When posting your content online, unique content isn’t just nice to have, it’s an absolute must-have! Search engines totally thrive on fresh, unique, and original content. In fact, they use it as a key factor in determining how well your site ranks. But, here’s the kicker: duplicate content is one of the sneakiest things that can trip up even the best search engine optimization (SEO) efforts.
Yep, it’s true! If you’ve ever sat back and wondered why that totally awesome post you made isn’t ranking, duplicate content could definitely be the reason. So, in this blog post, we are going to dive in and show you why duplicate content can be a total pain for your SEO ranking. Buckle up while we explore how having the same content show up in different places can confuse search engines, dilute your link equity, and even hurt your user-experience.
Ready to get your rankings soaring again? Let’s go!
Why Is Having Duplicate Content An Issue For SEO?
Unique content is king. There’s no denying that. So, keeping your content fresh and original is really important to keep up your high search engine rankings.
But duplicate content can be a huge issue that silently sabotages your SEO efforts, sometimes without you even noticing. This post is going to shed light on what duplicate content is, why it’s a problem, and how it can impact your site’s performance.
We’ll start by defining duplicate content and exploring how search engines handle it. We will also dive into specifics about how it can really mess up your SEO efforts. By the end of the post, you’ll not only understand why avoiding duplicate content is essential, but also to find out how you can keep your content unique and your SEO strategy on point.
What Is Duplicate Content?
Duplicate content refers to the similar content that appears in more than one location on the web. It can be within a single web page or across multiple sites. This can include identical blog posts, similar product descriptions, repeated text on different pages, and even include things like duplicate title tags or meta descriptions.
Even near-duplicate content, where the text has been slightly altered but is still similar can be an issue. When search engines encounter this duplicate content, it can be hard to figure out which version to rank or if it’s all spam. This leads to potential drops in visibility and diluted link equity. Understanding and addressing duplicate content is crucial to maintain your great SEO performance. This way, your site can get the attention it deserves!
How Does Duplicate Content Affect SEO?
Confuses Search Engines.
When search engines encounter multiple versions of the same content with similar or totally identical content, it can be hard for the web crawlers to figure out which page needs to be prioritized in search results. Search engines, like Google, aim to deliver the most relevant and unique content. So, when they find things that lead to duplicate content, they can struggle to know which version is the most relevant or reliable or if it’s all spam.
This confusion can lead to your page not ranking as well because the search engine doesn’t know the best version to display or it assumes the content is low-quality and spammy. It can also cause your site to fluctuate in rankings, causing instability in your site’s search performance.
Dilutes Link Equity.
If multiple pages have the same content, any inbound links to those pages are spread out. This then dilutes the overall link equity and reduces the potential ranking power of each page. This means that your pages will receive only a fraction of the potential ranking power, weakening the authority of your content. Efforts to build backlinks will also be less effective.
Lowers Rankings
Search engines will always prioritize the most valuable and unique content to ensure that users receive diverse and relevant info. Duplicate content on your website often leads to lower rankings as search engines may choose to prioritize other pages with unique content.
Wastes Crawl Budget
Search engines allocate a finite amount of crawl budget to each website. This is essentially the amount of resources they spend crawling, indexing, and ranking your page. Search engines may waste their crawl budgets on any duplicate pages which means that they aren’t focusing on unique and important content. If the crawl budget is consumed by duplicate pages, valuable content likely won’t be indexed or crawled effectively.
Worsens User Experience
User experience is super important in the world of SEO. If your UX is less than pleasant, visitors will quickly leave your site. So, if duplicate content confuses the readers or makes them struggle to find what they’re looking for, your bounce rate will increase and your SEO ranking will go down as well as your readership and reputation!
How Much Duplicate Content Is Applicable?
Any duplicate content on indexed pages is a problem! If you do need duplicate content somewhere on your site, you need to ensure that those pages are not indexed, AKA: not crawled by search engines. That way, the web crawlers will ignore your duplicate content and focus on all your other stuff. However, this also means the webpages with the duplicate content won’t ever rank well.
How Do You Fix Duplicate Content?
Identify it.
Before you can fix duplicate content issues, you need to identify it! Here’s how you can quickly find duplicate content on your site:
- Use SEO Tools: Some tools such as InfluencerSEO’s site auditor can scan your site and flag any duplicate content issues. They can help identify multiple URLs, title tags, and meta descriptions.
- Google Search Console: Check the Coverage and Performance reports in Google. Search Console to find any duplicate content issues that have been flagged by Google.
- Manual Checks: For smaller sites, manually review content or use site searches to find pages with similar content.
Here’s more on how to check for duplicate content!
Implement 301 redirects.
301 redirects are a method of permanently redirecting one URL to the other. This helps consolidate any duplicate pages and direct both search engines and users to the preferred version of your content. You can use your CMS or web server to set up 301 redirects from the duplicate pages to the canonical page. Plus, if you decide to delete one of the duplicate pages, you can redirect the old link to the correct post to ensure you don’t have any broken links (which are also an SEO no-go.)
Use canonical tags.
Canonical tags are HTML elements that tell search engines which version of the page is the canonical or preferred version. Place a <link rel=”canonical” href=”URL-of-canonical-page”> tag in the <head> section of the duplicate pages, pointing to the canonical version. You can use tools, like the ones above, to ensure they’re done properly.
Create unique content.
Creating original content from an original source is a long-term way to avoid any duplicate content issues. You can even update and improve your existing content to make it more valuable. Just make sure each piece of content serves a distinct purpose and provides unique insights that your audience wants.
Check and update URL structure and metadata.
Sometimes, it’s not the main content that’s duplicated. Sometimes, it’s title tags, meta descriptions, and URLs that are the same! This can be just as detrimental, so make sure you update all your metadata and URLs to be original and optimized for that post specifically.
Regularly update your content and SEO strategy.
The more content you post over the years, the more likely you are to unintentionally post something the same or similar to something in the past. Regularly look back on old posts and update them to be more relevant and original.
Also, keep up-to-date with all the latest SEO best practices to ensure you’re not missing anything that could be killing your ranking. The more you know, the better you can confirm that no part of your post is copied anywhere else on the world wide web.
Say goodbye to duplicate content for good!
With the help of a FREE SEO audit from InfluencerSEO, you can say goodbye to duplicate content and hello to ranking with ease! There are SO many awesome benefits of an SEO audit, with only one being identifying and getting rid of duplicate content. What are you waiting for? Get in touch!
Jordan Becerra, founder and Lead SEO Strategist at InfluencerSEO, has spent almost 15 years in the creator internet space, the last nine building InfluencerSEO into the go-to SEO partner for content creators, with 500+ creators served from pre-launch to massive publication. She learned creator monetization and community building strategy from the inside working for Lauryn Bosstick of The Skinny Confidential prior to founding InfluencerSEO, so she understands both halves of the game: how search actually works AND how creators actually build a strong community online and make money. Her job now is to stay ahead of where search engine optimization is going, especially as AI rewrites the rules, and to make sure the creators she works with get there first.
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