Which duplicate content should I remove?

[Ocularis]

I have duplicate content and am trying to figure out which URL to remove. What should I take into consideration?

Authority?

How close to the root the page is?

How clear the path is?

Would appreciate your help! Thanks!

[Matthew_Edgar]

Hi,

Let me back up a step. When you say remove duplicate content, do you mean delete the page? For example, pageA.html and pageB.html have the same content. In your example, are you asking do you delete pageA.html or delete pageB.html? I wouldn't delete either page as both pages likely have traffic, links, etc.

Instead of deleting, you want to pick which page is the canonical version of that page. More simply, when somebody Googles the terms that page is targeting, do you want pageA.html to show up or do you pageB.html to show up? If you decide you want pageA.html to show up, then you need to redirect pageB.html to pageA.html. That way, if somebody goes to pageB.html they end up on pageA.html. If you delete pageB.html and somebody goes there, they'll end up on an error page.

Now, on where question...in terms of deciding what version is canonical, I would suggest you look at authority first and foremost. If the domain authority in OSE is higher for pageA.html than it is for pageB.html, keeping pageA.html makes sense. Things like URL structure are only mildly important, especially when making decisions like this.

Hope that helps. Thanks,
Matthew