Duplicate content refers to any content found in more than one location on the internet, but it is also frequent for the very same content to appear on different URLs on the same website because of technological concerns.
Duplicate content can hurt your site’s SEO since it makes it harder for crawlers to find your site, causes confusion for search engines, and lowers your ranks.
The good news is that we have got your back!
Here, you will learn how to fix 11 of the most frequent issues with duplicate content so that you may improve your site’s search engine rankings and enhance your user engagement.
What Exactly Is Duplicate Content?
The term “duplicate content” refers to the occurrence of the same piece of material at several URLs, whether they are on your site or not.
Presenting the same material on many URLs is considered to be duplicate content by search engines.
What Is The Impact Of Duplicate Content On Your SEO
We will go into more detail about the negative effects duplicate content has on SEO later on in the article.
I will start by listing the top 5 reasons why duplicate content hurts your search engine optimization (SEO).
- Diverse URLs displaying identical content dilutes the value of links
- You have spent all of your crawl budgets.
- Visitors to your website have a bad time using it.
- Search engines are baffled when they crawl and index your site because of the complexity.
- Inadequate chance to target further search phrases
Myth Debunked: Duplicated Content Does Not Cause Any Seo Harm.
It is a frequent SEO misconception that duplicate content is punished by Google. According to Google’s Senior Webmaster Trends Analyst John Mueller, this is not the case.
In spite of this, Google often prioritises and displays the most suitable page on its SERPs by removing pages with duplicate content.
Since the SERP exposure would be reduced, you may lose some valuable visitors if you have duplicate content on numerous URLs or shared across your website and another domain name domain.
How To Solve The 13 Biggest Duplicate Content Problems
Duplicate material can occur for a variety of reasons. Rather than being the result of malicious copying, this is more often the result of technical problems or an accident.
When it comes to dealing with content duplication, there are a variety of methods to choose from. The following is a list of the 13 most common difficulties with duplicate content and how to fix them.
1. Canonicalization Of The Domain
When your homepage has numerous URLs, you may find duplicate content as a result of homepage canonicalization. As a result, your homepage may be accessible via any of the following URLs:
- com
- example.com
- com/index.html
- example.com/index.html
For example, if you do not tell Google which subdomain you prefer, it may index each URL as a separate page, eroding the link equity between them.
Double Content Due To Homepage Canonicalization Has A Solution?
Ans: Get your preferred URL set up as a 301 redirect for your homepage.
2. Title Synchronization
When an external domain republishes content from your website, it is known as content syndication, or syndicating (i.e., third-party publications and channels).
When done incorrectly, syndication of the material may be mistaken for plagiarism by search engines like Google.
There is a risk that Google may rank an external site greater than the original source, especially if it has a better domain authority. As a result, you may see a decline in the volume of traffic coming to your website.
Duplicate Content Caused By Content Syndication: What Can Be Done?
Ans: A canonical link is preferable if the original article is republished by a third-party website.
Alternatively, if you want to copy information from another site, you might want to think about coming up with your own original content that focuses on similar keywords.
3. Capitalization Of The Url
Internet Tips: Understanding URLs
This means that even if you use the same URL with and without capital letters, search engines will treat them as two separate pages. In this case, URL capitalization irregularities across your website would be considered to be redundant content.
For instance:
https://www.example.com/page1.html
https://www.example.com/Page1.html
4. Subdomains
Subdomains are treated as independent sites by search engines, so the traffic and rankings of your top-level domain are not affected by the data on your subdomains.
As a result, having subdomains may result in the creation of content that overlaps with your root domain’s content. When navigating subdomains, you may come across a situation like this:
- The user arrives at www.example.com, the home page of the primary domain.
- Follow by going to blog.example.com from the home page:
- The visitor then goes on the About Us page at blog.example.com/aboutus.html, which is accessible via the subdomain. However, the root domain, www.example.com/aboutus.html, contains the same material.
What is the answer to the problem of content being duplicated on subdomains?
Ans: The recommended subdomain for that page should be 301 redirected. Canonical tags can also be used to tell search engines which page they should index.
6. Duplication Between Http And Https
Websites with multiple network headers (http:// and https://) are regarded as independent pages, and so are chapters with and without the “www” prefix. As a result, you could end up with four URLs pointing to the same page.
