Hey there Booosters, my name is Andrew. Welcome to another edition of the Booster Seat! Today, we are going to be talking about duplicate content. Take a walk with me.
Hey, you made it! First thing you need to know about duplicate content is it is annoying right? You saw that in the beginning of this video. Even to Google, it can be annoying and confusing. We are going to be talking about three main aspects of duplicate content, how Google sees them, and how you should be treating these scenarios.
Duplicate Content on Your Website
The first scenario we are going to be talking about is duplicate content across your own website. This is where you have one page that is very similar or duplicate of another page of yours.
When Google looks at these pages, they try to identify which one has the highest value when they are very similar. They are trying to give the right value or authority to the correct page . It can get quite confusing.
In these type of scenarios you want each of your pages to have a unique purpose in order to rank them appropriately and give them the proper authority.
If you have two pages that are duplicate of each other, I would recommend 301 redirecting one page to the other – whichever you choose. That way, you minimize the confusion and drive all the authority from Google to go to that single page that you want to rank.
Duplicate Content as Different Versions of Your Website
The next topic we are going to be talking about is the different versions of your own website This is if you have a mobile or a non mobile websites; a .com or a .net; a www version and a non www version. Those can also be a little bit confusing for Google as well.
When you have the mobile and non mobile, Google can differentiate those alright. When you have the www and non www, Google gets confused which one is an authority there. I recommend from a .net to a .com or from www to non www, I recommend 301 redirects to help direct Google to the authoritative websites.
Duplicate Content Across Other Websites
For the last one, let’s talk about duplicate content across other websites. This one is a big deal!
Again, Google has a hard time penalizing people that have duplicate content. It actually isn’t that they have a hard time, it is that they don’t do it very often.
It is rare to receive a penalty for duplicate content. However, they have talked about devaluation or the value of duplicate content. For SEO rankings, you want the highest value.
If you have a page of content on your website that is duplicate on other websites across the web, you are not getting the fullest value that you deserve. Therefore, your Google or SEO rankings aren’t going to be that great. You may be able to rank for some scenarios but when Google is going to be comparing you to other sites out there, you aren’t going to be valued as high.
If you want the fullest value of your websites, I would recommend writing very unique and authoritative content to be able to distribute that.
Real quick, the two things I really want to have you remember here is that Google doesn’t really penalize for duplicate content as much as they devalue your website for that duplicate content.
The other thing is to not worry too much about these first scenarios. The best SEO practices would be to 301 redirect the duplicate content together into one.
It is really about the value of your content. There are a lot of other SEO factors when it comes to these two scenarios that rank higher than that.
