Do product pages need unique content or does having duplcate content hurt on those pages?
-
We are adding product rapidly to our website but this requires allowing duplicate to exist on our product pages of furniture-online.com. From an SEO standpoint do we need to make this content unique for each product. Since we aren't link building to specific product pages and we don't anticipate product pages being found in a search result, are we ok leaving the duplicate content in place and spending our dollars elsewhere?
-
You're welcome!
I understand your problem, and the canonical cannot solve it. It only works for internal duplicate content.
I saw something about a external canonical, but it looks like you're going to pass your relevance to another site, and you don't want that! ; )
Do you and your competitors have too many duplicated content?
I would suggest you to write your own content in the cases of external duplicate content, and this way go ahead of your competitors!
Have I answered your question?
If so, click the Good Answer button! =] -
Hildebrando,
Thanks so much for that info. That helps a ton. Just so I perfectly understand. We are getting product descriptions and product specs for 1,000 products from a specific manufacturer and loading that content onto out site. Our competitors of ours have already done the exact same thing.
So if we look at one specific product on our site, the content of that product page is duplicated on 35 of our competitors sites. So all of us have the exact content for that product page. None of us have that product listed more than one on our sites, so it isn't an internal site duplicate content problem with the same product being listed multiple times on 1 site, but the problem exists between 35 different sites. Does the canonical attribute resolve that duplicate content issue?
All of our category pages and sub category pages have unique content.
Thanks, Garth
-
Hello Garth,
When working with e-commerce sites, they have some unique needs.
In this case, you have some pages that shows some similar products, but with different colors, shapes. But in the end, you have to use the same content for usability, to let the user with some standardized layout.
So, the Search Engines understands this need and in this case we should use the rel="canonical" attribute, to tell them that the targeted page is the most important one.
The canonical should be inserted in the HEAD of all your products directing to it's category page, like this:
In a page of a specific Conference Table, you should use the category page in the tag below:
Read this to learn more: http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=139394
Hope it helps!
=]
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
-
Which Is More Important? Building a web page for customer reviews or a careers page?
Hello, I am wondering which would be more important to have on a website a customer review page or a careers page? And as far an SEO advantage which is more important and why?
On-Page Optimization | | Nicks1230 -
Need Professional Help with Site Structure, Page Authority, and Internal Linking
We are a 10 year + small (1000 pages) niche ecommerce site (Magento) that has recently lost rankings to a competitor. We out perform them in every metric so I do not understand them leap frogging us to the top spot. This has forced me to look at my site structure, page authority (rank), and internal linking. After reviewing a moz crawl issues report, here are some of my observations: Root domain has a PA of 40 Top 3 $ Category pages have a PA of 22, 18, 18 Multiple meaningless blog posts and other category/product pages have PA’s of 30+ Here is a screenshot of the crawl report with internal links, links, etc showing. I need some help - thoughts, suggestions, next steps in analysis?
On-Page Optimization | | SammyT0 -
Insurance agency - Videos for product pages
I use a company that provides me with insurance related videos. However - these video's can not be shared on You Tube, for whatever reason. My question is; if I add these video's to my product pages on my website will it hurt me in any way? OR do I need to add the text underneath the video? Or do something else to optimize them? I don't want to hurt my pages in any way - but the videos are informative and good quality. Thoughts? and thanks 🙂
On-Page Optimization | | MissThumann0 -
Wrong page ranking on SERP, above more relevant page
Often I will see the wrong page, something less relevant to a particular search, appear higher on the SERP than a more relevant page. Why does this happen and how can it be remedied? I found this Moz article, has anything been written on this topic more recently. Thanks! https://moz.com/blog/wrong-page-ranking-in-the-results-6-common-causes-5-solutions
On-Page Optimization | | NicheSocial0 -
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 | | SpaMedica0 -
Page without content
Hey Everyone, I've started an SEO On Page analysis for a web site and I've found a lot of duplicate content and useless pages. What do I have to do? Delete this useless page, redirect or do canonical tag? If I have to delete what is the best way to do? Should I use GWT to delete? or just delete from the server? This URL for example: http://www.sexshopone.com.br/?1.2.44.0,0,1,13,0,0,aneis-evolved-boss-cock's.html [admin note: NSFW page} There is no content and it is duplicate in reference of this: http://www.sexshopone.com.br/?1.2.44.0,0,1,12,0,0,aneis-evolved-boss-cock's.html [admin note: NSFW page} and the correct page of the product is: http://www.sexshopone.com.br/?1.2.44.0,423,anel-peniano-evolved-boss-cock's-pleasure-rings-collar-white-reutilizavel-e-a-prova-d'agua-colecao-evolved.html [admin note: NSFW page} What is happening is that we have 8.000 pages like this. Useless and without any content. How do I proceed? Thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | luf07090 -
Blog page outranks static page for KW -- why?
Blog page ranks 10 in Google, while the static page is on page 7. What makes it more interesting is that the blog page scores an "F" with the Term Target tool while the static page scores an "A". Static page has more inbound links and a mR/mT of 3.89/ 4.54 vs. 3.71/ 4.14 for the blog page. Any ideas on how to approach this one?
On-Page Optimization | | 540SEO0 -
Duplicate Page Content Issue
For one of our campaigns, we have 164 errors for Duplicate Page Content. We have a website where much of the same content lives in two different places on their website. The information needs to be accessible from both areas. What is the best way to tackle this problem? Is there anything that can be done so these pages are not competing against one another? If the only solution is to edit the content on one of the pages, how much of the content has to be different? Is there a certain percentage to go by? Here is an example of what I am referring to: 1.) http://www.valleyorthopedicassociates.com/services/foot-center/preventing-sprains-and-strains 2.) http://www.valleyorthopedicassociates.com/patient-resources/service/foot-and-ankle-center/preventing-sprains-and-strains
On-Page Optimization | | cmaseattle1