When you’re adding content to your website, whether it be web pages, blog posts, or metadata, original content is key.
Replicated content can impact the chances of you scoring high Google rankings – but why exactly is duplicate content bad for SEO? What causes duplicate content, and how can you address the issue? That’s what we’ll be exploring in this blog post.
Read on to learn more about the effects that replicated content can have on SEO efforts, and what strategies you can implement to resolve these problems.
What is Duplicate Content?
Replicated content refers to identical or substantially similar content that appears in more than one location, whether it be on your own website or across different websites.
Google aims to provide users with diverse and relevant results – and duplicate content undermines this goal.
Duplicate content can take two main forms – internal and external duplicate content. Internal duplicate content refers to identical or very similar text within your own website. This can be across blog posts or pages within your site.
External duplicate content, however, is when the same content (or very similar content) appears on various websites, regardless of whether the sites belong to you or not.
This can include mirror websites – multiple websites with identical content. It can also encompass scraped content, which is when you copy content from other sites without authorisation.
What Causes Duplicate Content?
Understanding the root causes of duplicate content on your site is a must when it comes to addressing the issue and implementing strategies to resolve it.
Content management systems can often unintentionally lead to issues related to replicated content. For instance, a single web page may have multiple URLs, each accessible through different navigation paths. To resolve this, utilise the rel canonical tag – this signals to the SERPs about the version of the page you want when there is duplicate content across different URLs.
One of the key causes of identical content, however, is reusing standardised content across multiple pages. Some common examples include terms and conditions or disclaimers – as well as hidden ‘lorem ipsum’ placeholder text.
Many people make the mistake of scraping content from other websites and republishing without the correct attribution. Copied content is a major source of this issue, and can have a negative impact on your SEO efforts.
How Duplicate Content Can Affect SEO
Pages with replicated content can face several SEO challenges that hinder their performance in search engine results pages (SERPs). Understanding these impacts is key if you’re aiming to boost your online visibility.
Google Penalties
The most prominent impact that copied or identical content can have on SEO is duplicate content penalties – which can impact your pages’ ranking.
Search engines such as Google often dish out penalties on websites with substantial replicated content. This can result in lowered rankings, reduced visibility, and even removal from search results.
Dilution of Link Equity
When multiple pages contain similar or identical content, the link equity generated by backlinks becomes divided across these pages. This weakens the overall impact of inbound links, which, in turn, can make it harder to build the authority of each page.
Confusion for Search Engines
Having replicated content across various pages can confuse search engines such as Google. This can make it difficult for Google to determine the most suitable pages for the SERPs. This can mean that the pages you want to rank won’t rank high on the SERPs.
How to Detect Duplicate Content
If you want to detect replicated content on your website, there are certain tools you can utilise. Tools like Copyscape or Siteliner can scan your website and identify identical or similar content across different pages.
You can also detect copied content through Google Search Console (GSC). This can check for duplicate meta descriptions and title tags. Other tools such as Semrush can also be helpful for identifying duplication.
Although it may take some time, you can also manually scan through your site’s pages for repeated content, and use plagiarism detection tools (e.g. Grammarly) to determine what is duplicated.
Content is King – your website should contain original and valuable content, so ensure that you are regularly updating and consolidating the information on your site. This can not only improve user experience but also improve SEO efforts. Regular checks can also help to maintain the quality and uniqueness of your site.
Strategies to Address Duplicate Content
Now you understand the consequences of having blogs or pages with duplicate content as well as how to identify it, let’s explore some of the key ways you can address the problem and avoid suffering from duplicate content issues.
Rewrite Content
The simplest and most direct solution is to create unique and original content for each page. Google values original, valuable content – and creating such content not only improves SEO but also enhances the user experience.
If you are using AI-generated content, it’s important to conduct thorough plagiarism checks. If possible, tailor the content to match your brand’s tone of voice and messaging.
If you have any placeholder text in your content, ensure that you replace this content with original and valuable content. If you don’t replace placeholder text, search engines will view this content as irrelevant or duplicated.
Set Up 301 Redirects
Another potential strategy is to implement 301 redirects. This consolidates the SEO of various URLs into one single URL – and doing so can inform Google (and users) that your content has been permanently moved.
Use Robots.txt: File
You can use the robots.txt file to instruct search engine bots not to crawl and index specific pages with replicated content. This helps prevent these pages from negatively impacting your overall SEO.
Consolidate Similar Pages
Another way to address duplicate pages or blogs is to identify pages that have similar content and consolidate them into one single page or post. This can not only resolve the issues associated with replicated content but also streamline your website. This can improve the overall user experience, leading to more relevant traffic and leads.
Achieve Top Google Rankings with Quirky Digital
At Quirky Digital, we understand the nuances of SEO and the impact that replicated content can have on your website’s performance. Our experienced content experts can craft original, valuable and engaging content for your brand that resonates with not only users but the search engines too.
Our ambitious SEO team can work to ensure that your web pages are optimised for top rankings, utilising our expertise and tools to hit that number one spot on Google, whether you’re a local business seeking local rankings or a large-scale, national corporation.
Whether you’ve had bad experiences with SEO before, or you’re looking to try SEO for the first time, we are here to turn doubters into believers.
Book in for a consultation with Quirky Digital today. Together, we can discuss your business goals and determine how we can transform your online presence and generate more relevant leads.
