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Duplicate Issue Or Not?

by make-money-online
18 replies
  • SEO
    • |
Hi

I have been trying to figure this out and after much research, I am still not 100% sure of the right way to do this:


mysite.com is my site per say

mysite.com/keyword is all about "keyword"

the same exact content is shown on
mysite.com/category/keyword
and
mysite.com/tag/keyword

This makers for 3 duplicates for each article I post.

I clearly see this in my webmasters tools.

Is this ok???

Thanks in advance
#duplicate #issue
  • Profile picture of the author sherylmartin
    Hi, I am not quite sure what Google's stance on this is, but here is how you can easily resolve the issue. Using Wordpress SEO by Yoast (I am assuming that you are using Wordpress), you can set your tag and category archives to not be indexed. This will stop the search engines from indexing the content in your category and tag archives, but it won't remove them from your site.

    Sheryl
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    • Profile picture of the author MikeFriedman
      Originally Posted by sherylmartin View Post

      Hi, I am not quite sure what Google's stance on this is, but here is how you can easily resolve the issue. Using Wordpress SEO by Yoast (I am assuming that you are using Wordpress), you can set your tag and category archives to not be indexed. This will stop the search engines from indexing the content in your category and tag archives, but it won't remove them from your site.

      Sheryl

      Do not noindex the category pages. Tags are worthless. I wouldn't even allow them on most sites. But do not noindex categories.

      Just make sure you are using canonical tags and it will take care of any duplicate content issues.
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      • Profile picture of the author Kevin Maguire
        Originally Posted by MikeFriedman View Post

        Do not noindex the category pages. Tags are worthless. I wouldn't even allow them on most sites. But do not noindex categories.

        Just make sure you are using canonical tags and it will take care of any duplicate content issues.
        Why should you not no-index the /cats/ Mike?
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        • Profile picture of the author MikeFriedman
          Originally Posted by Kevin Maguire View Post

          Why should you not no-index the /cats/ Mike?
          Because it is easy to rank category pages. It's a great page to use if you are trying to get multiple listings in the same SERP.

          As long as you are properly using canonical tags, I just never have seen a benefit to using noindex on category pages.
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          • Profile picture of the author Kevin Maguire
            Originally Posted by MikeFriedman View Post

            Because it is easy to rank /Cat/ pages. It's a great page to use if you are trying to get multiple listings in the same SERP.

            As long as you are properly using canonical tags, I just never have seen a benefit to using noindex on category pages.
            I hope I corrected it for you...Either that or you really are the Quan of SEO

            I'm really starting to hate wordpress. Its the most unfriendly, SEO friendly platform I've ever seen out of the box. Way too many mods to make for a 2yo like me to deal with.

            Either I drop WP for future shots, or I start ordering some of Yukon's site building Fiverr GiGs..
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            • Profile picture of the author MikeFriedman
              Originally Posted by Kevin Maguire View Post

              I hope I corrected it for you...Either that or you really are the Quan of SEO

              I'm really starting to hate wordpress. Its the most unfriendly, SEO friendly platform I've ever seen out of the box. Way too many mods to make for a 2yo like me to deal with.

              Either I drop WP for future shots, or I start ordering some of Yukon's site building Fiverr GiGs..
              Thanks. Yeah, my brain was toast when I typed that.

              Wordpress is a piece of crap for the most part, but don't say that around here. IM'ers are brainwashed into believing it is the greatest CMS ever developed.
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            • Profile picture of the author yukon
              Banned
              Originally Posted by Kevin Maguire View Post

              Either I drop WP for future shots, or I start ordering some of Yukon's site building Fiverr GiGs..



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  • Profile picture of the author ElusiveEnd
    As Mike mentioned above, don't bother using tags at all (but if you must, just noindex them).
    If your using an SEO plugin it should be default add canonical tags to each post which prevents any duplicate content issues.
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  • Profile picture of the author Laubster
    Sheryl is right. It's also an issue when building blog network links: all those additional pages get created and indexed, leading to way more anchor links pointing to your URL than originally intended.
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  • Profile picture of the author webdevpro
    Either noindex the category and tags archives or if you want to use them, make sure the tags won't clash with the category names else this may cause duplicate contents warning (as you are already getting).
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  • Profile picture of the author affilorama-portal
    You need to run your site in Webmaster tools and check if your pages display duplicate content. If it shows on GWMT, you need to apply canonization on these pages. By doing this you are telling Google that this page one here and page two here are just the same pages. Then when Google understands that, it will just treat your pages as ONE. Issue resolved

    And yes, just like Sheryl mentioned, you may use a Wordpress plugin like SEO Yoast to apply canonization.
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    • Profile picture of the author make-money-online
      Originally Posted by affilorama-portal View Post

      You need to run your site in Webmaster tools and check if your pages display duplicate content. If it shows on GWMT, you need to apply canonization on these pages. By doing this you are telling Google that this page one here and page two here are just the same pages. Then when Google understands that, it will just treat your pages as ONE. Issue resolved

      And yes, just like Sheryl mentioned, you may use a Wordpress plugin like SEO Yoast to apply canonization.
      webmasters tools says duplicate titles

      whether that has an impact on rankings or not, that's the question.
      And if it does, how do you fix it?

      It is wordpress btw
      Signature

      nothing here he he he

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      • Profile picture of the author yukon
        Banned
        Originally Posted by make-money-online View Post

        webmasters tools says duplicate titles
        Most likely one of the two pages is buried in Supplemental SERPs where traffic will never find the page.
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        • Profile picture of the author make-money-online
          Originally Posted by yukon View Post

          Most likely one of the two pages is buried in Supplemental SERPs where traffic will never find the page.
          so title duplicate should not be an issue, leave it as duplicate?
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          nothing here he he he

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          • Profile picture of the author yukon
            Banned
            Originally Posted by make-money-online View Post

            so title duplicate should not be an issue, leave it as duplicate?
            I would make unique page titles for every single page on the site.
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      • Profile picture of the author affilorama-portal
        Originally Posted by make-money-online View Post

        webmasters tools says duplicate titles

        whether that has an impact on rankings or not, that's the question.
        And if it does, how do you fix it?

        It is wordpress btw
        Having duplicate titles will have an impact in your ranking as I have previously said, Google may treat these pages as duplicate content.

        If these pages (same title tags) have the same content in them, then you have to apply canonical tags.

        More about canonization at this page here: WordPress Canonical URLs : How They Work!

        You can solve duplicate pages by installing a wordpress plugin with canonical feature like SEO Yoast.

        BUT if these title tags have different content in them, you just need to replace a different title tag for each to make them unique to each other to avoid confusion when Google crawls your website pages.
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        • Profile picture of the author make-money-online
          Originally Posted by affilorama-portal View Post

          Having duplicate titles will have an impact in your ranking as I have previously said, Google may treat these pages as duplicate content.

          If these pages (same title tags) have the same content in them, then you have to apply canonical tags.

          More about canonization at this page here: WordPress Canonical URLs : How They Work!

          You can solve duplicate pages by installing a wordpress plugin with canonical feature like SEO Yoast.

          BUT if these title tags have different content in them, you just need to replace a different title tag for each to make them unique to each other to avoid confusion when Google crawls your website pages.

          thank you thank you
          Signature

          nothing here he he he

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  • Profile picture of the author seonutshell
    Good plugin for wordpress is SEO no duplicate. Does all your rel canonical tags automatically.
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