedica
                              0
                            • HochKaren

                              Best practice for Portfolio Links

                              I have a client with a really large project portfolio (over 500 project images), which causes their portfolio page to have well over the 100 links that are recommended.  How can I reduce this without reducing the number of photos they can upload?

                              On-Page Optimization | Aug 15, 2013, 12:52 AM | HochKaren
                              0
                            • LeahHutcheon

                              Duplicate Content for Men's and Women's Version of Site

                              So, we're a service where you can book different hairdressing services from a number of different salons (site being worked on). We're doing both a male and female version of the site on the same domain which users are can select between on the homepage. The differences are largely cosmetic (allowing the designers to be more creative and have a bit of fun and to also have dedicated male grooming landing pages), but I was wondering about duplicate pages. While most of the pages on each version of the site will be unique (i.e. [male service] in [location] vs [female service] in [location] with the female taking precedent when there are duplicates), what should we do about the likes of the "About" page? Pages like this would both be unique in wording but essentially offer the same information and does it make sense to to index two different "About" pages, even if the titles vary? My question is whether, for these duplicate pages, you would set the more popular one as the preferred version canonically, leave them both to be indexed or noindex the lesser version entirely? Hope this makes sense, thanks!

                              On-Page Optimization | Jul 23, 2013, 8:33 AM | LeahHutcheon
                              0
                            • cbielich

                              How to use canonical with mobile site to main site

                              I am pretty sure that the mobile version of the main site needs to be the same canonical link from what I understand. I am trying to find good docuementation that supports this. Even better if its from Google or Matt Cutts. I have a main domain like http://www.mydomain.com the mobile version of this is http://www.mydomain.com/m/ Should my canonical be rel="canonical" href="http://www.mydomain.com"/> for both these pages?

                              On-Page Optimization | May 19, 2015, 11:23 AM | cbielich
                              0
                            • sportstvjobs

                              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 | Jul 3, 2011, 11:36 AM | sportstvjobs
                              0
                            • MeghanPrudencio

                              Would it be bad to change the canonical URL to the most recent page that has duplicate content, or should we just 301 redirect to the new page?

                              Is it bad to change the canonical URL in the tag, meaning does it lose it's stats? If we add a new page that may have duplicate content, but we want that page to be indexed over the older pages, should we just change the canonical page or redirect from the original canonical page? Thanks so much! -Amy

                              On-Page Optimization | Mar 8, 2011, 9:32 PM | MeghanPrudencio
                              0

                            Get started with Moz Pro!

                            Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

                            Start my free trial
                            Products
                            • Moz Pro
                            • Moz Local
                            • Moz API
                            • Moz Data
                            • STAT
                            • Product Updates
                            Moz Solutions
                            • SMB Solutions
                            • Agency Solutions
                            • Enterprise Solutions
                            Free SEO Tools
                            • Domain Authority Checker
                            • Link Explorer
                            • Keyword Explorer
                            • Competitive Research
                            • Brand Authority Checker
                            • Local Citation Checker
                            • MozBar Extension
                            • MozCast
                            Resources
                            • Blog
                            • SEO Learning Center
                            • Help Hub
                            • Beginner's Guide to SEO
                            • How-to Guides
                            • Moz Academy
                            • API Docs
                            About Moz
                            • About
                            • Team
                            • Careers
                            • Contact
                            Why Moz
                            • Case Studies
                            • Testimonials
                            Get Involved
                            • Become an Affiliate
                            • MozCon
                            • Webinars
                            • Practical Marketer Series
                            • MozPod
                            Connect with us

                            Contact the Help team

                            Join our newsletter
                            Moz logo
                            © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
                            • Accessibility
                            • Terms of Use
                            • Privacy

                            Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.