I'm thinking I might need to canonicalize back to the home site and combine some content, what do you think?

[ThridHour]

I have a site that is mostly just podcasts with transcripts, and it has both audio and video versions of the podcasts. I also have a blog that I contribute to that links back to the video/transcript page of these podcasts. So this blog I contribute to has the exact same content (the podcast; both audio and video but no transcript) and then an audio and video version of this podcast. Each post of the podcast has different content on it that is technically unique but I'm not sure it's unique enough.

So my question is, should I canonicalize the posts on this blog back to the original video/transcript page of the podcast and then combine the video with the audio posts.

Thanks!

[AaronHenry]

I believe best practice is to always canonicalize to the original content.  However, the mix of the original content within those blog pages is tricky because I'm sure a lot has to do with how much content is duped.

Have you tried running any reports for duplicate content issues?  I know Moz has some great tools and one of my favorites is Screaming Frog Spider.  Have you also looked at your GWT to see what if any issues Google may have?

Duplicate content can be bad, but there are a few cases with transcriptions that we've recently discovered where penalties are non-existent.  One of the recent lessons we learned was from a similar thread about video transcriptions.  Phil in the post submitted some good links and research to back it all up.

Here's the link to that discussion: http://moz.com/community/q/video-seo-youtube-transcriptions-dupe-content
I hope this points you in the right direction!

[MilesMedia]

What's the more valuable goal for your traffic: to have people find the blog or the main site? If you point the canonical tags from the blog to the site, then you'll reduce the chances of anyone ever finding the blog in a search, which would waste the extra effort of adding unique content about the podcasts (unless you have a devoted readership who is going from the podcast page to the corresponding blog post in order to see what extra insights you've added).

Is it creating any duplicate content issues to have the posts in both places? If so, that would be a good reason to redirect the canonical refs (or discontinue the blog altogether).

[Dr-Pete]

I tend to agree with Karin. On the one hand - yes, this could be seen as duplicate/thin content, especially at large scale. On the other hand, I'm not clear on what your goal is or which set of pages is more important. Think about the business case and where you want to bring users, not just the SEO aspect. Why do both of these pages exist, and what are you trying to achieve?

[ThridHour]

The website is the original source and the more important entity, so the goal is to bring people there. The blog that we manage is on a larger site called patheos.com, a religious website.

I'm not 100% sure if it's creating a "duplicate" content problem but I am feeling like there might be a uniqueness problem.

Both pages (the website and blog) exist in order to help promote the podcast with the blog posts linking back to their respective full transcript posts on the website.

So I'm thinking the other issue might be that the content on the blog if not duplicate, then is considered "thin". It is wordpress based and the content it includes is made up of posts, and there is one for each of the video and audio versions of the cast. The video version includes the video and and then a few short paragraphs talking about the topic at hand being discussed in the podcast. And the audio version is just one paragraph or so about the topic along with the audio. Technically unique from the video, but obviously short, and is generally targeting the same thing.

The website is also wordpress based and has a post for each of the video and audio versions of the cast as well. The video post just has the video and then the verbatim transcript, like Moz's whiteboard fridays! And then the audio version includes a short paragraph or so on the topic, again technically different or unique from the video transcript and also different from the other audio post on the blog but also "thin". Sorry if this is confusing...

Thanks so much for your responses so far, I greatly appreciate it!

[Dr-Pete]

Any chance you could share one pair of URLs that you worry might seem like duplicates? Unfortunately, it's hard to tell out of context. How many podcasts/videos are we talking about - dozens, hundreds, thousands?

[MilesMedia]

If the intent of the blog on patheos is for people to stumble across that content, or to fuel a feed for users/subscribers on that site (as opposed to having higher search visibility than the actual podcast site), then you can go ahead and direct the canonical to the original podcast pages. Or, simply leave things as they are (so long as it's not creating thin/duplicate content issues).

If your patheos blog ranks higher in search results because it's part of a larger blog network, then you definitely won't want to change the canonical, because you'll want the blog to maintain it's juice.

Have you looked at your referral traffic data lately? How much traffic is the blog driving to the site? Enough to make it worth all the extra effort?

[ThridHour]

Yes definitely. We are talking about dozens podcasts so far...

this is the video version of this podcast from the blog:

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/ibelievepodcast/2013/08/what-happens-to-those-who-die-without-knowing-christ-video/

and this links back to the video and transcript post on the website

this is the audio version of this podcast from the blog:

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/ibelievepodcast/2013/08/what-happens-to-those-who-die-without-knowing-christ-audio/

and this links back to the video and transcript post on the website also.

video and transcript version of this podcast on the website:

http://ibelievepodcast.com/1452/die-without-knowing-christ-video-transcript

audio version of this podcast on the website:

http://ibelievepodcast.com/1455/die-without-knowing-christ-audio

as you can see there a total of four posts for each podcast.

[Dr-Pete]

You have to understand that "unique" is relative. Yes, each of these pages have some unique content and legitimately target different things. In Google's eyes, though, they have virtually the same title tag, are on the same subject, share common header elements, text, and keywords, and could be seen as near-duplicates. The audio page especially appears thin, since Google can't weigh in the value of the actual audio itself.

Personally, I'd combine the audio/video on one page, for starters. I just don't see clear value in the separation, either for search or users. As for the transcripts, that page is essentially richer. It's the video + the transcript. From a business/organizational standpoint, I'm not really clear on what the two sites are trying to accomplish, but you are potentially diluting your ranking ability. Two sites are harder to market and promote than one - that's a reality that goes far beyond SEO.

I see that the two sites have very different purposes, but if it were me, I would probably focus the ranking power of these videos/podcasts on just one page, and use cross-domain canonicals. This is as much a business decision as an SEO decision, so I can only give you my opinions, but the four copies probably are hurting you in the long run.

[ThridHour]

Okay thanks, I'll discuss this with others at my organization.  I think we will combine the video and audio posts into one and then rel=canonical the patheos blog posts to the original website.

Any other ideas or suggestions?

This has been great feedback thank you!

[Dr-Pete]

If you combine them, you'll also need to rel=canonical or 301-redirect the audio pages to the video pages (or vise-versa). To avoid chaining your canonicals, the blog posts should all go back to whichever version (audio/video) you choose as the canonical.

It depends on usage, but I'm guessing the videos have higher engagement than the audio? You could just build a longish page that looks like:

[Video]
[Audio]
[Description]
[Transcript]

Transcripts add a lot of SEO power to a page, potentially, and getting that content right on the main video page could help quite a bit, if you can keep it user-friendly.