How deadly is content duplication for website SEO

What is duplicate content?

Duplicate content is all content that’s out there on multiple locations on or off your website. It usually lives on a distinct computer address and typically even on a distinct domain. Most duplicate content happens accidentally or is that the results of a sub-par technical implementation. as an example, your website may well be out there on each web and non-www or hypertext transfer protocol and HTTPS — or each at a similar time, the horror! or even your CMS uses excessive dynamic computer address parameters that confuse search engines. Even your AMP pages may count as duplicate content if not joined properly. Duplicate content is all over.

Google’s definition of duplicate content is as follows:

“Duplicate content typically refers to substantive blocks of content inside or across domains that either utterly match different content or are appreciably similar. Mostly, this can be not deceptive in origin.”

That last half is very important. If you scrape, copy and spin existing content — Google calls this derived content — with the intention of deceiving the computer program to urge a better ranking you’ll air dangerous ground.

Google says this sort of malicious intent may trigger associate degree action:

“Duplicate content on a {site|website|web website} isn’t grounds for action on it site unless it seems that the intent of the duplicate content is to be deceptive and manipulate computer program results”

Google has some nice tips for locating duplicate content on your website in his DIY Duplicate content check and for what to try and do if somebody copies your content. Google’s documentation is additionally a goldmine for operating with duplicate content.

Duplicate content vs. derived content vs. skinny content

The topic of duplicate content confuses tons of individuals. For Google, most duplicate content incorporates a technical origin, however it’ll additionally check out the content itself. “I have 2 URLs for a similar article, that one ought to I choose?” whereas most regular individuals can most likely consider items of comparable content that seem elsewhere on a website. “I have used this piece of text in many different places, is that bad?” this can be all duplicate content, except for determinative rankings, search engines build a distinction between duplicate content, derived content and skinny content.

Your duplicate content may classify as derived content if you utilize associate degree existing text and rehash it quickly to apply it on your website. It doesn’t matter if you provides it a bit spin or place in a very few keywords, this behavior isn’t acceptable. give one or two of skinny content pages — pages that have very little to no quality content — and you’re in dangerous territory. {site|website|web website} quality is a difficulty and these ways will bring serious damage to your site. bear in mind Panda?

Don’t block duplicate content on your website

Google is pretty good at discovering and handling duplicate content. The computer program is wise enough to work out what to try and do with most of the duplicate content it finds. If it finds multiple versions of a page it’ll fold these into the version it finds best — in most cases, this can be the initial article/page. What it will want, though, is complete access to those URLs. If you block Googlebot in your robots.txt from travel these URLs, it cannot figure this stuff out by itself and you’ll run the chance of Google treating these pages as separate instances. Here are one or two of stuff you ought to do:

• Allow robots to crawl these URLs
• Mark the content as duplicate by mistreatment rel=canonical (read additional concerning this below)
• Use Google’s computer address Parameter Handling tool to see however parameters ought to be handled
• Use 301 redirects to send users and crawlers to the canonical computer address

There’s additional you’ll do to fight duplicate content on your website as Joost describes in his article on duplicate content: causes and solutions.

Use rel=canonical!

One of the most essential tools in your duplicate content fighting toolkit is rel=”canonical” . you’ll use this piece of code to see what the initial computer address is of a chunk of content, one thing we tend to decision the canonical computer address. we’ve got a wonderful final guide to rel=”canonical” that shows you everything there’s to understand concerning it.

Focus on original, contemporary and authoritative content

Another tool in your arsenal to fight duplicate, derived and commonplace content ar your writing skills. Google is targeted on quality. it’s continually on the lookout for the most effective doable piece of content that matches the users intent best. Your goal mustn’t be to create a fast buck however to go away an enduring impression. be careful for skinny content and confirm to create it original and of prime quality.

The same goes for similar content on your website. We’ve talked concerning keyword cannibalization before associate degreed this can be an extension of that. Folding many comparable posts into one can do far better results, each in terms of rankings also as fighting duplicate content.

Here’s Google’s wrestle similar content:

“Minimize similar content: If you’ve got several pages that ar similar, contemplate increasing every page or consolidating the pages into one. as an example, if you’ve got a travel website with separate pages for 2 cities, however a similar info on each pages, {you may|you’ll|you may} either merge the pages into one page concerning each cities otherwise you could expand every page to contain distinctive content concerning every town.”

Duplicate content is all over — understand what to try and do concerning it

Ex-Googler Matt Cutts once magnificently aforementioned that two hundredth to half-hour of the online consists of duplicate content. whereas I’m unsure these numbers ar still accurate; duplicate content continues to pop on each website. This doesn’t need to be unhealthy news. Fix what you’ll and don’t attempt to flip duplicate content and its siblings derived content and skinny content into a viable SEO strategy.