In SEO, one rule always reigns supreme: content is king. And anyone who’s ever attempted to create quality content has likely come across its nefarious doppelganger—duplicate content.
Content normally wins favor with search engines, grants your authority, and helps you climb the SERPs. However, duplicate content confuses search engines, dilutes your credibility, and often brings rankings down instead.
In this post, we’ll teach you how to avoid duplicate content in SEO so that your quality content can win! Let’s charge ahead!
What we’ll cover in this guide
- What’s the problem with duplicate content?
- How to handle duplicate content on your website
- The best way to avoid duplicate content in the future
Duplicate content and SEO: What’s the problem?
The duplicate content issue is a pretty advanced aspect of SEO. If the fundamentals of your website’s SEO aren’t in place, you’re not going to gain much by focusing on content duplication. Before you dive into this guide, we suggest you take a look at our ultimate guide to basic SEO principles.
With that disclaimer, let’s get down to what duplicate content really is.
What do we mean by duplicate content?
You might ask why duplicate content could have such adverse effects. If a piece of content is good, why does its identical content turn sour? Let’s figure this out, one step at a time.
When identical content appears on multiple web pages, it’s called duplicate content. These web pages could be on different websites or belong to the same website—Google doesn’t know the difference, though (more on that below).
An important note is that the content doesn’t always have to be a 100% match to be called duplicate content. “Substantially similar” content that closely resembles each other in terms of wording can also be named duplicate content in Google’s eyes.
How does duplicate content affect SEO?
Search engines like Google strive to provide users with diverse and valuable search results. When duplicate content exists, search engines struggle to determine which version to index, rank, and display on the SERPs.
This confusion can lead to all but one of the duplicate pages being ignored by search bots. In effect, the duplicate pages represent a waste of effort. Furthermore, search engines may choose to index and rank a different version of your content than you intended, making it harder for users to find your preferred page.
Another effect of duplicate content is the wasted crawl budget. Search engine bots have limited resources, and when “crawl-brawls” over duplicate content consume these resources, it potentially prevents the indexing of essential pages. Non-indexation of core or essential pages means losing critical SEO points.
Before you bring your content creation to a halt in the name of 100% original content, let’s put things into perspective. There’s no such thing as truly original content on the internet. Everything is, at the very least, inspired by something else.
Google knows this. It doesn’t mark duplicate content as spam, rank a website down for it, or penalize a website for it. Websites that aren’t intentionally trying to manipulate the SERPs and that abide by the webmaster guidelines shouldn’t have to worry.
The most common causes of duplicate content are technical, which need to be adequately tackled. What most well-meaning website owners need to worry about, and what usually goes under the radar, is keyword cannibalization.
What is keyword cannibalization?
Keyword cannibalization is when multiple pages on a website unintentionally compete against each other for the same target keywords. This happens when a website has multiple pages with identical or similar content (signaling intent) optimized for the same keywords.
When search engines encounter keyword cannibalization, they become uncertain about which page to rank for a specific keyword. This leads to a situation where none of the pages rank as well as they should, resulting in lower overall organic traffic and reduced visibility in the SERPs.
This is quite common if you know a little about keyword research but don’t have a comprehensive keyword targeting strategy. It’s something we find all the time, actually. To address this issue, our SEO experts at Ranq carefully plan keyword usage and topic clusters across our client’s website so that each page serves a unique purpose and targets specific, non-overlapping keywords.
All of this is why, along with keyword research, it’s also vital to delve deeper and learn how to use keywords in your content. Nevertheless, if it still happens and you end up with content duplication issues. What then?
How to handle duplicate content on your website
First, we’ll need to identify any duplicate content on the website; then, we can do something about it. We’ll follow that order here.
Identify any identical content
The first thing to do is put duplicate content monitoring on a schedule. Even if you have a great keyword usage strategy for your website, somebody could copy your content. That’ll still affect your SEO, so it’s critical to monitor regularly.
There are many ways to look for identical content. If you have a large website, investing in an enterprise SEO audit is the easiest way. This can bring to the fore other technical issues, too.
