Duplicate peices of content on multiple pages - is this a problem

[Chammy]

I have a couple of WordPress clients with the same issue but caused in different ways:

1. The Slash WP theme which is a portfolio theme, involves setting up multiple excerpts of content that can then be added to multiple pages. So although the pages themselves are not identical, there are the same snippets of content appearing on multiple pages

2. A WP blog which has multiple categories and/or tags for each post, effectively ends up with many pages showing duplicate excerpts of content. My view has always been to noindex these pages (via Yoast), but was advised recently not to.

In both these cases, even though the pages are not identical, do you think this duplicate content across multiple pages could cause an issue?

All thoughts appreciated

[Andy.Drinkwater]

Your 1st point - don't worry about this. As long as there is enough good unique content on each page, then a snippet isn't a problem.

Regarding your 2nd point, were you given a reason not to noindex? Were you given an alternative solution?

In many cases, noindex sorts out all of the problems that Panda can throw at a website. However, just be aware that there are occasions this wont work and you need to look to robots them out.

Andy

[Chammy]

Thanks Andy

1. hmmm some of pages are pretty much ONLY made up of many different snippets of content all of which are appearing on other pages. It's a horrid theme, but the cost to change it may not be worth the ROI. Your suggestion to beef up content that we can is good though, so thanks

2. Reason given not to noindex was that top level category pages can be good for category keywords, but I have always thought the downsides of the dupe content would outway any benefits that category KW could bring - cos only really in URL, title and headings anyway

[Backlinko]

Andy is 100% right: don't sweat the snippets and noindex your category pages (they can be a dupe content issue so it's better to be proactive rather than end up as Panda food).