How can i resolve Duplicate Page Content?

[francesco87]

Hello,

I have created one campaign over SEOmoz tools for my website AutoDreams.it i have found 159 duplicate page content. My problem is that this web site is about car adsso it is easy to create pages with duplicate content and also Car ads are placed byregistered users.

How can i resolve this problem?

Regards

Francesco

[SimonCullum]

Hi Francesco

A good question;

Implementing Canonical Tags _(a guide here on SEOmoz) _would help you to cater for your duplicate content issue when it comes to those car ads placed by your registered users.

Also check out 6 Extreme Canonical Tricks for more advanced use of the Canonical tag, a blog post here on SEOmoz by Dr. Peter Meyers

For the rest of the site, continue to ensure that you have valuable, fresh, unique, relevant content to benefit your visitors.

Hope that helps,

Regards

Simon

[francesco87]

Hi Simon,

the problem is that these pages with duplicate content, in fact, are different ads but similar ads and they are inserted by different users. For example if i have 3 ads about the same make, model and version car  i can have 3 pages with duplicated content, but they are 3 different pages.

Seomoz have crawled 250 pages and 157 have duplicated content problem

Regards

Francesco

[SimonCullum]

Hi Francesco

The Canonical tag does usually work for similar pages, that's different pages with content which is similar enough to be classed as duplicate.

If the content can't be made unique enough, which it likely can't be as they are car ads so will be similar in content terms, then Canonicals are your best bet.

Just add authority and usefulness to the site through high quality content outside of those car ads and distribute & share that content to attract those important inbound links.

Regards

Simon

[DocdataCommerce]

But if the ads are unique (just not unique enough) why would you want to use a canonical tag? You'd use that to show Google which is the prefered page but in this case, is there such a thing?

Making the pages unique will be difficult, your best bet is to try and add and/or emphasize the information that is unique.

Maybe you could change the way people place ads. Not just have the same kind of information such as make, model etc., but ask people to write a little something about how they got the car, what kind of maintenance they've had done, why they are selling it. If they write all this in their own words, you will have more unique content. Plus you can tell people that adding this information helps sell their car quicker.

[Aran_Smithson]

Agreed with doc data.

A generic ad for a car is not going to help sell cars. But, an well written informative ad about the individual car will help!

Autotrader.co.uk are a great example of how to do this kind of thing well. Generic car details are only a small part of the page.

Think of ebay too, they would have hundreds, if not thousands of Dup content, but they encourage there sellers to use informative and descriptions text to help sell the products.

This is a double edged sword, improve it for the users and the SEO will follow