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.
Handling of Duplicate Content
-
I just recently signed and joined the a-moz.groupbuyseo.org system.
During the initial report for our web site it shows we have lots of duplicate content. The web site is real estate based and we are loading IDX listings from other brokerages into our site.
If though these listings look alike, they are not. Each has their own photos, description and addresses. So why are they appear as duplicates – I would assume that they are all too closely related. Lots for Sale primarily – and it looks like lazy agents have 4 or 5 lots and input the description the same.
Unfortunately for us, part of the IDX agreement is that you cannot pick and choose which listings to load and you cannot change the content. You are either all in or you cannot use the system.
How should one manage duplicate content like this? Or should we ignore it?
Out of 1500+ listings on our web site it shows 40 of them are duplicates.
-
Obviously Dirk is right but again you will lose the opportunity to rank in search engines from the related key phrases and if you have played around with real estate industry before, you will have an idea about how difficult it is to rank and what are the advantages of ranking for that particular term.
In my opinion, duplication on page works like when the page is 60 to 70% identical to another page on the website and this is exactly what is happening in your case. I do agree the fact that you cannot change the descriptions but you can actually add the section on the page that explain more about the property. A custom box where you can include your custom written content.
I agree it’s a lot of work at your end but at the end of the day you will get a chance to rank well for those important key phrases that can offer you great amount of conversions.
Just a thought!
-
Nice idea - I have already started this. I just now have to include it for each listing. Thanks!!
-
You could point a canonical to the original source (in fact that is the way Google prefers it). It's a great solution if it's you who's syndicating the content. However, if you would do that, you would loose any opportunity to get ranked on that content.
Googles view: (source: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/66359?hl=en).
"Duplicate content on a site is not grounds for action on that site unless it appears that the intent of the duplicate content is to be deceptive and manipulate search engine results. If your site suffers from duplicate content issues, and you don't follow the advice listed above, we do a good job of choosing a version of the content to show in our search results."
The big problem with duplicate content across different domains is that it's up to google to decide which site is going to be displayed. This could be the site which is syndicating the content, but it could also be a site which has the highest authority.
In your case - if possible I would try to enrich the content you syndicate with content from other sources. Examples could be interesting stats on the neighbourhood like avg. age, income, nearby schools, number of house sold & average price...etc or other types of content that might interest potential buyers. This way your content becomes more unique and probably more interesting (and engaging) for your visitors (and for Google)
Hope this helps,
Dirk
-
Pretty much everyone has the same feed. Would it be wise to include the original source. Seeing we are getting the data from REALTOR.ca - point the canonical to where the listing comes from. I am new to this stuff - so I am hoping that I am getting this right.
Thanks T
-
Hi,
This is question which is asked quite often on Moz Q&A. Pages that have a big chunk of source code in common are sometimes considered as duplicated - even if the content is quite different. Recently they did a post on the tech blog on how they identify duplicates (it's quite technical stuff - but still interesting to read - https://a-moz.groupbuyseo.org/devblog/near-duplicate-detection/)
If only address & image are different but description is identical - the page will probably be considered as a duplicate by the Moz bot. If it's only for 40 of 1500 listings, I wouldn't worry to much about it, especially because you are unable the content anyway.
I would be more worried if other real estate companies would use the same feed and hence provide exactly the same content on their side, not only the 40 you mention but the full listing.
rgds
Dirk
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 on a Page Due to Responsive Version
What are the implications if a web designer codes the content of the site twice into the page in order to make the site responsive? I can't add the url I'm afraid but the H1 and the content appear twice in the code in order to produce both a responsive version and a desktop version. This is a Wordpress site. Is Google clever enough to distinguish between the 2 versions and treat them individually? Or will Google really think that the content has been repeated on the same page?
Technical SEO | | Wagada0 -
Query Strings causing Duplicate Content
I am working with a client that has multiple locations across the nation, and they recently merged all of the location sites into one site. To allow the lead capture forms to pre-populate the locations, they are using the query string /?location=cityname on every page. EXAMPLE - www.example.com/product www.example.com/product/?location=nashville www.example.com/product/?location=chicago There are thirty locations across the nation, so, every page x 30 is being flagged as duplicate content... at least in the crawl through MOZ. Does using that query string actually cause a duplicate content problem?
Technical SEO | | Rooted1 -
How does Google view duplicate photo content?
