Duplicate Meta Description in GWMT
-
We've just discovered that there are multiple duplicate URLs indexed for a site that we're working on. It seems that when new versions of the site was developed in the last couple of years, there were new page names and URL structures that were used. All of these seem to be showing up as Duplicate Meta Descriptions in Google's WMT, which is not surprising as they are basically the same page with the same content that are just sitting on different page names/URLs.
This is an example of the situation, where URL 5 is the current version. Note: all the others are still live and resolve, although they are not linked to from the current site.
- URL 1: www.example.com/blue-tshirts.html (Version 1 - January 2010)
- URL 2: www.example.com/blue-t-shirts.html (Version 2 - July 2010)
- URL 3: www.example.com/blue_t_shirts.html (Version 3 - November 2010)
- URL 4: www.example.com/buy/blue_tshirts.html (Version 4 - January 2011)
- URL 5: www.example.com/buy/bluetshirts.html (Version 5 - April 2011)
Presumably, this is a clear case of duplicate content.
QUESTION: In order to solve it, shall we 301 all of the previous URLs to the current one - ie. Redirect URLs 1-4 to URL 5? Or, should some of them be NoIndexed?
To complicate matters, there is Pagination on most of them. For example:
-
URL 1: www.example.com/blue-tshirts.html (Version 1 - January 2010)
Since URL 5 is the current site, we are going to 'NoIndex, Follow' URLs 5a, 5b and 5c, which is what we understand to be the correct thing to do for paginated pages.
QUESTION: What shall we do with URLs 1a, 1b and 1c? Should we apply the same "No Index, Follow" OR should they be 301'd to their respective counterparts in 5a, 5b and 5c?
QUESTION: In the same way, since URL 4 is the version just before the current live Version 5, does it make a different on whether the paginated pages (ie 4a, 4b and 4c) should be No Indexed or 301'd?
Thanks in advance for all responses and suggestions, it's greatly appreciated.
-
If the pages are not used and not linked to in your site, remove them and 301 redirect the URLs to the new addresses.
You are right about the pagination and noindex, follow, but another solution which may be better is to use rel="next" and rel="prev". See this for more info: http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2011/09/pagination-with-relnext-and-relprev.html
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
-
Duplicate Content Brainstorming
Hi, New here in the SEO world. Excellent resources here. We have an ecommerce website that sells presentation templates. Today our templates come in 3 flavours - for PowerPoint, for Keynote and both - called Presentation Templates. So we've ended up with 3 URLS with similar content. Same screenshots, similar description.. Example: https://www.improvepresentation.com/keynote-templates/social-media-keynote-template https://www.improvepresentation.com/powerpoint-templates/social-media-powerpoint-template https://www.improvepresentation.com/presentation-templates/social-media-presentation-template I know what you're thinking. Why not make a website with a template and give 3 download options right? But what about https://www.improvepresentation.com/powerpoint-templates/ https://www.improvepresentation.com/keynote-templates/ These are powerfull URL's in my opinion taking into account that the strongest keyword in our field is "powerpoint templates" How would you solve this "problem" or maybe there is no problem at all.
Technical SEO | | slidescamp0 -
Unfamiliar Meta Description Tags
I'm working with a client who uses a CMS which loads meta tags into their site through its backend. On-page I see this in the source:
Technical SEO | | medtouch0 -
Duplicate Page Content but where?
Hi All Moz is telling me I have duplicate page content and sure enough the PA MR mT are all 0 but it doesnt give me a link to this content! This is the page: http://www.orsgroup.com/index.php?page=Scanning-services But I cant find where the duplicate content is other than on our own youtube page which I will get removed here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pnjh9jkAWuA Can anyone help please? Andy
Technical SEO | | ORS-Group0 -
Meta Title Tags
Hi, Are Meta Title Tag deemed by google to be unique if I use the same phrases by in a different order. For example 3 different pages <colgroup><col width="475"></colgroup>
Technical SEO | | Studio33
| Online Invoicing Software | Online Invoicing | Invoicing Software |
| Online Invoicing | Invoicing Software | Online Invoicing Software |
| Invoicing Software | Online Invoicing Software | Online Invoicing | You will not it is the same keywords just in a different order. Is this unique enough or will google not be happy about it. Thanks Andrew0 -
Google using descriptions from other websites instead of site's own meta description
In the last month or so, Google has started displaying a description under links to my home page in its search results that doesn't actually come from my site. I have a meta description tag in place and for a very limited set of keywords, that description is displayed, but for the majority of results, it's displaying a description that appears on Alexa.com and a handful of other sites that seem to have copied Alexa's listing, e.g. similarsites.com. The problem is, the description from these other sites isn't particularly descriptive and mentions a service that we no longer provide. So my questions are: Why is Google doing this? Surely that's broken behaviour. How do I fix it?
Technical SEO | | antdesign0 -
A week ago I asked how to remove duplicate files and duplicate titles
Three weeks ago we had a very large number of site errors revealed by crawl diagostics. These errors related purely to the presence of both http://domain name and http://www.domain name. We used the rel canonical tag in the head of our index page to direct all to the www. preference, and we have no improvement. Matters got worse two weeks ago and I checked with Google Webmaster and found that Google had somehow lost our preference choice. A week ago I asked how to overcome this problem and received good advice about how to re-enter our preference for the www.tag with Google. This we did and it was accepted. We aso submitted a new sitemap.xml which was also acceptable to Google. Today, a week later we find that we have even more duplicate content (over 10,000 duplicate errors) showing up in the latest diagnostic crawl. Does anyone have any ideas? (Getting a bit desperate.)
Technical SEO | | FFTCOUK0 -
How do I eliminate duplicate url, duplicate title issues using Joomla CMS?
We have a site using Joomla CMS, integrated with Jreviews and Jomsocial. Utilizing ACE SEF to generate Dynamic URL structure. Our issue is that we are recieving multiple instances of duplicate url's and duplicate titles due to the way joomla is working with jreviews for all our 7,000+ business listings. Site is already ranked for many broad/national keywords, concerned that our state and local rankings are limited by these errors. How can we prevent this from happening without re-writing the entire website?
Technical SEO | | mdmcn0 -
Canonicalization - duplicate homepage issues
I'm trying to work out the best way to resolve an issue where Google is seeing duplicate versions of a homepage, i.e. http://www.home.co.uk/Home.aspx and http://www.home.co.uk/ The site runs on Windows servers. I've tried implementing redirects for homepages before (for a different site on a linux server) and ended up with a loop, so although I know I can read lots of info (as I have been doing) and try again, I am really concerned about getting it wrong. Can anyone give me some advice on the best way to make Google take just one version of the page? Obviously link juice is also being diluted so I need to get this sorted asap. Thanks.
Technical SEO | | travelinnovations0