I'm thinking I might need to canonicalize back to the home site and combine some content, what do you think?
-
I have a site that is mostly just podcasts with transcripts, and it has both audio and video versions of the podcasts. I also have a blog that I contribute to that links back to the video/transcript page of these podcasts. So this blog I contribute to has the exact same content (the podcast; both audio and video but no transcript) and then an audio and video version of this podcast. Each post of the podcast has different content on it that is technically unique but I'm not sure it's unique enough.
So my question is, should I canonicalize the posts on this blog back to the original video/transcript page of the podcast and then combine the video with the audio posts.
Thanks!
-
If you combine them, you'll also need to rel=canonical or 301-redirect the audio pages to the video pages (or vise-versa). To avoid chaining your canonicals, the blog posts should all go back to whichever version (audio/video) you choose as the canonical.
It depends on usage, but I'm guessing the videos have higher engagement than the audio? You could just build a longish page that looks like:
[Video]
[Audio]
[Description]
[Transcript]Transcripts add a lot of SEO power to a page, potentially, and getting that content right on the main video page could help quite a bit, if you can keep it user-friendly.
-
Okay thanks, I'll discuss this with others at my organization. I think we will combine the video and audio posts into one and then rel=canonical the patheos blog posts to the original website.
Any other ideas or suggestions?
This has been great feedback thank you!
-
You have to understand that "unique" is relative. Yes, each of these pages have some unique content and legitimately target different things. In Google's eyes, though, they have virtually the same title tag, are on the same subject, share common header elements, text, and keywords, and could be seen as near-duplicates. The audio page especially appears thin, since Google can't weigh in the value of the actual audio itself.
Personally, I'd combine the audio/video on one page, for starters. I just don't see clear value in the separation, either for search or users. As for the transcripts, that page is essentially richer. It's the video + the transcript. From a business/organizational standpoint, I'm not really clear on what the two sites are trying to accomplish, but you are potentially diluting your ranking ability. Two sites are harder to market and promote than one - that's a reality that goes far beyond SEO.
I see that the two sites have very different purposes, but if it were me, I would probably focus the ranking power of these videos/podcasts on just one page, and use cross-domain canonicals. This is as much a business decision as an SEO decision, so I can only give you my opinions, but the four copies probably are hurting you in the long run.
-
Yes definitely. We are talking about dozens podcasts so far...
this is the video version of this podcast from the blog:
and this links back to the video and transcript post on the website
this is the audio version of this podcast from the blog:
and this links back to the video and transcript post on the website also.
video and transcript version of this podcast on the website:
http://ibelievepodcast.com/1452/die-without-knowing-christ-video-transcript
audio version of this podcast on the website:
http://ibelievepodcast.com/1455/die-without-knowing-christ-audio
as you can see there a total of four posts for each podcast.
-
If the intent of the blog on patheos is for people to stumble across that content, or to fuel a feed for users/subscribers on that site (as opposed to having higher search visibility than the actual podcast site), then you can go ahead and direct the canonical to the original podcast pages. Or, simply leave things as they are (so long as it's not creating thin/duplicate content issues).
If your patheos blog ranks higher in search results because it's part of a larger blog network, then you definitely won't want to change the canonical, because you'll want the blog to maintain it's juice.
Have you looked at your referral traffic data lately? How much traffic is the blog driving to the site? Enough to make it worth all the extra effort?
-
Any chance you could share one pair of URLs that you worry might seem like duplicates? Unfortunately, it's hard to tell out of context. How many podcasts/videos are we talking about - dozens, hundreds, thousands?
-
The website is the original source and the more important entity, so the goal is to bring people there. The blog that we manage is on a larger site called patheos.com, a religious website.
I'm not 100% sure if it's creating a "duplicate" content problem but I am feeling like there might be a uniqueness problem.
Both pages (the website and blog) exist in order to help promote the podcast with the blog posts linking back to their respective full transcript posts on the website.
So I'm thinking the other issue might be that the content on the blog if not duplicate, then is considered "thin". It is wordpress based and the content it includes is made up of posts, and there is one for each of the video and audio versions of the cast. The video version includes the video and and then a few short paragraphs talking about the topic at hand being discussed in the podcast. And the audio version is just one paragraph or so about the topic along with the audio. Technically unique from the video, but obviously short, and is generally targeting the same thing.
The website is also wordpress based and has a post for each of the video and audio versions of the cast as well. The video post just has the video and then the verbatim transcript, like Moz's whiteboard fridays! And then the audio version includes a short paragraph or so on the topic, again technically different or unique from the video transcript and also different from the other audio post on the blog but also "thin". Sorry if this is confusing...
Thanks so much for your responses so far, I greatly appreciate it!
-
I tend to agree with Karin. On the one hand - yes, this could be seen as duplicate/thin content, especially at large scale. On the other hand, I'm not clear on what your goal is or which set of pages is more important. Think about the business case and where you want to bring users, not just the SEO aspect. Why do both of these pages exist, and what are you trying to achieve?
-
What's the more valuable goal for your traffic: to have people find the blog or the main site? If you point the canonical tags from the blog to the site, then you'll reduce the chances of anyone ever finding the blog in a search, which would waste the extra effort of adding unique content about the podcasts (unless you have a devoted readership who is going from the podcast page to the corresponding blog post in order to see what extra insights you've added).
