Tricky Decision to make regarding duplicate content (that seems to be working!)

[SoundinTheory]

I have a really tricky decision to make concerning one of our clients. Their site to date was developed by someone else.

They have a successful eCommerce website, and the strength of their Search Engine performance lies in their product category pages. In their case, a product category is an audience niche: their gender and age.

In this hypothetical example my client sells lawnmowers:

http://www.example.com/lawnmowers/men/age-34

http://www.example.com/lawnmowers/men/age-33

http://www.example.com/lawnmowers/women/age-25

http://www.example.com/lawnmowers/women/age-3

For all searches pertaining to lawnmowers, the gender of the buyer and their age (for which there are a lot for the 'real' store), these results come up number one for every combination they have a page for.

The issue is the specific product pages, which take the form of the following:

http://www.example.com/lawnmowers/men/age-34/fancy-blue-lawnmower

This same product, with the same content (save a reference to the gender and age on the page) can also be found at a few other gender / age combinations the product is targeted at. For instance:

http://www.example.com/lawnmowers/women/age-34/fancy-blue-lawnmower

http://www.example.com/lawnmowers/men/age-33/fancy-blue-lawnmower

http://www.example.com/lawnmowers/women/age-32/fancy-blue-lawnmower

So, duplicate content. As they are currently doing so well I am agonising over this - I dislike viewing the same content on multiple URLs, and though it wasn't a malicious effort on the previous developers part, think it a little dangerous in terms of SEO.

On the other hand, if I change it I'll reduce the website size, and severely reduce the number of pages that are contextually relevant to the gender/age category pages. In short, I don't want to sabotage the performance of the category pages, by cutting off all their on-site relevant content.

My options as I see them are:

• Stick with the duplicate content model, but add some unique content to each gender/age page. This will differentiate the product category page content a little.
• Move products to single distinct URLs. Whilst this could boost individual product SEO performance, this isn't an objective, and it carries the risks I perceive above.

What are your thoughts?

Many thanks,

Tom

[HiveDigitalInc]

Do you have multiple categories on the site? Why not just collapse 1 category and see how it performs (give it a good 6 months though before making a final verdict)

[SoundinTheory]

Thanks Russ - that's a good idea. Bit of a pain from a tech perspective as it turns out, but definitely they way we'll tackle the issue post launch.

Thanks again,

Tom