Why Is Having Duplicate Content an Issue for SEO
Have you ever asked yourself the question: why is having duplicate content an issue for SEO? Read on to learn more on the subject.
According to some research, 68% of all searches start with a search engine. Because of that, search engine optimization (SEO) is very important for businesses, but there are many things that you can do to hurt and help your ranking.
One of the things that can hurt is having duplicate content on your site. But why is having duplicate content an issue for SEO?
Keep reading to learn all about duplicate content and what you can do to fix it.
What Is Duplicate Content?
Duplicate content is identical or very closely related content that can be found in more than one place on the internet. It could be that you took part in your blog and posted it on a landing page.
Or, you could have taken a blog from someone else and posted it on your site to try and reach a larger audience. It could also be something with your website issue, where you have chunks of code or copy appearing on multiple pages.
Whether it was intentional or not, it can hurt your SEO ranking.
How Does It Happen?
There are so many reasons why you might find duplicate content on your own site, and one of the reasons might be because that no one had thought of it.
It's much easier to copy and paste content for multiple pages on your site instead of having to write new copy. But you should always take the time to write new copy, even if it's just worded a little bit differently so that the search engine crawlers don't pick up on it.
There might also be more technical and subtle reasons that you have duplicate content. For example, you could have the same URLs and duplicate mobile pages or mobile-friendly URLs. Or you could be using the same URLs for tracking in Google Analytics or a duplicated navigation system.
You should also pay attention to your URLs. Even if they have different slashes or different capitalization, this will still be counted as duplicate content, and you should make sure that it is all consistent.
Another reason that you might have duplicate content is if you're having multiple pages for people in different locations. You might have the exact same copy on one page in English and another in Spanish, but this will cause duplicate content. You should only have one page for that content and let other people translate the page on their own so that you don't harm your SEO ranking.
If you're using a popular hosting site like WordPress, you should also turn off the option to paginate the comments on a blog post. If you get too many comments and have to paginate them, this will create a duplicate URL.
Why Is Having Duplicate Content an issue for SEO?
One of the main reasons that it's bad to have duplicate content on your site is that the two URLs will have to compete against each other in the search results. Both of your pages will have to compete for the same keywords, but they're also going to be competing URLs.
This could make the search engine confused, and it might rank the pages the exact same. Or, it could end up ranking the wrong URL that you don't want to show up. Either way, this will make people less likely to see your content or be confused and not click on either of the links.
In addition to hurting your SEO ranking, it can also make your backlinks very confusing. Your backlinks are the way you link your content to other sources. Search engines consider the number of quality backlinks you have when determining your ranking.
However, if your backlinks are split between two links because you have the same content on both, it'll make it harder to rank higher for one.
What to Do
If you do find out that you have duplicate content on your website, it can be very difficult to try and remove it. Depending on how much duplicated content you have, you may want to have a professional manage it so that it's cleaned up neatly.
A professional will be able to crawl through your entire website and flag all of the places where you have duplicate or almost-duplicate content or links on your site. They'll also check all of the coding, like HTML, meta-descriptions, and title tags.
Once they've crawled through your entire site, they'll give you an accurate and comprehensive report. From there, they'll try and remove the duplicate content and replace it with a canonical link. You could do this yourself, but unless you have SEO experience or knowledge about coding, it's best to leave it up to a professional.
In addition, a professional marketer will also be able to find duplicate content that is off your site as well. For example, a syndication site might have copied and pasted your press release, or other companies might have scraped information from your website and duplicated it.
If they do find any, the professional will then work to remove them.
Discover More SEO Tips
To recap, why is having duplicate content an issue for SEO? The main issue is that it will hurt your SEO ranking, meaning fewer views on your page, and fewer opportunities to convert your audience to qualified leads.
However, there are many other things that can hurt your SEO ranking as well. If you don't have the experience, it's best to hire someone to manage your website who has all of the experience and knowledge.
Check out our website to find out more about our website management services and how we can improve your SEO ranking.