Partially Duplicated Content Advice

[AlabuSkinCare]

Hi Folks,

I have a question about how duplicate content works. We sell all different kinds of goat milk soap. Each kind has its own product page and unique description. However, there are some benefits that all of the different soap have in common. I'd like to list those benefits on each individual goat milk soap page, with the product-specific benefits and description right below it. My questions are:

1. If I include the same exact block of text and images on each page, along with the unique description. Will the search engine see that as duplicate content?

2. Furthermore, will this dilute any keyword ranking ability that content brings to a page, because it occurs on 15 different pages? (i.e. the search engine can't tell which one is the "best" result).

If so, what do you recommend in this kind of situation?

Thanks,

Hal

[Cyrus-Shepard]

Hi Hal,

Hope you don't mind me taking a stab at this question also.

Blocks of duplicate content, whether they be images or text, repeated among several pages is often known as "boilerplate" material.

Boilerplate material is okay, but if you have to much of it, without enough unique content to balance it out - that's when you get in trouble.

In general, you want to make sure you have a minimum amount of unique content on each page. My own personal rule of thumb is at least a couple hundred words - but it varies from situation to situation. if you have a lot of boilerplate, you want to make your original content front and center. This means placing it near the top of the body copy, above the fold and first in the HTML. Then place the necessary boilerplate info after this.

It's best to try to generate as much unique content for each product as possible. You can do this by including reviews, how-to videos, testimonials, or whatever value-added content you can dream up, as long as it's quality content and serves your customer.

Finally, make sure when "optimizing" the page (things like the title tag and meta description) make sure to focus these elements on the unique content of your page, and not the boilerplate material, so as to not dilute your rankings.

Best,

Cyrus

[AlabuSkinCare]

Ahhh ok. So i won't worry about the duplicate content so long as there is a substantial amount of good quality original content on each page. Glad to have an understanding on this as I found it a little confusing after reading about it. Thanks!

Hal