{"id":2385,"date":"2022-11-11T11:26:07","date_gmt":"2022-11-11T05:56:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hostkicker.com\/blog\/?p=2385"},"modified":"2022-11-19T15:17:49","modified_gmt":"2022-11-19T09:47:49","slug":"duplicate-content-in-seo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hostkicker.com\/blog\/duplicate-content-in-seo\/","title":{"rendered":"What is Duplicate content in SEO? Reasons and Remedies."},"content":{"rendered":"

Are you here to know what is duplicate content in SEO? Let’s dig it out.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Duplicate content is not a mystery, as the name reveals itself. Content that is identical or near identical to the other content is considered duplicate content. In SEO, it becomes an issue when this duplicate content is accessible via multiple URLs.<\/span><\/p>\n

Even if you haven’t created duplicate content, your site might still contain duplicate content and hamper your SEO somehow.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Let’s dive deeper into duplicate content and discover how it occurs and how we can fix it.<\/span><\/p>\n

# What is duplicate content in SEO?<\/span><\/strong><\/h2>\n

Duplicate content in SEO is content that is similar or near similar to the other content that is accessible via multiple URLs, not only on your site but on the internet.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Duplicate content does not add value to the visitors being the copied version and also confuses or misleads search engines. They could not decide which URL to prefer and rank higher in SERPs. Consequently, search engines might prioritize other URLs over both, resulting in their lower rankings.<\/span><\/p>\n

For instance, if we publish a similar article under two different URLs within our site like this- “xyz.com\/blog\/seo\/” and “xyz.com\/seo\/” or I publish it on a different website with the URL- “abc.com\/blog\/seo\/” all these will be referred to as duplicate content.<\/span><\/p>\n

In the above case, you may not have created the two different URLs yourself, but this may occur due to the modern CMS.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Why does duplicate content in SEO matter?<\/span><\/h2>\n

Duplicate content matters for search engines as well as for site owners. Search engines might confuse which URL to index, which to rank, and to which URL link equity should be shared. And the site owners may face traffic losses and lower rankings, and no page can receive the visibility it can receive as a single piece.<\/span><\/p>\n

Following are a few reasons why duplicate content hampers your site’s SEO.<\/span><\/p>\n

1. Unfriendly URLs in SERPs and traffic loss<\/span><\/strong><\/h3>\n

Let’s say your content is accessible via the following URLs:<\/span><\/p>\n

1. xyz.com\/page\/<\/span><\/p>\n

2. xyz.com\/page\/?utm_content=buffer&utm_medium=social<\/span><\/p>\n

3. xyz.com\/category\/page\/<\/span><\/p>\n

To us, all are similar as they lead to the same content, but to Google, all are different. In SEO, URLs should be well-optimized, which can encourage users to make click.<\/span><\/p>\n

The first one is the main and optimized version and should appear in the results. Google might confuse and may show any of the three in the search results.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The unoptimized and unfriendly URL may appear in front of users, and they might not click it. This will result in a Loss of organic traffic and lower CTR, and consequently, you may be swapped from the SERPs.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

2. The wrong version ranks in SERPs.<\/span><\/strong><\/h3>\n

When you have near duplicate content on your site, Google may rank the content based on its understanding, and the wrong version of content may rank on SERPs.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

3. Dilution of link equity<\/span><\/strong><\/h3>\n

When identical or near identical content is accessible via different URLs. Both may rank and attract backlinks individually. This is the dilution of link equity between both URLs. Contrary to this, if only one piece of content was present, it would have obtained all of the backlinks and would have ranked higher in the SERPs.<\/span><\/p>\n

4. Waste crawl budget<\/span><\/strong><\/h3>\n

Google crawls a website to discover new content on the site by following the internal links on existing pages. Also, to discover any updates in the pre-existing pages.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

If you have duplicate or near duplicate content on your site, you are wasting the crawl budget that could be used to crawl new and more important pages rather than crawling the duplicate content over and over.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Moreover, duplicate content may delay the crawling of new pages.<\/span><\/p>\n

# How does duplicate content affect the user? Does Google penalize it for it?<\/span><\/strong><\/h2>\n

According to Google, it usually does not penalize site owners for having duplicate content unless they do it to trick and manipulate search results.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This does not imply that you start creating duplicate content or publishing scraped content on your site.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Having similar content on your site is not a good practice. Although Google does not penalize you, your site’s SEO gets hampered. You may face Ranking fluctuations, Loss of organic traffic, and more. You can read\u00a0<\/span>here<\/span><\/a>\u00a0what Google says about duplicate content.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

# What are the Common causes of duplicate content in SEO?<\/span><\/h2>\n

Nobody creates duplicate content intentionally, and usually, it’s a technical issue. There are plenty of causes that may create duplicate content on a site or the web. We’ll discuss them here one by one.<\/span><\/p>\n

1. Faceted navigation<\/span><\/strong><\/h3>\n

This is usually seen on the e-commerce website, where visitors sort or filter the products based on different criteria such as size, color, material, cost, and more.<\/span><\/p>\n

This adds up the parameters at the end of the URLs, which creates numerous duplicates or near-duplicate content of the same product.<\/span><\/p>\n

2. Session IDs<\/span><\/strong><\/h3>\n

Another cause of duplicate content can be the session IDs that are different for each user. Site owners do this to track their visitors. When a visitor visits your site, a session ID is generated for him and stored in the URLs, which creates duplicate content.<\/span><\/p>\n

For example- These are the session Ids of two different visitors.<\/span><\/p>\n

xyz.com?sessionId=jow8082345hnfn9234<\/span><\/p>\n

Xyz.com?sessionId=pjk763646gfh76<\/span><\/p>\n

To avoid this issue, you can canonicalize all the URLs to the preferred version.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

3. HTTPS vs. HTTP<\/span><\/strong><\/h3>\n

Duplicate content may arise if you are inconsistent with the HTTPS and HTTP versions of your page.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

If you have a secure HTTPS version, make sure you only use HTTPS all over your site. If you have similar content on the HTTP version, make sure to redirect it to HTTPS to avoid duplicate content issues.<\/span><\/p>\n

4. Non-www vs. www<\/span><\/strong><\/h3>\n

Another cause can be the WWW and non-WWW versions of your pages. If your content is accessible via both versions, make sure to redirect the one to another version. And make it consistent throughout your website to avoid duplicate content issues.<\/span><\/p>\n

5.URLs are case-sensitive<\/span><\/strong><\/h3>\n

Unlike Bing, URLs are case-sensitive for Google, which means Google considers the upper case and lower case URLs as two different URLs, which might create a duplicate content issue on your site. According to Google, you can use any case, but it must be consistent in your URLs\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

For instance, the following three URLs are different URLs for Google.<\/span><\/p>\n