Duplicate Content Question

by 23 replies
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Hi,

I started my first niche site pretty much not knowing what I was doing ... and this led to me creating two separate pages that I was trying to rank separately, which contained some of the same content.

Let me give a (not real) example:

Page A: "best toothbrush for men"

Page B: "best toothbrush for women"

I created both pages which contained reviews of toothbrushes -- any many of them were the same toothbrushes, with the exact same reviews, word for word, on both pages.

Obviously this is not smart, but again -- I didn't know what I was doing. But here's the thing -- both pages started to rank, and pretty well -- both in the top 10 for their KW. And this was for about 4+ months straight. So I figured it probably wasn't a problem after all.

Then, today -- one of those pages fell entirely out of the SERPS. No message in Google Webmasters. The page is still indexed in Google. And my other page (nor any of my other pages) have not been effected.

Do you think it's reasonable to assume that this is a duplicate content issue?

Would it really take Google 7 months to flag this (that's how long the pages have been up)?

And if I re-wrote those reviews entirely from scratch, making them 100% unique, would it fix the problem?

Cheers.
#search engine optimization #content #duplicate #question
  • One more detail -- I just looked at the two pages.

    5 out of the 10 reviews are duplicates from page 1 to page 2.
    • [1] reply
    • It sounds as though the page in question has been moved to the land of supplemental results. That's what happens with identical content.

      If you care to learn more about it you can always google "supplemental pages".

      There's quite a bit published about it.
  • Banned
    Duplicate means the same, as in copy/paste.

    You can tone down the page titles a bit but don't stray too far from the original keyword/s:

    Examples:

    • Best toothbrush for men
    • Best toothbrush for women
    • Best toothbrush for men
    • Top toothbrush for women 2014

    The keyword best & top are usually interchangeable, you'll have to test it on your own keyword phrase to find out.

    Related forum thread about interchangeable keywords:
  • Yes, supplemental indeed. Basically what it does it choose which one of the duplicates gets more love, then Google bot decides that, that particular page is the original piece and puts the rest behind its tail.
  • Banned
    It's most likely only going in Supplemental SERPs If it's actually a duplicate page, having the same content and/or swapping out a root keyword (ex: man/woman) in the content would basically be duplicate but that would be sloppy for SEO & low quality for traffic.
  • Thank you all.

    Do you think re-writing those 5 reviews which are duplicate (which is ~40% of the page's content) will allow the page to resume its ranking, where it had been for 5+ months?
    • [1] reply
    • Banned
      Your saying duplicate but is it actually duplicate, are you copy/pasting from one page to the next?

      Five months is a long time, If the page is buried you have nothing to lose no matter what you do.
      • [ 1 ] Thanks
      • [1] reply
  • I have been using spun content, but it is spun very well and I am having very good results with it. I think it really depends on how unique your content really is.
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  • As Google, Bing and other search engines become more sophisticated, they are rewarding websites who present only quality, unique content to their search bots for indexation.

    You can use canonical tags to tell search engines that filter pages are duplicate versions of the original category page.
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  • Personally I would leave the pages as they are and rewrite a new page for the same words. The old pages may still ranking and the new pages may rank higher or lower.

    No one is sure why a page may move up or down. If you change your ranking pages, they may drop and never regain their position
  • MichaelAnthony what about the bounce rate on those 2 pages for the last 60 days?

    Benoit Paul Antoine
  • I understand that you are offering 'examples' and those are not the real keywords you were using. However, I'm assuming you actually had one product being targeted at both men and women but on separate pages.

    The issue that I have with your approach is how men and women view the buying process differently.

    Why aren't you addressing the questions that a woman would have about your product on your page for women and a different page for men that answers the questions they would have?

    Don't know what questions your customers have about your product? Why not just ask both men and women.

    As for the actual reviews you are using, you should choose to place just one or two relevant unique reviews per product page and use the remainder on your other page. So let's say you have four reviews total, just split the reviews between your pages.

    Don't duplicate your reviews from one page to the next. Didn't we learn anything from Panda?
  • Just try to change the content a bit on other page if you rely on Google for traffic. It will be back in search results soon.
  • Banned
    [DELETED]
  • Banned
    Don't use duplicate content. Use unique and quality content for your site. Duplicate content is enemy of any website.
  • The problem is duplicate content, writing original content should solve the penalty and restore your page ranking, it will take some time though, so be patient.
  • I don't think adding new content would help now. Even if you do so, it would again take 7-8 months for Google to show the results.
  • Duplicate content on your site makes it less useful in Google’s view, and that could result in a penalty. I think you are facing the same problem. You could re-write your content.
    • [1] reply
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    • Agreed. You definitely might be hit by Google Panda. Either file DMCA, or write new content.
  • Banned
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  • definite it is a content duplication. maybe it will rank high for a while but eventually Google will find out and will result to removal or demolition.
  • Why not make target both terms on the same page?
  • If review quotes cant be copied then what should be done? Do we make our own fake review quotes and post them ? I think its a big flaw with google.
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    Duplicate Content Question

    Hi, I started my first niche site pretty much not knowing what I was doing ... and this led to me creating two separate pages that I was trying to rank separately, which contained some of the same content.