#Duplicate Content

Duplicate Content: SEO Best Practices to Avoid:

Duplicate content is defined as content that is an exact copy of content found elsewhere.

The term duplicate content can also refer to almost identical content, such as the simple exchange of a product, brand name, or location name.

Duplicate content refers to identical content on multiple web pages within the site or on two or more separate sites.

There are many methods to avoid or minimize the impact of duplicate content which can be handled by technical fixes.

The causes of duplicate content, the best ways to avoid it, and how to ensure that competitors cannot copy the content and claim to be the original creator.

The impact of duplicate content:

Pages created with duplicate content can have multiple ramifications in Google search results and sometimes even penalties.

The most common duplicate content issues include:

The wrong version of the pages displayed in the SERPs.

Key pages are not performing well in SERPs or are having indexing issues.

Fluctuations or decreases in basic site indicators (traffic, ranking positions, or E-A-T "Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness" criteria) and Other unexpected actions of search engines resulting from confusing prioritization signals.

While no one knows which pieces of content will be prioritized and deprioritized by Google, the search engine giant has always advised webmasters and content creators to "build pages primarily for users, not engines. of research".

The starting point for any webmaster or SEO should be to create unique content that provides unique value to users. Factors such as content template creation, search functionality, UTM tags, information sharing, or content syndication can present a risk of duplication.

Ensuring that the own site does not run the risk of duplicate content involves a combination of a clear architecture, regular maintenance, and technical understanding to combat as much as possible the creation of duplicate content.

Methods to avoid duplicate content:

There are many different methods and strategies to prevent the creation of duplicate content on their own site and to prevent other sites from benefiting from content-copying:

Taxonomy:

To begin with, it is a good idea to take a general look at the taxonomy of the site.

Whether it's a new, existing, or revised document, mapping the pages of analysis and assigning an H1 keyword and unique focus is a good start.

Organizing content into a group of topics can help develop a thoughtful strategy that limits duplication.

Canonical tags:

Perhaps the most important element in the fight against duplication of content on the own site or across multiple sites is the canonical tags.

The rel = canonical element is a snippet of HTML code that makes it clear to Google that the publisher owns a content item even when the content can be found elsewhere.

The canonical tag can be used for print or web versions of the content, mobile and desktop page versions, or multiple placements targeting pages.

The canonical tag can be used for all other instances where there are duplicate pages that also come from the main version page.

There are two types of canonical tags, those that point to a page and those that point to a page.

Referencing canonicals is an essential part of recognizing and eliminating duplicate content, and self-referencing canonicals is a matter of good practice.

Meta marking:

Another useful technical element to look for when analyzing the risk of duplicate content on the site is Meta bots and signals are currently sent to search engines from the pages.

Meta-bot tags are useful if you want to exclude one or more pages from indexing by Google and prefer that they not appear in search results.

By adding the robots meta tag `` no index '' to the HTML code of the page, we are effectively telling Google not to want it displayed on the SERPs, which is the preferred method for blocking Robots.txt, because this methodology allows more granular blocking of a particular page or file, whereas Robots.txt is more often than not on a larger scale.

Google will understand this guideline and should exclude duplicate pages from the SERPs.

Parameter management:

URL parameters indicate how to effectively and efficiently crawl sites to search engines.

Parameters often cause duplication of content because their use creates copies of a page.

Parameter management makes it easier to explore sites more effectively and efficiently.

The advantage of search engines is proven, and their resolution to avoid creating duplicate content is simple. Especially for larger sites and sites with built-in search functionality, it is important to use settings management through Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools.

By indicating the pages set in the respective tool and signaling to Google, the pages of the search engines should not be crawled.

Duplicate URL:

Multiple structural URL elements can cause duplication issues on a website.

A lot of them are due to the way search engines perceive URLs.

URL parameters caused by search functionality, tracking codes, and other third-party elements can cause multiple versions of a page to be created.

The most common ways to duplicate URL versions are HTTP and HTTPS versions of pages, www. and non-www., and pages with slashes and those without.

In the case of www. vs non-www and trailing slash vs non-trailing slash, you must identify the version most commonly used on the site and stick to this version on all pages to avoid the risk of duplication.

HTTP URLs are a security concern because the HTTPS version of the page would use encryption (SSL), which makes the page secure.

Redirects:

Redirects are very useful in eliminating duplicate content.

Duplicate pages from another can be redirected and returned to the main version of the page, where there are pages on the site with high volumes of traffic or a link value that are duplicated from another page, redirects may be a viable option to resolve the issue.

When using redirects to remove duplicate content, there are two important things to remember:

Always redirect to the best performing page to limit the impact on site performance by using 301 redirects.

Use the Search Console to identify how often the site is indexed.

Contact the webmaster responsible for the site that copied the content and request accreditation or deletion.

Use self-referencing canonical tags on any new content created to ensure that the content is recognized as the "true source" of the information.

Review of duplicate content:

Avoiding duplicate content begins with focusing on creating unique quality content for the site; however, the practices to avoid the risk of others copying one can be more complex.

The surest way to avoid duplicate content issues is to think carefully about the site structure and focus on users and their movements there.

When duplication of content occurs due to technical factors, the tactics covered should mitigate the risk to the site.

When considering the risks of duplicate content, it's important to send the right signals to Google to mark content as the original source.

If the content is syndicated or found, the content has already been replicated from other sources.

Depending on how the duplication occurred, one or more tactics can be employed to establish the content as having an original source and recognize the other versions as duplicates.