How to Successfully Tackle Duplicate Content Issues
Duplicate content can be a headache for brands and businesses online. It negatively impacts page rankings and can even lead to penalties by the search engine. As a digital marketing specialist, I’ve seen several cases of duplicate content over the years and different ways that they can be solved. Let’s explore each of these solutions and see which can be applied to your situation.
1. Canonical Tag
If you’ve identified duplicate pages on your website, then one way to solve this issue is to tell the search engine which page is the original. You can do this by adding the “rel=canonical” tag.
Example: An e-commerce website sells a red summer dress that is available in sizes S, M, and L. The problem is that the website created a separate URL for each size, even though the product is the same. By using the canonical tag, the search engine can easily distinguish between the original and duplicate pages.
2. 301 Redirects
Redirecting a duplicate page to the original one is another method. Doing so increases the relevancy of the right page and ensures that the rank will be high too.
Example: A website’s homepage can have three different URLs: https://website.com/, http://home.website.com, and www.website.com. Due to this, organic traffic is now divided between the three and has impacted your Google rankings. However, if the second and third URLs are redirected to the first one, the search engine will send all traffic to the correct page, ensuring higher ranking and overcoming duplication issues.
3. Combine Pages
Duplicate does not always mean a ‘word for word’ match. Sometimes, similar pages can also be labeled as duplicates. Removing or redirecting may not be feasible, so I would suggest combining the pages instead.
Example: A gift website has two pages that talk about ‘Best Winter Gifts’ and ‘Top Christmas Gifts.’ However, both have the same information. In this case, it would be wise to compile the data of both pages into one. This will help make your page more informational—hence, more valuable—to readers and further improve rankings.
4. Unique Content
Sometimes consolidating pages may not be the right step. However, that doesn’t mean you should leave duplicate pages as is on your site. The best thing to do in this case is to revisit your page and add unique content.
Example: Using the example above, the gift website owner could make specific product recommendations related to the winter season specifically. While in the other article, they could be more specific and give gift suggestions for each age group.
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