SeoblogR

(No Ratings Yet)

 Loading ...

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed or follow me on Twitter. Thanks for visiting!

Duplicate content is a situation when two separate URl addresses show the same or fairly similar portions of information. Since each URl is unique across the Internet, each URl should present unique part of information (what sense it would make if 100 pages show the same information). If two URL’s show the same content, that means that one of the URL’s possess a duplicate version of another web pages content.

Google describes duplicate content in the following way:

Duplicate content generally refers to substantive blocks of content within or across domains that either completely match other content or are appreciably similar - Google Webmaster Central Blog.

The duplicate content is a possible treat to the website because search engines have special algorithms that remove the duplicate content pages from the indexes and search results. If the same content of your website is available on different domains or certain pages of your website are accessible through different URL’s you may experience the duplicate content penalty.

The reasons for duplicate content may vary:

1. Printer-friendly versions of a website - it helps visitors to print your articles, but in the eyes of search engines its the same content on different URL’s.
2. Mobile versions of websites - lets you reach larger audience, but present the same content thus create a duplicate content issue.
3. Publishing various document formats with the same content such as text version of document, PDF version, MS Office Word version etc.
4. E-commerce items shown or linked via different URL addresses.
5. Repeated provision of the same content because of the way - for example, presenting documents according to the author, the date of creation, etc.
6. Affiliate programs and promoting the same products with the same description on various websites.
7. Distribution of articles and press releases on different websites with the same content.
8. Scraped content.

I have already covered the “Print this page” possible duplicate content issue and I will describe all the other possible issues in the next couple of articles so stay tuned and check out SeoblogR frequently to get all the information your need about duplicate content issue.