Duplicate content is identical or very similar content which appears on more than one webpage (URL). This is something that Google and other search engines can penalise you for, and in the worst case, remove your webpage from search rankings.
Here at Relevance Web Marketing, we understand the importance of adhering to the Google Webmaster guidelines and we ensure our content is unique and in no way duplicated.
Relevance gives an insight into how to deal with SEO issues such as duplicate content
Relevance uses various steps and web developer practises to ensure our clients’ websites adhere to the correct guidelines, perform well in search listings and also to enable search engine users to find the content they are looking for. If for any reason a website has many pages with mostly identical or repeated content, we can ask Google to only consider one URL. This is known in the industry as ‘canonicalization’.
When a website has unavoidable duplicate content, we can mark certain URLs as duplicates by entering the rel=”canonical” link element, by using 301 redirects, or by using the URL parameter handing tool.
Unfortunately some companies and internet experts use spamming techniques in order to influence search engine results and attract more website visitors and traffic. The way they do this is by purposely duplicating content on multiple domains. This kind of spamming worsens search engine user experience due to users finding duplicated content for multiple search results rather than an array of helpful options which you would expect.
Thankfully, Google is able to identify spamming and duplicate content when the indexing takes place. If Google’s crawlers detect duplicate content and suspect that the content has been duplicated in order to win more traffic and manipulate rankings, they will take action and adjust the indexing and rankings results of the websites in question. Following this, the website which is guilty of using intentionally duplicated content will see a drop in their rankings or worse still, they may be completely removed from the Google index and as a result would not appear in the search listings at all.
In certain rare situations, you may find that an external website has stolen your content without asking you if they can use your material. If this is the case and you feel someone has infringed copyright law, you can get in touch with the host of the website in question and ask them to remove the stolen content. Furthermore, you have the opportunity to ask Google to remove the duplicate page from Google search listings by filing a request under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
In summary, duplicate content causes problems for SEO as Google and other search engines do not know which URL to show preference to, and as a result this can produce poor search engine user experience.
Contact our expert team at Relevance Web Marketing for more information on duplicate content. As part of our SEO and online marketing packages, we carry out a full duplicate content audit in order to ensure the best possible SEO practises for your business.
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