SEO Tycoon

**FenceGuy** · 12-14-2009, 07:15 AM

My site is an online store for fence products (hence the sig) and as I am still developing this site and adding my static pages for the products, I started to realize that many of my pages are very similar with only a few words being different due to having pages for products that may only differ in the height or color.

Can I be penalized for this? Or am I reading too much into it?

**shonkyboy** · 12-14-2009, 07:50 AM

Could you give a couple of examples please?
Duplicate content is more of an issue when other sites (or sites origionating from the same IP have the same content - then Google and co can devaluate one or more of the sites - they can sometimes give preference historically - ie the oldest one will get listed as Google sees this as the origionator).
I have had similar issues when creating articles and microsites for companies that take their copy from the manufactureres blurb - i generally try to rewrite as much as i can within reason.
In your case - if the content is too similar and you may feel that it will impede your indexing you can control what gets indexed by a robots.txt file, giving preference to the landing page of choice. Someone else may be able to throw light on the best way to acheive this with a dynamic structure.

**shonkyboy** · 12-14-2009, 07:52 AM

Web Ceo states this ;

In its Webmasters/Site Owners Help, Google identifies the following types of non-malicious duplicate content:
- Discussion forums that can generate both regular and stripped-down pages targeted at mobile devices
- Store items shown or linked via multiple distinct URLs
- Printer-only versions of Web pages.

**FenceGuy** · 12-14-2009, 08:32 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by shonkyboy

Web Ceo states this ;

In its Webmasters/Site Owners Help, Google identifies the following types of non-malicious duplicate content:
- Discussion forums that can generate both regular and stripped-down pages targeted at mobile devices
- Store items shown or linked via multiple distinct URLs
- Printer-only versions of Web pages.

I think that answers my question, mine are store items that are very similar therefore the content on those pages are similar.

http://buy-fence.com/aluminum/pricing/siskin/48-siskin/
http://buy-fence.com/aluminum/pricing/siskin/60-siskin/

Those are 2 examples where the size/height of the product are the only real differences (oh and the price

).

**FenceGuy** · 12-14-2009, 08:36 AM

Google no longer recommends blocking crawler access to duplicate content on your website, whether with a robots.txt file or other methods. If search engines can't crawl pages with duplicate content, they can't automatically detect that these URLs point to the same content and will therefore effectively have to treat them as separate, unique pages.

Just wanted to add that excerpt from the link you provided about using robot.txt to block the crawlers.

**chrishirst** · 12-14-2009, 08:39 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by FenceGuy

Can I be penalized for this? Or am I reading too much into it?

No and Yes!

"Boilerplate" text on product pages is par for the course. Every single site on the Internet that sells products has the same "issue" and none of them suffer because of it.

The worst that ever happens is you get "indented results" when two or more pages match a search phrase.

**FenceGuy** · 12-14-2009, 08:43 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by chrishirst

The worst that ever happens is you get "indented results" when two or more pages match a search phrase.

Boy that would really suck!

**shonkyboy** · 12-14-2009, 08:50 AM

Yeah - ill have to be really careful of that one in future

**edgray** · 12-14-2009, 12:06 PM

Google doesn't "penalise" duplicate content, this is a very common misconception. All they do is filter out the duplicates and feature just one version in their index. None of this should impact your standing in the SERPs.

**shonkyboy** · 12-15-2009, 06:07 AM

but if you are not the page to be indexed for the particular content then you wont get indexed then ? So that takes me back to the old chicken and egg scenario i have quite a lot where the content has come from the suppliers corporate 'blurb' - saying that - take this for an example - www.ricohclicksolutions.co.uk - this is one I did fairly recently - based on ricohs text (i am still awaiting some more stuff from Ricoh that is more unique content just for that site ) . Saying thay it does come on the first page of the serps for the term Ricoh Click - which is in fact part of the URL (i noticed that seems to have a greater impact these days) . But other pages on that SERP have very similar content. Ive not finished the SEO by any means yet (waiting more content) - but this is a good example.

**chrishirst** · 12-15-2009, 09:07 AM

Ricoh Click ISN'T part of the URL though? the URI is ricohclicksolutions which is ONE word NOT three distinct words.
(the bolding is only part of the display)

It IS however IN THE TITLE!!!! so don't be fooled into thinking that the URI is important

**alex_cristo** · 09:38 AM

If you have duplicate urls on your site then you can use canonical tag and specify your canonical to avoid penalty for duplication.
Here is more about specifying your canonical-
http://googlewebmastercentral.blogsp...canonical.html

**chrishirst** · 12-15-2009, 09:37 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by alex_cristo

If you have duplicate urls on your site then you can use canonical tag and specify your canonical to avoid penalty for duplication.

And which bit of this

Quote:

Originally Posted by edgray

Google doesn't "penalise" duplicate content, this is a very common misconception. All they do is filter out the duplicates and feature just one version in their index. None of this should impact your standing in the SERPs.

Did you NOT understand????

**shonkyboy** · 12-15-2009, 10:42 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by chrishirst

Ricoh Click ISN'T part of the URL though? the URI is ricohclicksolutions which is ONE word NOT three distinct words.
(the bolding is only part of the display)

Doh! Yeah fair comment Chris - i may have overlooked that