What is a Duplicate Title Tag?

What is a Duplicate Title Tag?

Search engine optimization is one of the key elements to the success of your blog. With so much content out there, you’ll need to be intentional to keep your content ranking at the top of the search engine results pages. Ranking higher means more traffic to your website, more online visibility, and increased revenue for your business!

There are lots of ways to improve your website’s SEO. Today, we’re focusing on title tags and how they help you stay optimized! Management of these tags is important to avoid duplicate tags and negative effects on your SEO. So, let’s get into all things title tags! 

What is a Duplicate Tag and How Do I Fix it?

What is a Duplicate Title Tag?

First of all, what is a title tag? A title tag (also known as a meta description) is a clickable headline for your webpage that appears on search results pages, web browser tabs, and social media posts. This tag should interest a reader and accurately describe your content with a short and sweet title! 

Explanation and photo representation of a title tag.

Now that you understand what a title tag is, you can probably see why it would be bad to have multiple pages with the same title tag. Duplicate title tags negatively impact your SEO because it confuses users and search engines alike. Neither one will know which webpage is correct and which page contains the relevant information. Because of this, each page should have a unique title. 

Duplicate page titles directly affect your page rankings, which directly affect your click rate. A poor click rate is bad news for your up-and-coming blog. So, it’s best to clean up any duplicate content that might be impacting your SEO and domain authority. Not sure how to fix duplicate title tags? Don’t sweat, the InfluencerSEO team is here to help!

How to Check for Duplicate Title Tags

First things first, you’ll need to determine if you have any duplicate tags! You don’t need any fancy software or expensive tech knowledge to do this either. Just follow our easy step-by-step process:

Step One: Copy some post content. 

First, travel to one of your webpages and copy a couple sentences of text. You don’t need too much – it just can’t be a phrase that would show up a lot on other pages. Find a snippet that’s unique to this post. 

Step Two: Search your content on Google. 

Did you know that ‌Google can run a ‌search query on your website specifically and not just across the web? Well, it totally can! This makes finding duplicate content really easy! So, get ready to use Google to search content on your own website. 

Go to the search bar and type in: site:yourwebsite.com “copied content”. Make sure you put your copied text in quotes to make the search query populate properly! See the image below for a clearer picture. 

Explanation of how to type web address correctly.

Step Three: Investigate your duplicate tags. 

If you see that there are multiple webpages that populate with the same content and title tags, you’ve got a problem. Duplicate content is normally bad for SEO, but there may be a reason for it. This is where your detective skills come into play. 

Investigate each page with the same tag and content and first determine if there’s a reason to have the same information in two places. If there isn’t an obvious reason, delete the duplicate content or redirect it. If there is a reason to have it, you’ll need to take a few steps to prevent the duplicate tag from impacting your SEO. Let’s discuss that next! 

How to Fix Duplicate Title Tags

If simply deleting the duplicate content isn’t an option, there are plenty of other ways of fixing those pesky tags! Fixing those tags will allow web crawlers and users to easily navigate your content, thus boosting your SEO! Here are some different fixes depending on the reason for your duplicates issue:

Change title tag of mislabeled content.

If you have multiple pages with the same title tag that are not the same content, you need to update your title tags for both! To change your tags in WordPress, find a plugin like Yoast SEO that allows you to manipulate these meta descriptions. Then, update your title tag! 

Remember, title tags should be short and sweet and quickly inform readers about your content. This description is the whole reason they’ll click your page!  

Redirect unnecessary duplicate pages. 

If the extra content is not necessary, select the URL in question that you’d like readers to use and set-up 301 redirects for the rest. This will tell Google what content is correct and valuable for its searchers. Since Google will have an easier time deciphering the content, your SEO will improve! 

Keep your content and make a canonical tag. 

If you have a reason you want the same content or similar content in multiple areas, set up a “canonical tag.” This tag will keep all your pages searchable, unlike the redirects, but will tell Google which page is your priority. Google won’t identify the content as the same and thus, it won’t hinder your SEO.   

Use meta tags for different versions of the same content.

If you have different versions of the same content, like a downloadable PDF resource for your readers, you might want to keep the duplicate information. The problem, of course, is that the duplicate tag will impact your SEO. To fix this, you can use meta tags that will tell Google not to index your PDFs. This way, your content remains accessible, but doesn’t confuse web crawlers!

Find an SEO service to do it all. 

If you feel totally overwhelmed reading this post, don’t worry! You absolutely do not have to be an SEO expert to run a successful blog. Here at InfluencerSEO, we provide SEO services that will identify and fix any duplicate tags! In fact, we will do all the optimizing for your content and more! If web management stresses you out, this is definitely the best way to fix those SEO issues. This way, you have more time to spend on what matters most to you! 

How to Fix Duplicate Tags: Update Tags, 301 Redirect, Etc.
Cleaning up duplicate tags will improve your website’s SEO and user experience!

When you’re a blogger, getting your helpful posts to searching readers is your number one priority! When your webpage doesn’t rank high enough on the SERPs due to poor SEO, you can’t reach your audience. Cleaning up duplicate tags is a great way to boost your SEO and generate website traffic. Having clean tags can increase the visibility of your brand via search query. Spend a few minutes investigating and fixing tags for big SEO results! If you found this blog helpful, be sure to head on over to the InfluencerSEO Blog for more valuable information, pro-tips, and more! 

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