We generally face one problem and that every website has duplicate content. The big websites with lots of pages are especially having these duplicate content problems. But what exactly a duplicate content is? Why these create so many problems and how can we get rid of it? We will come to know how we can tackle this from this article.
What is this Duplicate Content?
Duplicate content are those types of contents which generally appears on the internet more than once or we can say more than one place. Or we can say that two identical contents appear on the page but the only difference you will see will be the URL of that page. When any page appears more than one location on the internet, then it will be difficult for the user or search engines to decide which version is applicable or compatible for any search query.
According to Google, every URL has a separate page. We will make you understand with any easy example. Here is the example.
Original page with men shirts are:-
http://website.com/shirts/men
Same page, with the scenario of price:-
http://website.com/shirts/men?order=asc
The problem here is that we have the same page with the same content which we are looking. The main difference which is here is that the last URL content is different here and Google find it as a duplicate content.
Why duplicate content is not good?
A duplicate content does not help the search engines. It made them confused about their search of anything. It has less time for deciding which page is relevant for the search of any query.
If you will search about any product, the search engines will never show you any identical contents in the SERPs. These will the help the user to have the best search for any device or product. It will help to you to get the best results regarding the search and the user will also not like to see the same content again and again.
We generally face one more problem and that is ranking power of duplicity. Duplicate pages are the big problem which a user faces. If you have a single page for search with the authority that is manageable but if you have so many pages with impaired, impoverished performance that is totally unmanageable.
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How these types of Duplicate Content is Created
We cannot exactly say how duplicate content is created, it can be created consciously, meticulously or by accidentally. The result for all these will be totally same.
The example for this type of duplicate content can be come out from the print version of any page. It effects will be seen on the same page with the same type of content. So when this type of duplicate content is recorded or listed, then it will have the issues regarding the content.
There are so many different types of situations where these types of duplicate contents are created inadvertently. There can be so many causes regarding that:
Session IDs
A session ID is just like a unique number that any web sites server gives to the specific user for the particular duration for any particular session. Theses session ID are stored like a cookie, form field, or URL (Uniform Resource Locator). Here are some web servers who generate session IDs by static number or by letters to make it simple. And it also helps to keep the record of the each and every visitor. These are even used for shopping purposes like here is an example to make it simple and understandable.
Ex– http://website.com/?sessionid=5649612
The problem here comes with this IDs is very simple and is very accessible and even it is very easy to create thousands of duplicates. But if we will store these session IDs in cookies, than we can easily solve these types of problems. But, if you will only depend upon this option, than, you must remember about the EU cookie law.
Sorting Options
When it comes to sorting option, then only one thing comes in mind and that is about website shop product catalogues where all the users can sort by price, date, etc. But it is very rare to find this option on any other website. Here is the example of blog sorting functions of these URL.
Ex- http://website.com/category?sort=asc
The URL which has all the sorting option and the original options and contents are basically the same page. It has all the types of same contents but the difference is that it is sorted in a different way.
Affiliate Codes
Affiliate codes are everywhere in the web world. It is generally a unique code which is of 3 to 5 letters and has a key mechanism which registered all the clients which is referred by an affiliate to insta Forex Company. It is basically a commission which is paid to the affiliate from the different trades which is conducted by the clients from his affiliate group.
Basically it identifies the indicator who has brought the new visitor to the group and it also provides rewards to them. The example of this affiliate code is as
Ex- http://website.com/product?ref=name
It is very easy to create the duplicate of this original page through this code.
Domains
Domain refers to an internet address or name of the location of a website. A simple name like domain name can create so many problems. You can have a look to this example.
http://bloghashtag.com
http://www.bloghashtag.com
A person searches so many things on internet and searching from long time but they still faces problem in getting these types of things wrong. These both the URLs are indicating about the homepage of ultimate powers but the URL of both are totally looking different and sometimes it appears as different pages.
How to Identify these types of Duplicate Content
We have discuss so much about duplicate content and how it is created, now the question arises how we can identify them on your site.
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The best and the easiest way to identify this are with the help of Google Webmaster Tools. For all that you need to log in to your account and go to Optimization > HTML Improvements. Here you can easily find the list of duplicates titles which are usually a duplicate content.
Google Webmaster Tools
For the Google webmaster tools, you just need to enter the site and search for the command in the URL bar for finding the pages from a specific domain. This will be helpful when you think that the particular page and content has so many duplicates. For using this type of site command, you just need to paste some content from the doubted page and you will get your answer. Now you are thinking how you will come to know, the answer is that, if you got a message from the Google regarding some more entries then it means you have duplicate content and duplicate page.
Here are some webmaster tools like dashboard, messages, configuration, health, traffic, optimization, site maps, remove URLs, HTML improvements, content keywords, structured data, other resources, labs
You can even use the site crawlers. It is software which is Xenu and Screaming Frog and it can be used to get all the useful and necessary information. For checking all the duplicates, you need to analyze all the pages titles with crawl report.
Solving Duplicate Content Issues
Here are several ways to cure duplicate content issues.
301 Redirect
The very simple way to prevent from duplicate content is 301 redirect. With this user and search engines redirect from the duplicate to the original. With this everything is sent to the entire original page. This will help you in deleting all the copies.
Rel=”canonical”
Rel= canonical is the search engines for duplicate content. This is used on the head of the web page content.
Meta Robots Tag
With this robots Meta tag we can add this with the noindex parameter which can prevent the entire duplicate page from the recording.
URL Rewriting
It is very useful for number of occasion and it is difficult to implement if have limited understanding of code. You can easily solve this by adding the URL-rewrite rule to your htaccess file. Always choose your preferred domain and rewrite URLs to the specified domain.
Google Webmaster Tools
For this just log in to your account, go to Configuration, click on Settings and set a preferred domain.
Google Webmaster’s Preferred Domain
For solving all the duplicate contents issues visit our Google Webmaster Tools and go to Configuration > URL Parameters. For any other information go to Google Support, but you must use this feature only if you know how parameters otherwise it will block your page.
Language Targeting
If a company has two websites for different countries but the content is same on both the websites, the reason for that is the webmaster did not want to rewrite several pages of text. So how can we fix the targeting problems?
Here is the solution
the Rel=”alternate” hreflang=”x” annotation.
For previous example, we need to add the code in the <head> section of the .us domain:
| 1 | <link Rel=”alternate” hreflang=”en-CA” href=”http://company.ca/page-example” /> |
On the .ca domain we need to place this code:
| 1 | <link Rel=”alternate” hreflang=”en-US” href=”http://company.com/page-example” /> |
Conclusion
The duplicate content is always seen on every site of internet. It happens due to so many causes or sometimes with accident.
If you are looking for the prevention, accesses the pages from 301 redirect, or through the use of Rel=”canonical” annotation. Even you can use the Meta robots tag or automatic URL rewriting. Google Webmaster Tools also helps us in preventing duplicate content.
I hope this information was useful for you. Let me know if you have any questions on this topic. I will be happy to try and help. Thank you
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