You can also rely on any of the following methods:
- Manual Inspection: Look for identical or “substantially similar” text across different web pages. Pay attention to product descriptions, articles, blog posts, and other content-rich areas.
- Use of Quotation Marks: If you suspect someone is copying your text, enclose a portion of your content in quotation marks and search for it on Google. It’ll find exact matches of your content elsewhere on the web.
- Google Search Operators: Use the Google search operator, “site:example.com keyword” to search for duplicate content within your website. This will show you all the pages on your site containing the keyword.
- SEO Tools: Use SEO tools like Screaming Frog, Copyscape, or Siteliner. These tools can scan your website for duplicate content and provide detailed reports.
- XML Sitemaps: Review your XML sitemaps to see if they include multiple URLs for the same content. This can be a sign of duplicate content.
Redirect duplicate to canonical URL
Redirecting duplicate content with the help of a canonical tag is a crucial step in addressing duplication issues in SEO. This is helpful in scenarios where you need to keep “substantially similar” pages but don’t want to risk them being tagged as duplicate content, like in the case of product pages.
A canonical URL is the preferred version of a page that you want search engines to index and rank, so add a rel=”canonical” tag to the page you wish to be identified as the original.
Now, the SEO value of all duplicate pages will be consolidated into the main authoritative page. Canonical tags also improve indexing and user experience, which bolsters your website’s overall SEO performance and authority.
Avoid indexing of duplicate with meta tags
If you know you have duplicate pages and can do without getting them indexed, then meta tags, specifically the “noindex” tag, are a powerful tool.
By including this tag within the HTML of duplicate pages, you signal to search engines that these pages shouldn’t be indexed. Now, these duplicates won’t clutter search engine results, ensuring that your canonical or preferred page takes the spotlight.
It’s easy but requires careful planning to ensure you’re targeting the correct pages. Also, it’s crucial to see whether you need to use canonicalization or no-index strategy for your particular case.
Revise content to be unique
If you find that neither canonicalization nor the noindex tag will help your particular case, then there’s just one course of action left: you must revise your duplicate content.
Here are a few things that help when revising your content:
- Carefully examine your page’s intent: Using the same keywords on more than one page will not result in duplicate content creation, but it will if the search intent is the same. Focus on revising content based on search intent.
- Involve a different writer: A new writer brings a fresh perspective to the content, reducing the likelihood of unintentional similarities. Different writers have unique writing styles, which can naturally lead to content differentiation.
- Use tools: Run your revised content through tools like Grammarly or Copyscape to ensure its uniqueness after revision.
Revising content may take time, but it is worth it. It’ll mitigate the effects of duplicate content and may also significantly improve your website’s search engine rankings and user engagement.
Avoid creating duplicate content in the future
Preventing the creation of duplicate content is a proactive approach to maintaining a healthy SEO strategy. Here are the key steps to avoid content duplication in the future:
- Content Planning: Develop a content strategy that outlines topics, keywords, and target audiences.
- Keyword Research: Conduct thorough keyword research to identify relevant keywords and phrases for your content. This helps diversify your content.
- Content Calendar: Create a content calendar to organize your publishing schedule. This ensures that you plan content topics in advance and avoid overlap.
- Internal Linking: Implement effective internal linking practices to guide users and search engines to the most relevant and authoritative pages.
- Content Guidelines: Establish content guidelines for your writers or team members, emphasizing the importance of originality and uniqueness in all content.
Also, it’s important to say that if you’re using AI tools in your writing process, this can accidentally produce repeat content. Avoid overreliance on AI to make sure you have a unique voice.
If you’re unsure how to do this independently, let Ranq help!
Ranq will fix duplicate content and help you avoid it in the future!
Duplicate content isn’t the trickiest SEO puzzle to solve, but it can really bite you if you’re not careful. What if you’re not equipped to handle it on your own?
Ranq could be your ultimate solution. Our comprehensive approach includes content planning, keyword optimization, regular content upgrades, and best practices that guarantee unique content that both users and search engines love.
If you’re ready to harness the power of truly genuine, valuable, and engaging content, get in touch with Ranq today.