Unique content but exactly the same graphical layout - a problem?
-
Hello,
I have a coaching website at www.bobweikel.com I want to make a second coaching website with the same exact wordpress theme, totally identical except a slightly different logo image. Everything the same. The only difference is that all the content will be unique on the new site.
Does it matter to Google that the graphics are absolutely identical?
I assume it's fine, I just am making sure.
-
Google cares about duplicate content not duplicate CSS
-
Hi Vadim,
That's what I"ve always thought. But the CSS will be identical too. You don't think Google cares?
-
Does it matter to Google that the graphics are absolutely identical?
Google only sees text and code, it does not see graphics, remember the google bot/crawler just scans the content, code, and does not see images at all other than the alt tags and image file names.
For users, a logo us usually the defining element that will help a user distinguish between the two sites
Hope this helps
-
You have to copy and paste it, for some reason it looks like it's a relative link.
If your content is significantly different you will be fine. There are a lot of websites using the same basic Word Press themes with minimal customization so I don't see how this would be any different. Though Google is getting more advanced at determining the lay out and make up of a page, I'm not sure that theme and design elements are as distinguishable to them.
-
Bob, that link is producing a 404.
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
-
Will Google Judge Duplicate Content on Responsive Pages to be Keyword Spamming?
I have a website for my small business, and hope to improve the search results position for 5 landing pages. I recently modified my website to make it responsive (mobile friendly). I was not able to use Bootstrap; the layout of the pages is a bit unusual and doesn't lend itself to the options Bootstrap provides. Each landing page has 3 main div's - one for desktop, one for tablet, one for phone.
Web Design | | CurtisB
The text content displayed in each div is the same. Only one of the 3 div’s is visible; the user’s screen width determines which div is visible. When I wrote the HTML for the page, I didn't want each div to have identical text. I worried that
when Google indexed the page it would see the same text 3 times, and would conclude that keyword spamming was occurring. So I put the text in just one div. And when the page loads jQuery copies the text from the first div to the other two div's. But now I've learned that when Google indexes a page it looks at both the page that is served AND the page that is rendered. And in my case the page that is rendered - after it loads and the jQuery code is executed – contains duplicate text content in three div's. So perhaps my approach - having the served page contain just one div with text content – fails to help, because Google examines the rendered page, which has duplicate text content in three div's. Here is the layout of one landing page, as served by the server. 1000 words of text goes here. No text. jQuery will copy the text from div id="desktop" into here. No text. jQuery will copy the text from div id="desktop" into here. ===================================================================================== My question is: Will Google conclude that keyword spamming is occurring because of the duplicate content the rendered page contains, or will it realize that only one of the div's is visible at a time, and the duplicate content is there only to achieve a responsive design? Thank you!0 -
What is your opinion in the use of jquery for a continuous scroll type of page layout?
So, I'm in 2 minds about this; let me start with a bit of background info. Context
Web Design | | ChrisAshton
We have a new client who is in the final days of their new site design and were when they first contacted us. Their design essentially uses 5 pages, each with several pages worth of content on each, separated with the use of jquery. What this means is a user can click a menu item from a drop-down in the nav and be taken directly to that section of content like using internal anchor links as if it were a separate page, or they can click the top-level nav item and scroll through each "sub-page" without having to click other links. Vaguely similar to Google's "How Search Works" page if each sector of that page had it's own URL, only without the heavy design elements and slow load time. In this process, scrolling down to each new "sub-page" changes the URL in the address bar and is treated as a new page as far as referencing the page, adding page titles, meta descriptions, backlinks etc. From my research this also means search engines don't see the entire page, they see each sub-page as their own separate item like a normal site. My Reservations I'm worried about this for several reasons, the largest of them being that you're essentially presenting the user with something different to the search engines. The other big one being that I just don't know if search engines really can render this type of formatting correctly or if there's anything I need to look out for here. Since they're so close to launching their new site, I don't have time to set up a test environment and I'm not going to gamble with a new corporate website but they're also going to be very resistant to the advice of "start the design over, it's too dangerous". The Positives
For this client in particular, the design actually works very well. Each of these long pages is essentially about a different service they offer and the continuous scrolling through the "sub-pages" acts as almost a workflow through the process, covering each step in order. It also looks fantastic, loads quickly and has a very simple nav so the overall user experience is great. Since the majority of my focus in SEO is on UX, this is my confusion. Part of me thinks that obscuring the other content on these pages and only showing each individual "sub-page" to search engines is an obvious no-no, the other part of me feels that this kind of user experience and the reasonable prevalence of AJAX/Paralax etc means search engines should be more capable of understanding what's going on here. Can anyone possibly shed some light on this with either some further reading or first-hand experience?0 -
Content thin for new home page been told to change it? any suggestions?
