Duplicate product description ranking problems (off-site duplicate content)

[raido]

We do business in niche category and not in English language market. We have 2-3 main competitors who use same product information as us. They all do have same duplicate products descriptions as we. We with one competitors have domains with highest authority in this market. They maybe have 10-20% better link profile (when counting linking domains and total links).

Problem is that they rank much better with product names then we do (same duplicate product descriptions as we have and almost same level internal optimisation) and they haven't done any extra link building for products. Manufacturers website aren't problem, because these doesn't rank well with product name keywords. Most of our new and some old product go to the Supplemental Results and are shown in "In order to show you the most relevant results, we have omitted some entries very similar to the ... already displayed. If you like, you can repeat the search with the omitted results included.".

Unique text for products isn't a option. When we have writen unique content for product, then these seem to rank way better. So our questions is what can we do externaly to help our duplicate description product rank better compared to our main competitor withour writing unique text?

How important is indexation time? Will it give big advantage to get indexed first? We have thought of using more RSS/bing services to get faster indexation (both site will get products information almost at same time). It seems our competitor get quicker in index then we do.

Also are farmpages helpful for getting some quick low value links for new products. We have planed to make 2-3 domains that would have few links pointint to these new products to get little advantage right after products are launched and doesn't have extranl links.

Sitemap works and our new product are shown on front pages (products that still mostly doesn't rank well and go to Supplemental Results). Some new product have #1 or top3 raking, but these are only maybe 1/3 that should have top3 rankings.

Also we have noticed problem that when we index products quickly (for example Fetch as Google) then these will get good top3 results and then some will get out of rankings (to Supplemental Results).

[MonicaOConnor]

The reason your competitor is ranking better could be the value of their DA and their PA. Without looking specifically it would be hard to say. Google isn't going to show two pages that are exactly the same, which is why they say similar pages have been omitted.

I would not suggest using a link farm. This can only bring you disaster in the long run.

Have you thought about getting customer reviews on page? Using a program that will put customer reviews on page, so that you can see them in the source code is a good way to start leveling the duplicate content out of the equation. You should also put some focus into building quality links. It isn't the quantity of links that you have, but the quality.

[raido]

Thank you for your answer. When comparing DA and PA then ours are little bit better 48 vs 49 (DA), and also our front page PA is better. But actually Open Site Explorer data (DA and PA) isn't really good when we look international market like us. Ahrefs gets better link profiles here. But as we have such a little difference when comparing backlinks then it's little bit strage that they can get so much better results.

It's small international market so customer reviews isn't option. Nobody doesn't give these here. We have reviews possibility already but nobody doesn't submit these.

So also my main qiestions is what factors Google look when they rank same duplicate products. Like we know that they count DA, PA.. and as I understand also who get indexed first. Does anybody know what else?

[Dr-Pete]

There's no easy answer, I'm afraid, and if an answer looks too easy, I'd stay away from it. Building low-quality links might help in the short-term, but it's too high-risk in the long-term. Plus, if you're combining it with duplicate content, you've got multiple quality issues in play (at least, in Google's eyes - I'm not making a judgment calling about using product descriptions, which is very common).

You say that unique text is proven to have worked, and yet it isn't an option. Why? If it's a matter of time/cost, I'd strongly consider not only the long-term ROI but the possibility of investing selectively. For example, you don't have to write unique text for every product you sell (or re-sell) - you could pick the top 10% of products (which may account for 90% of sales) and start with those. Even the top 1% would be a start. Small investments in the right places could yield large returns here.

The other option that people don't like to hear but really is powerful is to consider more carefully focusing your link equity on a smaller number of products. The more products you list, the more duplicates you have, and some of those products are probably very poor sellers or have very poor profit margins. What if you focused your site architecture on 25% of the total products? You'd focus your authority more and each page would be stronger, relative to your competitors.

One easy win is to make sure you're not dealing with any internal duplicate content (product options pages, search filters, etc.). If you're compounding external duplication with internal duplication, it's only going to make all of your problems worse. The internal duplication is much easier to solve.