There may be concerns with duplicating content if search engines are able to access several URLs.
Because of protocol-induced duplicate material, a user’s navigation could appear like this:
- Users should begin at http://www.example.com/home/
- When a user clicks on a page that asks them to enter their personal information (PIFI), they are redirected to an encrypted page (https://www.example.com/pifi.html).
- If the user decides not to fill out the information, they will be redirected to the homepage at https://www.example.com, which contains the same content as the unencrypted page with the seemingly identical URL (http://www.example.com).
Duplicate content induced by HTTP vs. HTTPS duplication: Explanation
Ans: Ensure that all of your URLs are consistent.
Choose whether you want to use the “www” prefix or not, and whether or not you want to use HTTPS. Most search engines, including Google, now favour HTTPS when it comes to search engine optimization. Google considers URL changes to be site migrations if you are moving from HTTP to HTTPS.
Set up 301 redirects to direct all URL variants to your new preferred domain to complete the switch.
7. Trailing slashes
‘/’ is the forward-slash that comes after ‘/’ at the end of a web address (or URL). Two distinct URLs, for example, can be distinguished by the absence of a trailing slash in the URL.
https://www.example.com
https://www.example.com/
How do you deal with content duplication caused by the trailing slash’s inconsistencies?
Ans: Creating two URLs, one with and one without the following slash should be avoided at all costs.
Keep your internal links and sitemap constant and stick to one version. Set up a 301 redirect to your chosen URL if you currently have two versions of the same URL on your site.
8. Parameters In The Url
It is common for URL parameters to be used to help sort products on a page, track user sessions, attach affiliate coupons, and more.
If you want to improve your page’s user experience, you will need to use URL parameters that are not crawled or indexed by search engines to accomplish so.
The sequence in which your parameters appear is also critical, especially when working with URL parameters that restrict the content of a page to a specific set of options. For example, the following URLs would be identical:
www.example.com/book?color=yellow&dog=3
www.example.com/book?dog=3&color=yellow.
Is There A Solution For Duplicate Content Caused By Uri Parameter Inconsistencies?
Ans: In order to begin, determine which parameters will be indexed. Due to the nature of your organisation, this may necessitate some keyword research in order to zero in on the most pertinent variables.
Insert a canonical tag to point to the page that should be crawled so that search engines do not miss out on important information.
It is also possible to use Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools to indicate your parameters and their intended uses, effectively advising which variables to ignore or index.
9. Websites Are Becoming More And More Global
Duplication of the content may occur when a corporation develops globally or creates localised content for foreign markets by reusing content from their root domain (www.example.com) (www.example.co.uk).
Why Do Websites Go Global? What Is the Alternative to the Problem of Duplicate Content?
Ans: Content should always be customized and tailored, not merely translated, for your target market, regardless of language. In the event that you do not want to create a distinct regional site, then you would be better off spending your time and money expanding the global footprint of your main domain.
Remember to use halflings, as well as linguistic and location retargeting, when establishing localised versions of your website in order to increase conversions.
10. Pages For Tags And Categories
Tags and category pages are common on blog sites, making it easier for visitors to find the information they are looking for.
There are a few topics and tags that search engines may consider to have too many duplicates.
What is the solution to the problem of content duplication caused by the use of tags and categories?
Ans: You can instruct Google not to index certain categories and tags by adding the meta robots tag “noindex” to the URLs.
11. Versions For Printing
Print versions are replicas of a webpage’s content without the visuals or stylistic elements that are commonly featured in online news sources.
Printing the page would often go to a separate URL (e.g, www-example-com/news-today) with the print edition of the page, rather than a direct print link on the page.
As a result, search engines may perceive the print and original version to be identical on two separate pages, leading to confusion for users.
What Can Be Done To Prevent Content Duplication Due To Print Versions?
Ans: Canonicals point to the original version of your page, even if the URL or parameters have been changed for the print version of your website.
Conclusion
That is all there is to it!
You should be able to improve your site’s search engine rankings and user experience by addressing the 11 most prevalent issues with duplicate content, along with an awareness of their causes.
Create original content and keep a simple site structure that both visitors and search engines can readily grasp if you want to prevent duplicating content altogether.