Google penalizes retail web sites that display the same content on multiple pages, or that appears on other web sites. Here’s how to identify the trouble spots and eliminate them.

E-commerce is one of the faster growing sectors of business, and is one of the most popular of venture opportunities. Yet, Despite its popularity and the available technology, eCommerce is not an easy undertaking. Among many important site factors, it is absolutely crucial to ensure that your site has fresh, unique content to separate it from its competitors and raise its standings in web searches results. Duplicate content is an issue that could severely damage your eCommerce venture, and should be considered a serious issue to avoid and be aware of.  

Google and other search engines keep very careful track of the content they index and the value it adds to their users. Businesses that engage in duplicate content, too little content, or too broad of topics, will find themselves ranking lower in the SERPs (search engine results pages) and… selling less.  Let’s take a look at the issues of duplicate content to discover how to fight it and avoid being devaluated by search engines.

First thing first, duplicate content – quick definition

Duplicate content is the appearance of identical OR similar content in more than one URL. It can be viewed in two aspects, off-site and on-site. Duplicate content on the same web property is referred to as on-site duplicate content. Off-site duplicate content occurs when content appears on other web sites in addition to the original version.

Determining which content is the original, is not a simple task for the bots (automated web spiders). Often, the wrong web site is devaluated for another’s fault. I won’t discuss the “how” and “why” this happens, but I would strongly suggest addressing duplicate content as soon as you can regardless of whether it feels unfair because your content was stolen or copied.

Why is duplicate content such a big issue?

The main problem with duplicate content is the adverse effect it has on search engines. It causes confusion for the bots that index web pages and dilute the SERP with duplicates and irrelevant results.

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  • Search engines don’t want to provide surfers with web sites that carry the same content. This is not practical and results in poor user experience.
  • A search engines goal is to display relevant trusted results. In the presence of duplicate content, search engines need to incorporate other metrics that help determine the most relevant sites.

To solve the problem, the search engines incorporate content quality test factors to help determine which URL to display and which version to devalue. Panda is the code name for one of the most famous algorithm updates Google has released to evaluate content and look for duplicates and other low quality signals.

The effect of duplicate content on a web site

The need for unique content can’t be emphasized enough. Having duplicate or similar content leaves you without a competitive advantage and usually results in ranking and traffic decrease.

Duplicate content results in a lower web site score and hurts your trust with Google. This creates other problems that grow fast and affect your bottom line and conversion. Duplicate content is like high blood pressure. If left untreated, it will slowly kill you.

Types of duplicate content

  • Copied content – Is where one web site copies information from another. With e-commerce web sites this is very common. Product descriptions are copied from the manufacture’s web site and cause duplicate content over multiple properties (sometimes thousands of them).
  • Multiple URLs – The use of search filters within e-commerce sites creates numerous possibilities for visitors to find a single product. Each unique search query will create a new URL, but the content looks similar or exactly the same. Other related duplicate pages could result from URL setup and server side settings.
  • Similar product – Arises when a site uses one product description to sell other versions of the same product. Other versions could be color, size, etc.
  • Closely related content – When one narrow topic is explained multiple times on multiple pages. This is very common on web sites with a blog and causes content cannibalization.

The solutions

Due to the possible devaluations from search engines like Google, it’s important to examine the solutions and how to implement each one in order to avoid penalties. Start by finding where the problems originate.

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Copied content – Don’t copy! Are you selling a product you didn’t manufacture? There are thousands of businesses like you that will choose the easy and fast route, copying the manufacturer’s product description. This will result in quick devaluation, unless you take the time to write your own unique content.

Check all landing pages with www.CopyScape.com.  This will help you discover duplicates. If there are none, you can move to the next test. If there is more than one, make a list so you can refer back when needed.

Multiple URLs – For similar product pages, use the canonical tag. The rel=canonical tag is placed on a duplicated page to prevent it from being devaluated. This code informs the search engine that a page should be viewed onlyas a copy of an original content page.  Here is the code:  

<link rel=”canonical” href=”http://example.com/original” />

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The 301 redirect is the most commonly used solution of duplicate content.  301’s can be done directly from the page, or as a site-level redirect from the .htaccess file. A 301 redirect tells the search engines that a page has been permanently moved and points crawlers to a new address. The problematic page will now be redirecting to the original.

Examples:

www.web sitename.com/index.php will point permanently to www.web sitename.com/

www.web sitename.com/old-contact-us-page will point permanently to www.web sitename.com/new-contact-us-page

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Similar product – Google Webmaster Tools gives the web developers control over their domain and provides a dashboard access. You can prevent duplicate content by setting URL parameters from the left Crawl menu and also by defining your preferred URL version – with or without www. Under the Search Appearance menu, you can find the HTML improvement which helps you locate Meta titles and description duplicates. Simply explore the date.

Closely related content – Avoid splitting content around the same topic. Instead of writing the content in two or more different pages, consider expanding the original page to incorporate the few unique details about each product/topic.

Duplicate content is no joke

With rumors of another Penguin and Panda updates on the horizon, I think it’s safe to assume that Google is not kidding about the fight against spam, black hat SEO, and, yes, duplicate content. As you can see there are solutions to the problem, and it would be in the best interest of every web site owner to be educated on how to avoid duplicate content altogether.

Founded in 2006, Dynamic Search is a web marketing agency based in Phoenix.

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