Is it creating any duplicate content issues to have the posts in both places? If so, that would be a good reason to redirect the canonical refs (or discontinue the blog altogether).
-
I believe best practice is to always canonicalize to the original content. However, the mix of the original content within those blog pages is tricky because I'm sure a lot has to do with how much content is duped.
Have you tried running any reports for duplicate content issues? I know Moz has some great tools and one of my favorites is Screaming Frog Spider. Have you also looked at your GWT to see what if any issues Google may have?
Duplicate content can be bad, but there are a few cases with transcriptions that we've recently discovered where penalties are non-existent. One of the recent lessons we learned was from a similar thread about video transcriptions. Phil in the post submitted some good links and research to back it all up.
Here's the link to that discussion: http://moz.com/community/q/video-seo-youtube-transcriptions-dupe-content
I hope this points you in the right direction!
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
-
Dupliacate page content from Moz which I need soem help with
Hi Just checked a diagnostic report in moz and we are getting duplicate page content for http://domain.co.uk and http://www.domain.co.uk attached is the screen shot Does anyone know how to fix this in magento? Thanks duplicate.png
Technical SEO | | tidybooks0 -
Why is Google's cache preview showing different version of webpage (i.e. not displaying content)
My URL is: http://www.fslocal.comRecently, we discovered Google's cached snapshots of our business listings look different from what's displayed to users. The main issue? Our content isn't displayed in cached results (although while the content isn't visible on the front-end of cached pages, the text can be found when you view the page source of that cached result).These listings are structured so everything is coded and contained within 1 page (e.g. http://www.fslocal.com/toronto/auto-vault-canada/). But even though the URL stays the same, we've created separate "pages" of content (e.g. "About," "Additional Info," "Contact," etc.) for each listing, and only 1 "page" of content will ever be displayed to the user at a time. This is controlled by JavaScript and using display:none in CSS. Why do our cached results look different? Why would our content not show up in Google's cache preview, even though the text can be found in the page source? Does it have to do with the way we're using display:none? Are there negative SEO effects with regards to how we're using it (i.e. we're employing it strictly for aesthetics, but is it possible Google thinks we're trying to hide text)? Google's Technical Guidelines recommends against using "fancy features such as JavaScript, cookies, session IDs, frames, DHTML, or Flash." If we were to separate those business listing "pages" into actual separate URLs (e.g. http://www.fslocal.com/toronto/auto-vault-canada/contact/ would be the "Contact" page), and employ static HTML code instead of complicated JavaScript, would that solve the problem? Any insight would be greatly appreciated.Thanks!
Technical SEO | | fslocal0 -
Do I need to do on-page SEO for my mobile site?
We have a desktop site, and we just built our first mobile site. Right now, the mobile site doesn't have any title tags, meta descriptions or anything like that, but do I need to even do that? If I have all of that on the desktop site, and the mobile site is just redirected from the desktop site, can't I just do it on the desktop site only? Is there anything to gain from doing it for both sites?
Technical SEO | | KempRugeLawGroup0 -
Any need to worry about spammy links in Webmaster Tools from sites that no longer exist?
I own an ecommerce website that had some spammy stuff done on it by an SEO firm through SEOLinkVine a few years ago. I'm working on removing all those links, but some of the sites no longer exist. I'm assuming I don't have to worry about disavowing those in Webmaster Tools? Thanks!
Technical SEO | | CobraJones950 -
Need help with home page on site
Hello! Thanks for reading in advance! I've got a relatively old site (12 year old domain) that has experienced a drop in rankings specifically for our home page. Some of the key terms that I'd assume we would rank well for are: "expedite us passport" According to SEOMOZ, our on page optimization receives a C for the termr. also, the root domain and page have decent links, etc. However; looking at Google (logged out and in incognito mode in chrome), a page on our site http://www.passportsandvisas.com/passport/index.asp ranks well and our HOME page isn't listed in the top 50 or 100. THis is the case for a lot of keywords we used to rank well for. I would have thought our home page would have at least outranked an internal page. Any thoughts would be very, very helpful!
Technical SEO | | santiago230 -
According to 1 of my PRO campaigns - I have 250+ pages with Duplicate Content - Could my empty 'tag' pages be to blame?
Like I said, my one of my moz reports is showing 250+ pages with duplicate content. should I just delete the tag pages? Is that worth my time? how do I alert SEOmoz that the changes have been made, so that they show up in my next report?
Technical SEO | | TylerAbernethy0 -
Need help with Joomla duplicate content issues
One of my campaigns is for a Joomla site (http://genesisstudios.com) and when my full crawl was done and I review the report, I have significant duplicate content issues. They seem to come from the automatic creation of /rss pages. For example: http://www.genesisstudios.com/loose is the page but the duplicate content shows up as http://www.genesisstudios.com/loose/rss It appears that Joomla creates feeds for every page automatically and I'm not sure how to address the problem they create. I have been chasing down duplicate content issues for some time and thought they were gone, but now I have about 40 more instances of this type. It also appears that even though there is a canonicalization plugin present and enabled, the crawl report shows 'false' for and rel= canonicalization tags Anyone got any ideas? Thanks so much... Scott | |
Technical SEO | | sdennison0 -
Do index.php extensions count as duplicate content on Joomla sites?
When i run my error report, i see 2 duplicate pages, but both are the main domain and then the /index.php extension. how do i fix this? does it really count as duplicate content?
Technical SEO | | valetseo0