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
      • Digital Marketers
      • Agency Solutions
      • Enterprise Solutions
      • Small Business Solutions
      • 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
      • Digital Marketers

        Simplify SEO tasks to save time and grow your traffic.

      • 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.

      • 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. Intermediate & Advanced SEO
    4. Duplicate content on recruitment website

    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 recruitment website

    Intermediate & Advanced SEO
    4
    5
    2373
    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.
    • iQi
      iQi last edited by

      Hi everyone,

      It seems that Panda 4.2 has hit some industries more than others. I just started working on a website, that has no manual action, but the organic traffic has dropped massively in the last few months. Their external linking profile seems to be fine, but I suspect usability issues, especially the duplication may be the reason.

      The website is a recruitment website in a specific industry only. However, they posts jobs for their clients, that can be very similar, and in the same time they can have 20 jobs with the same title and very similar job descriptions. The website currently have over 200 pages with potential duplicate content.

      Additionally, these jobs get posted on job portals, with the same content (Happens automatically through a feed).

      The questions here are:

      1. How bad would this be for the website usability, and would it be the reason the traffic went down?
      2. Is this the affect of Panda 4.2 that is still rolling
      3. What can be done to resolve these issues?

      Thank you in advance.

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • KristinaKledzik
        KristinaKledzik last edited by

        Hi Issa,

        You're right, duplicate content and bad usability could be triggering the slow rolling Panda 4.2, but I'd dig in a little more (apologies if you already did this research):

        • You mentioned 200 pages are potentially duplicate; how many are on the site in total? If you have thousands of pages indexed, 200 duplicates probably aren't going to cause a Panda penalty.

        • How similar are these postings? Just the page title? Or is the entire page extremely similar in content? (To answer this: if you made a keyword cloud for these similar job descriptions, would they show roughly the same mapping?)

        • If it's just the page title that's similar, make sure to set the pages apart by including the name of the hiring company (which I assume makes the different positions unique) towards the beginning of the page title

        • If the entire page is similar, then add more content to make the pages more unique, like a blurb about the hiring company, how long the job has been up, how many applicants the job has (if available), etc.

        • Either way, make sure you don't have any old jobs that still have live pages! If possible, I'd redirect them to a similar job posting.

        • Like John asked, did your traffic drop dramatically one day, or has it been tapering off? If it's tapering off, I'd guess it's not Panda.

        • And, last, which pages lost traffic and rankings? Which keywords dropped in rankings? You may be able to tell how you were penalized by which keywords were most affected.

        Hope this helps,

        Kristina

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
        • dohertyjf
          dohertyjf last edited by

          Hi Issa -

          Great question here. Seems your client is potentially in a tough spot with this!

          There is a ton to unpack here and it is hard to know specifics without the site (feel free to private message it to me), but to your specific questions:

          • Re: if it is a problem that the jobs have the same title, that is only something you can answer with the analytics data you have access to. It usually is not a problem, but when you have this sort of situation I'd also ask if you have category pages for those terms (eg 20 Growth Hacker jobs in SF a day, but also a "Growth Hacker Jobs in SF" category where all those individual jobs link back up to
          • Regarding syndication of content, this can cause an issue if not done correctly. You'd have to see where they lost traffic (you hopefully already know), but if it's the case with syndicated listings losing traffic and non-syndicated not, this is an issue. What I've often done is either get the site we are syndicating to to implement a canonical back to my listing, or get a followed link from their version back to yours. Also, you can be selective about what you syndicate so that it's a small duplication vs complete. Also, make your pages more robust and only syndicate the necessary info if possible.
          • Website usability can be bad for Panda, especially if bounce rates are really high. Check those and see if they are high. If they are, you should fix it anyways because you'll get better conversions. I've also heard of cases where they made their site "stickier" and they bounced back from Panda.

          I guess it's hard to know if Panda is still rolling out, but from everything  I have heard it is. I assume this was not just a one-time drop on one day, but rather a slow leak of traffic? That makes it harder to investigate if the second.

          Good luck!

          John

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
          • iQi
            iQi @TimHolmes last edited by

            Great thank you.

            Will have a read.

            Still though, with the situation above, is it OK for this industry to have such duplicate content and what to do about it if its not.

            Thanks

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • TimHolmes
              TimHolmes last edited by

              I was reading an article earlier from SEO RoundTable, where it details that Duplicate content is a side issue and not necessarily related to the Panda Update - read more here - https://www.seroundtable.com/google-duplicate-content-panda-issues-different-21039.html

              John Mueller stated that sites with low quality content are hit by Panda and that duplicate content is a separate side issue.

              iQi 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
              • 1 / 1
              • First post
                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

              • Virginia-Girtz

                How can I avoid duplicate content for a new landing page which is the same as an old one?

                Hello mozers! I have a question about duplicate content for you... One on my clients pages have been dropping in search volume for a while now, and I've discovered it's because the search term isn't as popular as it used to be. So... we need to create a new landing page using a more popular search term. The page which is losing traffic is based on the search query "Can I put a solid roof on my conservatory" this only gets 0-10 searches per month according to the keyword explorer tool. However, if we changed this to "replacing conservatory roof with solid roof" this gets up to 500 searches per month. Muuuuch better! The issue is, I don't want to close down and re-direct the old page because it's got a featured snippet and sits in position 1. So I'd like to create another page instead... however, as the two are effectively the same content, I would then land myself in a duplicate content issue. If I were to put a rel="canonical" tag in the original "can I put a solid roof...." page but say the master page is now the new one, would that get around the issue?

                Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Virginia-Girtz
                0
              • BeckyKey

                SEM Rush & Duplicate content

                Hi SEMRush is flagging these pages as having duplicate content, but we have rel = next etc implemented: https://www.key.co.uk/en/key/brand/bott https://www.key.co.uk/en/key/brand/bott?page=2 Or is it being flagged as they're just really similar pages?

                Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BeckyKey
                0
              • jayoliverwright

                Country Code Top Level Domains & Duplicate Content

                Hi looking to launch in a new market, currently we have a .com.au domain which is geo-targeted to Australia. We want to launch in New Zealand which is ends with .co.nz If i duplicate the Australian based site completely on the new .co.nz domain name, would i face duplicate content issues from a SEO standpoint?
                Even though it's on a completely separate country code. Or is it still advised tosetup hreflang tag across both of the domains? Cheers.

                Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | jayoliverwright
                0
              • iamgreenminded

                Trailing Slashes for Magento CMS pages - 2 URLS - Duplicate content

                Hello, Can anyone help me find a solution to Fixing and Creating Magento CMS pages to only use one URL  and not two URLS? www.domain.com/testpage www.domain.com/testpage/ I found a previous article that applies to my issue, which is using htaccess to redirect request for pages in magento 301 redirect to slash URL from the non-slash URL.  I dont understand the syntax fully in htaccess , but I used this code below. This code below fixed the CMS page redirection but caused issues on other pages, like all my categories and products with this error: "This webpage has a redirect loop ERR_TOO_MANY_REDIRECTS" Assuming you're running at domain root.  Change to working directory if needed. RewriteBase / # www check If you're running in a subdirectory, then you'll need to add that in to the redirected url (http://www.mydomain.com/subdirectory/$1 RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www. [NC]
                RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.mydomain.com/$1 [R=301,L] Trailing slash check Don't fix direct file links RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !(.)/$
                RewriteRule ^(.)$ $1/ [L,R=301] Finally, forward everything to your front-controller (index.php) RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
                RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
                RewriteRule .* index.php [QSA,L]

                Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | iamgreenminded
                0
              • marcandre

                Woocommerce SEO & Duplicate content?

                Hi Moz fellows, I'm new to Woocommerce and couldn't find help on Google about certain SEO-related things. All my past projects were simple 5 pages websites + a blog, so I would just no-index categories, tags and archives to eliminate duplicate content errors. But with Woocommerce Product categories and tags, I've noticed that many e-Commerce websites with a high domain authority actually rank for certain keywords just by having their category/tags indexed. For example keyword 'hippie clothes' = etsy.com/category/hippie-clothes (fictional example) The problem is that if I have 100 products and 10 categories & tags on my site it creates THOUSANDS of duplicate content errors, but If I 'non index' categories and tags they will never rank well once my domain authority rises... Anyone has experience/comments about this? I use SEO by Yoast plugin. Your help is greatly appreciated! Thank you in advance. -Marc

                Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | marcandre
                1
              • Roy1973

                Ecommerce Duplicate Product Descriptions across 3 websites

                Hi, We are an e commerce company that has our own domain but also sell the same products on eBay and Amazon. What is the feeling on the same exact descriptions being used on different platforms? Do they count as duplicate content? Will our domain be punished/penalised as our domain does not have as much authority as EBay or Amazon? We have over 5,000 products with our own hand written product descriptions. We want our website to be the main place/ have priority over the above market places. What's the best suggestion/solution? thanks,

                Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Roy1973
                0
              • HiteshBharucha

                Duplicate content on subdomains.

                Hi Mozer's, I have a site www.xyz.com and also geo targeted sub domains www.uk.xyz.com, www.india.xyz.com and so on. All the sub domains have the content which is same as the content on the main domain that is www.xyz.com. So, I want to know how can i avoid content duplication. Many Thanks!

                Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | HiteshBharucha
                0
              • joseph.chambers

                Duplicate Content | eBay

                My client is generating templates for his eBay template based on content he has on his eCommerce platform. I'm 100% sure this will cause duplicate content issues. My question is this.. and I'm not sure where eBay policy stands with this but adding the canonical tag to the template.. will this work if it's coming from a different page i.e. eBay? Update: I'm not finding any information regarding this on the eBay policy's: http://ocs.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?CustomerSupport&action=0&searchstring=canonical So it does look like I can have rel="canonical" tag in custom eBay templates but I'm concern this can be considered: "cheating" since rel="canonical is actually a 301 but as this says: http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2009/12/handling-legitimate-cross-domain.html it's legitimately duplicate content. The question is now: should I add it or not? UPDATE seems eBay templates are embedded in a iframe but the snap shot on google actually shows the template. This makes me wonder how they are handling iframes now. looking at http://www.webmaster-toolkit.com/search-engine-simulator.shtml does shows the content inside the iframe. Interesting. Anyone else have feedback?

                Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | joseph.chambers
                1

              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.