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Duplicate content on multiple pages

by frambles
11 replies
  • SEO
    • |
On my website I have about 800 categories and on each category page I am adding in a paragraph of text (at the top of every page - each page is static/not dynamically created) explaining how the products can be used. The paragraph of text will be the same on each page, apart from one keyword which will change for each.

Is this a bad idea in terms of seo?
#content #duplicate #multiple #pages
  • Profile picture of the author Kay King
    Very bad idea - not worth pursuing. It is the definition of "duplicate content". It's an old tactic that Google caught onto years ago.
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    • Profile picture of the author frambles
      Hi Kay, thanks for your reply. Do you think just a line of text is bad? Maybe just to say "Cat Sound Effects" and change "Cat" to the specific word per category page for each page?

      Surely some duplicate content can exist if very small? Pages with dynamically created pages for search results etc obviously have some duplicates I guess?

      Thanks
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  • Profile picture of the author frambles
    I think I have answered my own question there.... I guess it won't be duplicated as the keywords will change
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    • Profile picture of the author danr62
      Originally Posted by frambles View Post

      I think I have answered my own question there.... I guess it won't be duplicated as the keywords will change
      I'm a bit confused here. Are you only going to have one paragraph on each page? If so, changing one word out of one paragraph will still leave you with 99% duplicate content across 800 pages on your site.

      Or will there be unique content below the introductory paragraph? Or maybe a wordpress loop for the category archive?
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      • Profile picture of the author cashp0wer
        Only changing the keywords in one paragraph will definitely be duplicate content and you want to stay as far away from this as you can. Write a different paragraph for each page making them all completely unique. More work? Yes, but it works much better.
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      • Profile picture of the author frambles
        Originally Posted by danr62 View Post

        I'm a bit confused here. Are you only going to have one paragraph on each page? If so, changing one word out of one paragraph will still leave you with 99% duplicate content across 800 pages on your site.

        Or will there be unique content below the introductory paragraph? Or maybe a wordpress loop for the category archive?
        Sorry, I mean if I was to not put a paragraph of text in, but instead just a line of text to say "free keyword that changes sound effects" on each page then the duplicate issue is avoided. I am going to write a line of unique text for each top level category and then leave the sub categories
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        • Profile picture of the author danr62
          Originally Posted by frambles View Post

          Sorry, I mean if I was to not put a paragraph of text in, but instead just a line of text to say "free keyword that changes sound effects" on each page then the duplicate issue is avoided. I am going to write a line of unique text for each top level category and then leave the sub categories
          Even then you still have 75% duplicate content. Not advisable. And if you only have one line of text the SEO value will be negligible anyway.
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          • Profile picture of the author Kay King
            You asked the question - and I answered. Your question was "paragraph" - not "line".

            I would create a unique paragraph for each page/keyword - because I wouldn't want to waste my time doing something that wouldn't work well.

            If the question is "can I get by with it with just one line" - probably.

            If the question is "is this a good way to build my site" - my answer remains "no".:p

            edit: yes to the RSS feeds - but if your site content is repetitive/boring, those links can also take visitors to a site with more substance
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  • Profile picture of the author randomsoftwaregroup
    Will not even start the duplicate content debate, and the sites we have with 100,000's of pages. But one thing that will help is adding some RSS feeds at the bottom of your pages. Take the term you are placing into each paragraph and use it as the RSS news feed term. This way each page will have different different content and unique outbound links.

    This site is 100% dynamic pages with different geo-targets with news feeds and has not been doing too bad.

    And been going for a couple years now. White hat? Nope. Works? It can.
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    • Profile picture of the author frambles
      Originally Posted by randomsoftwaregroup View Post

      This site is 100% dynamic pages with different geo-targets with news feeds and has not been doing too bad.

      And been going for a couple years now. White hat? Nope. Works? It can.
      Thanks for that. I will look into this, love the idea of it. Thank you
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  • Profile picture of the author randomsoftwaregroup
    On the feeds, lets just say after a decade + being the white hat guy fighting Google, I have slipping into the "dark side" on a few things ;-)
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