What is duplicate content?
This refers to identical or very similar texts that have been used more than once on the same website or on different websites, but can be found via different URLs. These texts are so-called duplicate content, i.e. duplicate content. The search engines want to provide the user with a positive user experience and therefore rely on unique content. If a search engine recognizes the content of a page as duplicate content, this is considered an attempt to deceive. The website is either devalued or directly removed from the index. However, a distinction is made between internal and external duplicate content, more on this later.
Solution for duplicate content
The avoidance of duplicate content is a major topic in SEO theory and in everyday practice. The most relevant search engines are good at filtering and recognizing duplicate content. This makes crawling and scoring the content more difficult. With texts, a distinction is also made between exactly duplicate content and almost duplicate content “near duplicate content”. Google usually does not see such content as duplicate content (translations, different pages with the same page title and descriptions, content in apps, regional content, etc.). Examples of duplicated content are e.g. exactly the same content/ large parts of the same content, content on several domains, subdomains or URLs, tag pages, press releases, syndicated content, identical page titles, etc.).
Possible sources and problems of duplicate content
The mere presence of duplicate content does not directly indicate an intention to deceive. In order to avoid texts from main pages and subpages being evaluated incorrectly, so-called canonical links are used, which indicate the domain under which the original page can be found. This can counteract the duplication of content. Use the 301 redirection if you want to use with and without www. can be reached. Simply tell Google via the Search Console how the website should be indexed.
To avoid duplicate content problems that can arise from identical content on mobile landing pages, you should use the different Google bots “Google Bot mobile” to deliver the mobile page and the standard Google Bot to deliver the normal page. Content, such as product information, which is imported via RSS feed is a special case. Simply scraping and importing third-party content offers the user no added value.
Who is now harmed by the text theft?
Unfortunately, it usually harms not only the thief himself, but also the victim of the theft. There are website operators who want to increase the ranking of their own website through deliberate duplication. Unfortunately, the search engines do not know which is the original page of this text; in the worst case, both parties are threatened with removal from the index.
Does Google penalize duplicate content?
There are no penalties for internal duplicate content. There are a few cases of external duplicate content, e.g.(scraper sites, domains that consist almost exclusively of stolen content; spinning content, from content on other sites; doorway pages / bridge pages).
What is internal duplicate content?
Internal duplicate content is content that is very similar or identical within a domain. Mostly found in affiliate marketing. Especially storesystems, but also editorial CMS are particularly affected here. Examples of duplicate content sources are e.g:
- Category pages
- Tag overview pages
- Filter overview pages
- Individual product pages, if they are assigned to different categories
It makes sense to support Google in prioritizing URLs and to actively avoid internal duplicate content, as there are usually no problems.
What is external duplicate content?
External duplicate content is very similar or identical content on different domains. Examples are e.g:
- Complete transfer of article descriptions
- Content theft
- Content scraping
- Distribution of press releases
How does Google recognize duplicate content?
Google recognizes and filters duplicate content at these points in the crawling and indexing process. In indexing, in scheduling and in the search results.
