Duplicate content from category pages?

[danielpett]

I have an ecommerce store with different categories for my products. Some products do appear in more than one category, is that an issue even if you end up on the same product page/link?

Also, I have a "show all products" category, which I believe creates duplicate content too?

What is your take on this? What can I do to solve this? Is it even an issue of duplicate content?

All answers are very much appreciated!

[NakulGoyal]

How widespread is your "products" appearing in multiple categories ? ARe you talking about 8 out of 10 products in the category duplicate / very similar to the same collection appearing in the other category ? It really depends how many categories you have, how many products, how deep this is compared to what other unique data you have on the page combined with your domain authority etc.

As for Show All, do you also have page 1, page 2 and a show all ? Do they have unique page titles and descriptions ? What do you want to appear in the SERPS for the users ? So if I search on Google for Red Widgets, what's a good experience for me. Is it to land on Page 1 or the View-All page ? Based on what you want to do, I suggest you look at:

http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2011/09/pagination-with-relnext-and-relprev.html

http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2011/09/view-all-in-search-results.html

I hope this helps.

[danielpett]

Thanks for the response Nakul!

I would say that 3-4 out of 10 products are shown in more than one category. As for how many categories I have, there is 18 unique categories (and then you have the "show all" on top of that).

Our domain authority is pretty low so far (working on it ;). Our site was launched just a couple months back and we havn't been that active with improving it until just a few weeks back.

I'm not sure I understand what you mean by "page 1, page 2 and a show all"? Nor, "Is it to land on Page 1 or the View-All page". What page are you talking about when you say Page 1?

If I understand you correctly, we do have several pages of products under the "show all" category (i.e. it's not displaying all products in one single long page).

The products in the "show all" category are exact duplicates from the ones in the specific categories. The products in "show all" are unique from each other though.

You are very helpful! I'm just trying to understand more clearly.

[danielpett]

As I read the posts you suggested, I realized I was not clear enough when I wrote my question.

What the "show all" means on my page is that it shows ALL products from ALL categories in a new/separate category called "show all".

So it is NOT as in the example on google webmasters blogpost, that it is a "show all" alternative in every single category showing that category products on one page.

Hope I was more clear this time! Thank you for your patience.

[Debdulal]

if the same product is available two or more different paths/URLs, you need to set the preferred version as canonical. This will fix the issue of internal duplicate content. -

http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.in/2009/02/specify-your-canonical.html

Make sure that you are adding link reference of only canonical version of the URLs in the XML sitemap.

[danielpett]

So if it is the same URL to the product page in both categories it is visible, it's no problem at all?

For example:
Product X is visible in two categories, category Y and category Z.
I first visit the product through category  Y, and the URL is: www.example.com/productx/1
And I then visit the same product, but this time through category Z. The URL for the product page is exactly the same:  www.example.com/productx/1

And there is no sign of redirect, as I should see a reload of the page changing the url when I first land on the product page, right?

Would be great if you could get give green light! Or tell me what to do if there still is a problem after all. Thanks!

[NakulGoyal]

Daniel

I am guessing you have around 200 products exposed in approximately 18 categories, however there may be some overlap in the products within the categories, but the product URLs themselves are unique, so there is no content duplication between the product URLs themselves. You are just checking to make sure if a Red Widget Listed under Category A as well as Category B is okay. With your ratio being 3-4 out of 10, I won't be concerned.

If however this increases to over 50%, I'd be concerned in having 20 category pages being duplicate of each other by over 50%. The closer to 100%, the higher the risk. The closer to 0%, the lower the risk.

And it's just the product name you display on the category level page, not the product description right ? If yes, I'd say you are good to go. Don't worry about it too much at this point.

I hope this helps.

[NakulGoyal]

Deb, Daniel's case does not sound like having multiple URLs of the same Product. It's just that the same product is listed under multiple categories. So depending upon the percentage of duplicate products vs the unique products listed in a category, it may or may not be okay. Also, this may vary based on how big your website is, unique content on the category level pages as well as the overall domain authority.

[danielpett]

Alright. My website is just a few months old and I haven't been that active promoting it or improving it (until just a few weeks back now).

My domain authority I would say is very low, maybe you know a way I can find out exactly what it is?

We have less than 200 products on the site, and as stated earlier 3-4 out of 10 is visible in more than one category (duplicated).

Does this give you any indication on my situation, to be able to give me advice on what to do to resolve this?

Once again, thank you for your patience!

[NakulGoyal]

Daniel, are you displaying product description on these category pages ? If not, if it's just the product name, you are fine.

[danielpett]

It's only the product name in the category listings. Great! Thanks a lot Nakul.

[Debdulal]

Ohh sorry.. In that case, you do not need to implement canonical code .. sorry my bad ..:(

_So, what I understand is that you are concerned about boiler plate template and what I personally feel is that you do not need to worry about them because this is not going to affect the visibility of your website in one way or the other. _

[Dr-Pete]

Yeah, I think Nakul is on the right track here. You don't have to worry about the product pages themselves, because the categories converge on one URL. The search pages could be considered "thin" content, but it really depends on the scope of pages relative to your overall site. Rel=prev/next is a good bet for reducing your exposure (and it's low risk), but the solution depends a bit on the situation.

It's not a high-risk situation - it's more a matter of diluting your index (potentially) with hundreds or thousands of search pages that Google may not find very valuable.

[balanceinternet]

Hey all, I was reading this post and I have a slightly different situation wherein my products are appearing in different categories as duplicate entries and also as different urls, what are the implications then?