Ecommerce Duplicate Product Descriptions across 3 websites

[Roy1973]

Hi,

We are an e commerce company that has our own domain but also sell the same products on eBay and Amazon. What is the feeling on the same exact descriptions being used on different platforms? Do they count as duplicate content? Will our domain be punished/penalised as our domain does not have as much authority as EBay or Amazon?

We have over 5,000 products with our own hand written product descriptions. We want our website to be the main place/ have priority over the above market places. What's the best suggestion/solution?

thanks,

[mihaiaperghis]

Hey Roy,

I haven't worked with ecommerce sites that also sell on stores such as Amazon, but I've found an interesting answer to a question very similar to yours, here: http://moz.com/community/q/amazon-product-descriptions-and-our-website-s-product-descriptions

As a solution, you could try feeding Amazon/Ebay only a small excerpt of the description, and not linking from your main site to the Amazon/Ebay products.

Cheers

[DennisSeymour]

Hi Roy

I would make sure the descriptions are different on each. If not, at least make the one's on your page different.

Next would be to make sure your categories have unique description/content as well. It goes a long way.

BTw, no, it's not going to be a duplicate penalty, it will just help you rank them all better and easier.

and with the current tests of google omitting results, you might get your site omitted instead of the copies.

You might also want to take a look at pinterest with your ecom site. Their new changes are amazing

[WesleySmits]

I agree with Dennis about the changes on Pinterest. They are truely great for webshops.

I do have a little warning though. Ebay and Amazon are really big and authoritive websites which will rank above your own website for those products. There could be duplicate content issues for this and from what i've heard you would get punished for your own descriptions because Amazon and Ebay are so authoritive that you would get the penalty yourself.

So be careful about selling on Amazon and Ebay.

Hope my answer was helpful.

[Rephael]

The sure thing is that your domain won't be punished/penalised. But it might affect a bit, so I suggest you to summarize your products' description in order to be sure & without doubts.

Sometimes it's positive to summarize your descriptions because it can make it easier and more comfortable for buyers to read.

[Roy1973]

Thank you for all your help.

We do think it is down to Ebay and Amazon having more authority over our domain which has in turn bought our rankings down.

As we move forward we'll cut Ebay and Amazon's description down and see how this goes. I guess a long-term strategy would be to write unique content for all. But this is very time consuming for over 5000 unique products.

Thanks,