Repeat content can cost
| Repeat content can cost | |
27 April 2006
For when a search engine detects duplication of content within a site, the inevitable conclusion drawn is that the site is attempting to spam its way up search engine rankings. Predictably, the outcome is a negative movement in the site search engine ranking.
To avoid adverse impacts on ranking, the best rule to follow is to avoid copying and pasting content across pages, or domains if you operate more than one site. This sounds easy enough on the face of it, but there are a few scenarios that may make breaches of this search engine rule less than obvious.
Redirects are thorny and can result in a penalty if not handled properly. In general, avoid using a script redirect on a page from the secondary domain. The better solution is to carry out the redirect from the domain registrar’s control panel and point the secondary domain to your primary domain from there. This situation frequently occurs when a web site owner has purchased multiple domains, for instance, the .co.uk and .com variants of a single domain name, and decides to put their site on one and use the other as a signpost.
If, however, you have two separate sites, say your main site and a mini-site on a separate domain that concentrates on a particular aspect of your business, there can be problems there too. Again, avoid straight copy-and-paste content between sites. In any case, the mini-site ought to be quite tightly focused on its subject to be of value to the business and customers. This would dictate, therefore, that it has different keywords and content from the primary site. The same applies to company blogs though less strictly perhaps if the blog is hosted externally and not on the same web space as the primary site.
Database-driven sites and shopping sites, which allow users to view products sorted by various parameters, could also fall foul of the duplicate content rule. Here, search engine spiders could interpret, in some circumstances, the same content being fed into different pages as spamming. Check with your web developer about whether the robot.txt file is set up to prevent this. | |