NightshiftDirect

Glossary

Duplicate content

Duplicate content is the same or nearly the same content reachable at more than one web address, whether the copies sit on your own site or on different sites.

By NightshiftDirect Research. Published . Updated .

What Google says about it

Google lists ordinary reasons a site ends up with duplicates: an HTTP and an HTTPS version of the same pages, separate versions for phones and computers, sorting and filtering options that each create a new address, and a demo copy of the site accidentally left open to crawlers (Google Search Central).

Its verdict on that kind is calm. Google says some duplicate content on a site is normal and is not a violation of its spam policies. The cost is practical: people may wonder which of two matching pages is the right one, and your results in search can be harder to track (Google Search Central).

Which copy Google shows

When Google finds pages that look the same, it groups them, picks one as the main version and crawls that one most. You can state which version you prefer, and Google calls that preference a hint, not a rule (Google Search Central).

Some ways of stating it carry more weight. Google treats a redirect or a rel="canonical" tag as a strong signal of the version you want, and a sitemap entry as a weak one (Google Search Central). When a copy has no reason to exist, redirect it to the page you are keeping, so visitors end up there as well.

The kind Google treats as spam

Copying turns into a problem when pages are made to catch searches. Google's spam policies describe doorway abuse, which includes pages aimed at one region or city after another that all funnel visitors to the same page, and pages so alike that they sit closer to search results than to a structure a visitor can browse (Google Search Central).

A town page should carry something true of that town and no other. When all it changes from one town to the next is the name, it fits the pattern the policy describes.

Accidental copies, and the fix for each

Your site may answer at both http and https, or at both the www and the bare address, so every page can be reached at two addresses or more. The free scan checks this as T4. The fix is a permanent redirect that lands every visitor on one https address.

A page can also name the wrong address as its main copy: its canonical tag points to another site, to an address that redirects or to a page that returns an error. That is T3, and the fix is a canonical tag naming the page's own final address.

Another is a staging or test copy of the site left open to the public. The scan does not look for one, so ask whoever built your site where the test copy lives and whether anyone outside can reach it.

Text borrowed from a supplier or a franchise

Product descriptions supplied by a manufacturer and service pages handed down by a franchise are duplicate content across sites: the same paragraphs appear on every dealer or branch that uses them. They say nothing about you in particular. Add what only you can say, such as who does the work and what a customer can expect on the day.

What the free scan checks

Questions

Will Google penalize my site for duplicate content?

Not for the ordinary kind. Google says some duplication on a site is normal and outside its spam policies, and it simply picks one version to show (Google Search Central). Pages copied to catch searches in town after town are different: Google lists that pattern under doorway abuse (Google Search Central).

Can one service description serve every town page?

Only as a small part of each page. A shared paragraph about how you do the work is fine when the rest of the page is about the town. When the shared paragraph is the whole page, merge those towns into one page that lists them all.

What should I do with old pages that repeat newer ones?

Redirect each old page to the newer one that covers the same ground. Visitors land on the page you want kept, and Google treats a redirect as a strong signal of which version is the main one (Google Search Central). Keep an old page only if it says something the new one does not.

Where this fits in our work

We handle this as part of SEO: A written plan built from your own Search Console and Analytics data, then the fixes and pages that plan calls for, month by month.

Related reading

Related terms

Sources