Duplicate Content issue on pages with Authority and decent SERP results

[SpecialCase]

Hi, I'm not sure what the best thing to do here is.

I've got quite a few duplicate page errors in my campaign. I must admit the pages were originally built just to rank a keyword variation.

e.g. Main page keyword is [Widget in City] the "duplicate" page is [Black Widget in City]

I guess the normal route to deal with duplicate pages is to add a canonical tag and do a 304 redirect yea? Well these pages have some page Authority and are ranking quite well for their exact keywords, what do I do?

[SimonCullum]

Hi There

From what you've described, it does sound like Duplicate Content is a potential issue for your site, it's great that you're addressing it.

A Canonical Tag as you've suggested is a logical and sensible course of action. Correctly implemented, this will certainly help.

One thought,  what would provide the best user experience for your visitors?  Have a think about whether these 'additional' pages actually add any value or not for your visitors.  I suspect that you could include every different color of a certain type of widget on a single page for each type, rather than having separate pages for each color.

In this scenario, consider 301 redirecting those additional/duplicate pages to the main appropriate widget page, that would almost certainly provide a cleaner better user experience.  Obviously need to take into account your business objectives and target audience goals when making such a decision.

So really, it's Canonicals or 301s, depending on what best matches your business objectives and the user experience.

Hope that helps,

Regards

Simon

[poolguy]

I would predict you will continue to rank well for your duplicate pages.  I further predict they (because of Panda) will bring down the rankings of the rest of your site.  If you can add some good unique content to 50 different colors of a product, then by all means, make 50 pages.  But if you can't generate the content necessary to establish each individual page as "quality", then I would remove them, and simply not go that route at all, and 301 redirect all those pages into the main page.  If you think it still holds value to users, then keep them up and just use a canonical tag.

[SpecialCase]

Just thought I would update the results on this.

After taking PoolGuy's advice I 301'd the duplicate pages to their main pages, i.e.

[Black Widget in City] ->301-> [Widget in City]

Now almost every single main page has moved up on average 12 places to #1 on google!

The duplicate pages are still showing in the SERPs but appear to be dropping and I guess will eventually dissapear.

So I'm now a staunch promoter of dealing with duplicate content!