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A Technical Solution To Content Duplication Sophie Brannon Absolute Digital Media Head of SEO @SophieBrannon

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@SophieBrannon 2

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Duplicate content refers to content that is the same or very similar across the same domain or multiple

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@SophieBrannon 4 Same Domain Duplicate Content Can Include…

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@SophieBrannon 5 URL Variations

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@SophieBrannon 6 HTTP & HTTPS

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@SophieBrannon 7 Boilerplate Content

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@SophieBrannon 8 Cross-Domain Duplicate Content Can Include…

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@SophieBrannon 9 Scraped Content

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@SophieBrannon 10 Website Migrations

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@SophieBrannon 11 Competitors

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@SophieBrannon 12 Duplicate content won’t lead you into a penalty

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@SophieBrannon 13 But…

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@SophieBrannon 14 It can significantly hurt your search rankings

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@SophieBrannon 15 Search engines won’t always know which page to rank

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@SophieBrannon 16 Search engines won’t know how to split authority

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@SophieBrannon 17 And they won’t know which version of a page to show for a relevant search term

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@SophieBrannon 18 If content duplication is so bad, then why does it happen?

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@SophieBrannon 19 Up to 29% of the internet is duplicate content

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@SophieBrannon 20 And most of it is a complete accident!

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@SophieBrannon 21 URL variations are one of the common causes of content duplication

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@SophieBrannon 22 URL variations include: ● Click tracking & analytics codes ● Session IDs ● Printer-friendly URLs

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@SophieBrannon 23 But there are also lots of other types of common content duplication causes

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@SophieBrannon 24 How To Fix Your Content Duplication Issues

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@SophieBrannon 28 There are a number of different solutions to consider but understanding the reason the issue exists will help you to find the best solution rather than a blanket fix

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@SophieBrannon 29 Canonicalisation

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@SophieBrannon 30 Questions to consider...

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@SophieBrannon 31 Are the pages exact duplicates?

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@SophieBrannon 32 Is one of the pages generating more traffic / has more visibility?

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@SophieBrannon 33 Does the page offer additional value that may not translate to SEO value?

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@SophieBrannon 34 If you answered yes, yes, yes…. Then canonicalisation may be your best bet.

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@SophieBrannon 35 No Index

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@SophieBrannon 36 Questions to consider...

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@SophieBrannon 37 Are your crawl stats suggesting Google’s wasting a lot of valuable time crawling these pages?

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@SophieBrannon 38 Do you need these pages showing in Google search results?

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@SophieBrannon 39 Does the page offer valuable information to users?

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@SophieBrannon 41 If you answered yes, no, yes, then you may want to noindex if canonicalisation isn’t an option

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@SophieBrannon 42 Redirects

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@SophieBrannon 43 Questions to consider...

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@SophieBrannon 44 Does the page need to exist at all?

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@SophieBrannon 45 If the answer is no, then redirect it!

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@SophieBrannon 46 Rewrites Questions to ask....

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@SophieBrannon 48 Can you target the page with a new search intent?

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@SophieBrannon 49 Do you have the resource to rewrite?

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@SophieBrannon 50 If you answered yes to both, then rewrites may be the better option.

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@SophieBrannon 51 Or should you just live with it?

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@SophieBrannon 53 If you can implement a resolution, then that is often better choice for long-term SEO success

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@SophieBrannon 54 Redirects • HTTPS / HTTP domains • Pages that are not valuable, are outdated and irrelevant • Non-www / www. versions

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@SophieBrannon 55 Canonicalisation ● Exact duplicate pages that offer user value and so need to remain ● Pages that cannot be rewritten

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@SophieBrannon 56 Canonicalisation ● One page generates more traffic / visibility than the other ● You can’t redirect because of technical restrictions

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@SophieBrannon 57 Content Rewrites ● You can target different key terms and search intent within the copy ● You have the resource to implement

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@SophieBrannon 58 NoIndex ● If you absolutely need to keep the page, but it holds no SEO value. ● Bots are wasting valuable crawl budget & 301 redirects aren’t an option.

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@SophieBrannon 59 Some other considerations for content duplication

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@SophieBrannon 60 Block crawling of parameterized duplicate content with the URL Parameter Tool

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@SophieBrannon 61 Keep your internal linking consistent /page/ /page /page/index.html

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@SophieBrannon 62 For country- specific content, Google advises the use of CCTLD’s & hreflang.

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@SophieBrannon 63 Avoid the resource issues with content automation using OpenAI & GPT-3

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Thank You Follow me - @SophieBrannon

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@SophieBrannon 65 Resources https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2009/12/handling-legitimate-cross-domain https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2009/10/reunifying-duplicate-content-on-your https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/crawl-url-parameters https://twitter.com/BillieGeena/status/1428059594144817157 https://twitter.com/SophieBrannon/status/1427905326683148290