Now that we can search by image on Google and see every site that is using the same photo, I assume that Google is going to use this as a signal for ranking as well. Is that already happening? I ask because I have sold many photos over the years with first-use only rights, where I retain the copyright. So I have photos on my site that I own the copyright for that are on other sites (and were there first). I am not sure if I should make an effort to remove these photos from my site or if I can wait another couple years.
Technical SEO | | Lina5000 -
How to deal with duplicated content on product pages?
Hi, I have a webshop with products with different sizes and colours. For each item I have a different URL, with almost the same content (title tag, product descriptions, etc). In order to prevent duplicated content I'am wondering what is the best way to solve this problem, keeping in mind: -Impossible to create one page/URL for each product with filters on colour and size -Impossible to rewrite the product descriptions in order to be unique I'm considering the option to canonicolize the rest of de colours/size variations, but the disadvantage is that in case the product is not in stock it disappears from the website. Looking forward to your opinions and solutions. Jeroen
Technical SEO | | Digital-DMG0 -
Duplicate Content Issues on Product Pages
Hi guys Just keen to gauge your opinion on a quandary that has been bugging me for a while now. I work on an ecommerce website that sells around 20,000 products. A lot of the product SKUs are exactly the same in terms of how they work and what they offer the customer. Often it is 1 variable that changes. For example, the product may be available in 200 different sizes and 2 colours (therefore 400 SKUs available to purchase). Theese SKUs have been uploaded to the website as individual entires so that the customer can purchase them, with the only difference between the listings likely to be key signifiers such as colour, size, price, part number etc. Moz has flagged these pages up as duplicate content. Now I have worked on websites long enough now to know that duplicate content is never good from an SEO perspective, but I am struggling to work out an effective way in which I can display such a large number of almost identical products without falling foul of the duplicate content issue. If you wouldnt mind sharing any ideas or approaches that have been taken by you guys that would be great!
Technical SEO | | DHS_SH0 -
Duplicate content problem from an index.php file
Hi One of my sites is flagging a duplicate content problem which is affecting the search rankings. The duplicate problem is caused by http://www.mydomain.com/index.php which has a page rank of 26 How can I sort the duplicate content problem, as the main page should just be http://www.mydomain.com which has a page rank of 42 and is the stronger page with stronger links etc Many Thanks
Technical SEO | | ocelot0 -
Mod Rewrite / .htaccess avoid duplicate content
I have been searching and testing for hours but cannot find a solution. I am able to get a URL to display with out the file exntension. i.e domain.com/file instead of domain.com/file.php The problem is both versions of the URL above work, therefore a duplicate content issue. How can I force the URL with the file extension not to resolve and give a 404 error? Or just redirect to the non extension URL? IF it helps here is my code. Options +FollowSymLinks
Technical SEO | | MiamiWebCompany
RewriteEngine On RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME}.php -f
RewriteRule ^(.+)$ $1.php [L,QSA]0 -
Does 'framing' a website create duplicate content?
Something I have not come across before, but hope others here are able offer advice based on experience: A client has independently created a series of mini-sites, aimed at targeting specific locations. The tactic has worked very well and they have achieved a large amount of well targeted traffic as a result. Each mini-site is different but then in the nav, if you want to view prices or go to the booking page, that then links to what at first appears to be their main site. However, you then notice that the URL is actually situated on the mini-site. What they have done is 'framed' the main site so that it appears exactly the same even when navigating through this exact replica site. Checking the code, there is almost nothing there - in fact there is actually no content at all. Below the head, there is a piece of code: <frameset rows="*" framespacing=0 frameborder=0> <frame src="[http://www.example.com](view-source:http://www.yellowskips.com/)" frameborder=0 marginwidth=0 marginheight=0> <noframes>Your browser does not support frames. Click [here](http://www.example.com) to view.noframes> frameset> Given that main site content does not appear to show in the source code, do we have an issue with duplicate content? This issue is that these 'referrals' are showing in Analytics, despite the fact that the code does not appear in the source, which is slightly confusing for me. They have done this without consultation and I'm very concerned that this could potentially be creating duplicate content of their ENTIRE main site on dozens of mini-sites. I should also add that there are no links to the mini-sites from the main site, so if you guys advise that this is creating duplicate content, I would not be worried about creating a link-wheel if I advise them to link directly to the main site rather than the framed pages. Thanks!
Technical SEO | | RiceMedia0