Why You Need To Deal With Content Duplication<\/h2>\n
Understanding the reason why you need to deal with content duplication can influence which option you use in order to handle your situation.<\/p>\n
For search engines, duplicate content can present a number of issues including:<\/p>\n
- \n
- Not knowing which version of the content they should include within its index<\/li>\n
- Knowing whether to push trust and authority through to one URL or split it between multiple<\/li>\n
- And which version to rank for what keywords!<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
For site owners, websites can suffer with rankings and traffic losses.<\/p>\n
Why does duplicate content happen?<\/h2>\n
In most cases, content duplication can actually happen by complete accident. It is suggested that up to 29% of content on the internet is duplicate content and even way back in 2013, Matt Cutts posted a video suggesting that between 25% to 30% of the content is duplicative.<\/p>\n
But how can you accidentally<\/em> cause duplicate content? It\u2019s actually pretty easy to do, which is probably why there is so much:<\/p>\n
URL Variations<\/h3>\n
URL parameters are a common cause for duplicate content issues, particularly on eCommerce websites. Some examples of URL variations include:<\/p>\n
- \n
- Click tracking and analytics codes \u2013 these can often cause URL variations and parameters, which can lead to a whole bunch of technical SEO issues, as well as content duplication.<\/li>\n
- Session IDs – also a leading cause of a number of URL variations and ultimately duplicate content, and this is one of the more common causes.<\/li>\n
- Printer-friendly versions \u2013 these can be readily indexed if you\u2019re not careful!<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
But tracking and URL variations aren\u2019t the only cause.<\/p>\n
HTTP \/ HTTPs or WWW \/ non-WWW <\/strong><\/h3>\n
There are many scenarios where HTTP \/ HTTPS and non-www \/ WWW. Versions have not been effectively redirected. This means that ultimately the same content lives on both versions of the site, and therefore both versions of the site are attempting to be indexed at the same time on the same search engine.<\/p>\n
Scraped Content \/ Boilerplate Content <\/strong><\/h3>\n
Some websites on the internet exist solely with duplicate content which they have scraped from other websites. Alternatively, and mostly in the case of eCommerce website, product descriptions or other small types of text are sourced directly from the manufacturer websites or documentation which then every other eCommerce website selling the same products also has on their website. This is one of the main reasons why content duplication can occur on the internet and it can significantly harm your rankings.<\/p>\n
How To Fix Your Duplicate Content Issues<\/h2>\n
In order to find out the best techniques that the industry use for fixing their duplicate content issues, I put a poll out on Twitter and LinkedIn. And the results were interesting.<\/p>\n
![\"Duplicate](\"\/ae\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/absolute-A-Technical-Solution-Twitter-poll.jpg\")
<\/p>\nThe majority of votes, over 50%!, opted for \u2018canonicalisation\u2019. But it was the 12.3% who voted \u2018other\u2019 where the really interesting opinions occurred.<\/p>\n
Now, many of the \u2018other\u2019 votes were focused around properly diagnosing the issue before coming up with a solution which is the right approach to anything in SEO<\/a> \u2013 find the cause to find the fix.<\/p>\n
But alongside this, there were a few examples of other types of content duplication which are not quite as commonly known of or dealt with.<\/p>\n