Duplicate Content

Having duplicate content on your website can result in it being effectively ‘blacklisted’ from search engine results. Duplicate content is an important issue to understand because often websites will generate it quite unwittingly and innocently, yet it can really damage your online business.

What is duplicate content and why is it dangerous?

'Duplicate content' basically refers to content at different website addresses or URLs that is substantively similar. Search engines don’t like duplicate content because they don't want to show people lots of search result pages that are essentially the same. If your website is considered to have duplicate content, search engines such as Google and Yahoo can penalise it and not give it priority ranking on search results. Of course, this can have serious consequences for any website or online business.

To avoid the pitfalls of duplicate content, contact an experienced web strategist such as Alkemi.

How does duplicate content occur?

Duplicate content can occur deliberately or simply by accident. If you are unaware of what qualifies as ‘duplicate content’ it can be quite easy to include it on many web pages without even realising what you are doing.

Here are some typical instances where duplicate content occurs:

• Product descriptions – many e-commerce sites generate duplicate content by using a ‘generic’ product description, usually supplied from the manufacturer.
• Alternative print pages – some sites offer alternative pages formatted for printing. If these pages are not ‘blocked’ from search engine indexes they are considered to have duplicate content.
• Multiple URLs for one page – search engines read URLs rather than pages. If multiple URLs point to the same page it is seen as duplicate content.
• Common elements shared on multiple pages – search engines take note of visible content, as well as title and meta tags. These pages can be deemed to have duplicate content if they are not substantively different.
• Mirror sites – where one site mirrors the content of another exactly, it is considered duplicate content.

How to avoid duplicate content

Duplicate content is a trap that many websites can easily fall into, for a number of reasons, and it really can be ‘money down the drain’. Avoiding duplicate content comes down to firstly being aware of the potential ways it can happen on your website, and then having a strategy to ensure your content doesn’t break any of the ‘rules’.

Having a well planned website content strategy will stop duplicate content sabotaging your chances of success online. A content strategy is a key part of search engine optimisation (SEO) – the process of tailoring your website to get to the top of search engine result lists.

If you need your website to provide a good return on investment, then a SEO strategy is a business essential. Alkemi has over ten years’ experience in designing and implementing SEO strategies for all types of online businesses, and our results are impressive. Contact us today and find out more about our SEO services and how we can help you.