Google’s Search Central workforce has launched a brand new video in its “website positioning Made Simple” sequence. In it, Search Advocate Martin Splitt addresses widespread considerations about duplicate content material and gives sensible options for web site homeowners.

Key Takeaways

Regardless of considerations within the website positioning neighborhood, Google insists that duplicate content material doesn’t hurt a website’s perceived high quality.

Splitt states:

“Some individuals assume it influences the perceived high quality of a website but it surely doesn’t. It does trigger some challenges for web site homeowners although, as a result of it’s tougher to trace efficiency of pages with duplicates.”

Nevertheless, it may possibly create a number of operational challenges that web site homeowners ought to deal with:

  • Issue in monitoring web page efficiency metrics
  • Potential competitors between comparable content material items
  • Slower crawling speeds, particularly at scale

Splitt provides:

“It would make comparable content material compete with one another and it may possibly trigger pages to take longer to get crawled if this occurs at a bigger scale. So it’s not nice and is one thing you would possibly wish to clear up, but it surely isn’t one thing that it’s best to lose sleep over.”

Three Options

1. Implement Canonical Tags

Splitt recommends utilizing canonical tags in HTML or HTTP headers to point most popular URLs for duplicate content material.

Whereas Google treats these as recommendations fairly than directives, they assist information the search engine’s indexing choices.

Splitt clarifies:

“This tag is commonly used incorrectly by web site homeowners so Google search can’t depend on it and treats it as a touch however would possibly select a distinct URL anyway.”

2. Handle Inside Hyperlinks and Redirects

When Google chooses totally different canonical URLs than specified, web site homeowners ought to:

  • Evaluation and replace inner hyperlinks to level to most popular canonical URLs
  • Take into account implementing 301 redirects for exterior hyperlinks
  • Guarantee redirects are appropriately configured to keep up website efficiency

3. Consolidate Comparable Content material

Probably the most strategic method includes combining comparable pages to:

  • Enhance person expertise
  • Streamline Search Console reporting
  • Cut back website muddle

Splitt explains:

“In the event you discover that you’ve a number of very comparable pages, even when Google doesn’t contemplate them duplicates, attempt to mix them. It makes info simpler to search out to your customers, will make reporting in Google Search Console simpler to work with, and can cut back muddle in your website.”

Search Console Notices

Google Search Console might flag pages with numerous duplicate content material notices:

  • “Duplicate with out user-selected canonical”
  • “Alternate web page with correct canonical tag”
  • “Duplicate Google selected totally different canonical than person”

These notifications point out that Google has listed the content material, presumably beneath totally different URLs than initially supposed.

Worldwide website positioning Issues

Splitt addresses duplicate content material in worldwide contexts, noting that comparable content material throughout a number of language variations is appropriate and dealt with appropriately by Google’s techniques.

He states:

“In the event you discover that you’ve a number of very comparable pages, even when Google doesn’t contemplate them duplicates, attempt to mix them. It makes info simpler to search out to your customers, will make reporting in Google Search Console simpler to work with, and can cut back muddle in your website.”

Why This Issues

This steering represents Google’s present stance on duplicate content material and clarifies finest practices for content material group and URL construction optimization.

See the complete video beneath:

Featured Picture: AnnaKu/Shutterstock


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