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Avoid duplicate content ding for information appearing on every product page

by Rob12
8 replies
  • SEO
    • |
I'm trying to find the best way to deal with content that currently appears on every product page of an ecommerce site. The content is for shipping information and it comes up as a lightbox when a link is clicked. However, the content of the lightbox is part of the html on each page. (I think it's using javascript to generate the popup when someone clicks on the link.) Duplicate content testing sites are identifying it as duplicate content.

I would like to tell googlebots to only look at it in one area to make sure it's not counted as duplicate content. Ideally, I'd like something similar to a canonical tag that can be used for only a portion of a page. I do not want to block or hide the content as this article indicates google doesn't approve of that: https://support.google.com/webmaster...er/66359?hl=en I also want to keep using the lightbox so users stay on the product page.

I've spent a while searching for a way to do this, but no luck. I'm pretty new though, so I'm hoping I just missed something.
#appearing #avoid #content #ding #duplicate #information #page #product
  • Profile picture of the author Thomas Owenn
    Hi guys

    Just keen to gauge your opinion on a quandary that has been bugging me for a while now.

    I work on an ecommerce website that sells around 20,000 products.

    A lot of the product SKUs are exactly the same in terms of how they work and what they offer the customer. Often it is 1 variable that changes. For example, the product may be available in 200 different sizes and 2 colours (therefore 400 SKUs available to purchase).

    Theese SKUs have been uploaded to the website as individual entires so that the customer can purchase them, with the only difference between the listings likely to be key signifiers such as colour, size, price, part number etc.

    Moz has flagged these pages up as duplicate content.

    Now I have worked on websites long enough now to know that duplicate content is never good from an SEO perspective, but I am struggling to work out an effective way in which I can display such a large number of almost identical products without falling foul of the duplicate content issue.

    If you wouldnt mind sharing any ideas or approaches that have been taken by you guys that would be great!
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  • Profile picture of the author MikeFriedman
    I really wouldn't worry about it. There are tons of sites that have content repeated throughout the site, such as addresses, contact info, etc.

    Even Amazon has a lot of "dulicate" content.

    Google really doesn't care.
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  • Profile picture of the author dave_hermansen
    Mike's right. There are a whole lot of misconceptions out there about duplicate content. Read this - The Myth of the Duplicate Content Penalty
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  • Profile picture of the author yukon
    Banned
    Originally Posted by Rob12 View Post

    I'm trying to find the best way to deal with content that currently appears on every product page of an ecommerce site. The content is for shipping information and it comes up as a lightbox when a link is clicked.

    I doubt you're trying to rank for shipping information keywords so it doesn't matter.
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  • Profile picture of the author Rob12
    Thank you Mike, Dave, and yukon for the responses! Really appreciate it. I think I wasn't completely clear with my concern in the initial post. It's not simply that it's duplicate content. The shipping info is quite long and detailed, often 5 times as long as the product description. In addition to concerns about duplicate content, I'm also worried that Google will think the page is about shipping and not the product I'm trying to rank for.

    Is anyone aware of a way to signal to Google what is going on. Like a canonical tag for only a portion of the page? Maybe this doesn't exist?
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    • Profile picture of the author paulgl
      Originally Posted by Rob12 View Post

      I'm also worried that Google will think the page is about shipping and not the product I'm trying to rank for.

      Is anyone aware of a way to signal to Google what is going on. Like a canonical tag for only a portion of the page? Maybe this doesn't exist?
      If your shipping nonsense screws up your webpage, it's Google that's not stupid.

      There's no way google would ever think a page is about shipping on an even semi-decent product page.

      Are you people for real?

      Paul
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      If you were disappointed in your results today, lower your standards tomorrow.

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    • Profile picture of the author MikeFriedman
      Originally Posted by Rob12 View Post

      Thank you Mike, Dave, and yukon for the responses! Really appreciate it. I think I wasn't completely clear with my concern in the initial post. It's not simply that it's duplicate content. The shipping info is quite long and detailed, often 5 times as long as the product description. In addition to concerns about duplicate content, I'm also worried that Google will think the page is about shipping and not the product I'm trying to rank for.

      Is anyone aware of a way to signal to Google what is going on. Like a canonical tag for only a portion of the page? Maybe this doesn't exist?
      If it really is that big of a concern to you, make one page with the shipping information and link to it at the end of the product page.

      Or if you really feel it has to be on the page, iframe it in.

      I would just do the first option though.
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  • Profile picture of the author dave_hermansen
    The other thing you could do is make the text of the shipping information an image. That way, there are no words related to shipping on every page.
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