If you have a website with many pages, it can quickly happen that you publish content twice. In Search Engine Optimization (SEO) this problem is called “duplicate content.” Search engines like Google don't like duplicate content because it makes them difficult to find the most relevant page for a search query. They also want to save their resources because crawling and indexing websites is time-consuming.
Why is duplicate content problematic?
If you have multiple pages on the same topic, Google could classify them as duplicate content and reset their ranking. This can affect the visibility of your entire site. It is therefore important to avoid or remove duplicate content.
How do you recognize and avoid duplicate content?
- Using unique content: Make sure every piece of text on your website is unique. Avoid copying texts from other websites.
- Focus keyword: Choose a specific focus keyword for each page to avoid keyword cannibalism.
- Page structure: Design the structure of your website so that there is no duplicate content.
- Google Search Console: Use Google Search Console to find out if Google has discovered duplicate content on your site.
Duplicate content solutions:
- 301 Redirect: If you have duplicate content, you can set up a 301 redirect to redirect users and Google to the right page.
- Canonical Tag: Use a canonical tag to show search engines which version of a page is the major version. This helps solve duplicate content issues without having to remove pages from the index.
- Noindex Tag: Another option is to add a “noindex” tag to pages that you don't want in search results. As a result, these pages are not indexed by search engines.
By taking these measures, you can ensure that your website stays clean and that you achieve the best possible ranking. It's important to regularly check whether there are duplicates on your site and make appropriate adjustments.