Hi guys, I'm newbie.... I have been told that my home page is content thin, and if I want to rank really well in the search i need to have more relevant content on my homepage - the site is only new 2months and I can see we are now at 39th place in the search, if i make changes to the home page design and add more content will this effect this current ranking?
Web Design | | edward-may0 -
Is this CSS solution to faceted navigation a problem for SEO?
Hi guys. Take a look at the navigation on this page from our DEV site: http://wwwdev.ccisolutions.com/StoreFront/category/handheld-microphones While the CSS "trick" implemented by our IT Director does allow a visitor to sort products based on more than one criteria, my gut instinct says this is very bad for SEO. Here are the immediate issues I see: The URL doesn't change as the filter criteria changes. At the very least this is a lost opportunity for ranking on longer tail terms. I also think it could make us vulnerable to a Panda penalty because many of the combinations produce zero results, so returning a page without content, under the original URL. This could not only create hundreds of pages with no content, there would be duplicates of those zero content pages as well. Usability - The "Sort by" option in the drop down (upper right of the page) doesn't work in conjunction with the left Nav filters. In other words if you filter down to 5 items and then try to arrange them by price high to low, the "Sort" will take precedence, remove the filter and serve up a result that is all products in that category sorted high to low (and the filter options completely disapper), AND the URL changes to this: http://wwwdev.ccisolutions.com/StoreFront/category/IAFDispatcher regardless of what sort was chosen...(this is a whole separate problem, I realize and not specifically what I'm trying to address here). Aside from these two big problems, are there any other issues you see that arise out of trying to use CSS to create product filters in this way? I am trying to build a case for why I believe it should not be implemented this way. Conversely, if you see this as a possible implementation that could work if tweaked a bit, and advice you are willing to share would be greatly appreciated. Thanks! Thank you to Travis for pointing out the the link wasn't accessible. For anyone willing to take a closer look we can unblock the URL based on your IP address. If you'd be kind enough to send me your IP via private message I can have my IT director unblock it so you can view the page. Thanks!
Web Design | | danatanseo0 -
301 forwarding during site migration problem - several url versions of the same page....
Hello, I'm migrating from an old site to a new site, and 301 forwarding many of the pages... My key problem is this I'm seeing www.website.com/ indexed in SE and www.website.com/default.aspx in showing as URL when I'm on homepage - should I simply 301 forward both of these? Then for several internal pages there are 2/3 versions of each page indexed. Canonicalization issues. Again, I'm wondering whether I should 301 forward each URL even if there are several different indexed URLs for the same page? Your advice will be welcome! Thanks in advance - Luke
Web Design | | McTaggart0 -
What's the best way to structure original vs aggregated content
We're working on a news site that has a mix of news wires such as Reuters and original opinion articles. Currently the site is setup with /world /sports etc categories with the news wire content. Now we want to add the original opinion content. Would it be better to start a new top /Opinion category and then have sub-categories for each Opinion/world, Opinion/sports subject? Or would it be better to simply add an opinion sub-category under the existing news categories, ie /world/opinion? I know Google requests that original content be in a separate directory to be considered for inclusion in Google news. Which would be better for that? Regarding link building, if the opinion sub-categories were under the top news categories, would the link juice be passed more directly than if we had a separate Opinion top category?
Web Design | | ScottDavis0 -
Minimising duplicate content
From a minimising duplicate content perspective is it best to create all blog posts with a single tag so google doesn't think the same post being returned via a different tag search is duplicate content. I.e. the urls below return the same blog post; or doesn't it matter. for example http://www.ukholidayplaces.co.uk/blog/?tag=/stay+in+Margate http://www.ukholidayplaces.co.uk/blog/?tag=/Margate+on+a+budget are the same posts... thanks
Web Design | | JonAcourt0 -
How will it affect my site if i link to a site with adult content?
We are currently working on creating 2 sites for a company, one with no adult content, one with adult content. Will it affect the non adult content site if i link to the other one in terms of Google and being blocked by some internet providers.
Web Design | | MattWheatcroft0