Duplicate Content Pages - A Few Queries..

[TomKing]

I am working through the latest Moz Crawl Report and focusing on the 'high priority' issues of Duplicate Page Content.

There are some strange instances being flagged and so wondered whether anyone has any knowledge as to why this may be happening...

Here is an example;

This page;

_**http://www.bolsovercruiseclub.com/destinations/cruise-breaks-&-british-isles/bruges/**_

...is apparently duplicated with these pages;

_http://www.bolsovercruiseclub.com/guides/excursions_

_http://www.bolsovercruiseclub.com/guides/cruises-from-the-uk_

_http://www.bolsovercruiseclub.com/cruise-deals/norwegian-star-europe-cruise-deals_

Not sure why...?

Also, pages that are on our 'Cruise Reviews' section such as this page;

_**http://www.bolsovercruiseclub.com/cruise-reviews/p&o-cruises/adonia/cruising/931**_

...are being flagged as duplicated content with a page like this;

_**http://www.bolsovercruiseclub.com/destinations/cruise-breaks-&-british-isles/bilbao/**_

Is this a 'thin content' issue i.e. 2 pages have 'thin content' and are therefore duplicated?

If so, the 'destinations' page can (and will be) rewritten with more content (and images) but the 'cruise reviews' are written by customers and so we are unable to do anything there...

Hope that all makes sense?!

Andy

[RyanPurkey]

I think this is partly due to the size of the navigation menu. If you look at it in a text browser, it's several pages of the same text and links before you get to the main page of the text. From a UX the menu is very unobtrusive and the body text is the center of focus, but a crawler is going to see the header, sidebar, and footer when calculating out the totals.

[TomKing]

Thanks Ryan, after checking myself using a text browser, I see exactly what you mean!

Would there be any benefit in removing the dropdown boxes from the header?

Andy

[RyanPurkey]

I think the nav menu works well from a UX perspective so complete removal might be a little drastic.  You could look into using the term 'cruise' a bit less within the menu as you get, "Africa Cruise, Alaska Cruise, Baltic Cruise... and so on," but I'd also check these changes against Google performance instead of just the Moz tool alone.  If they aren't performing whatsoever and duplicate content looks to be an issue it could warrant a change.

[TomKing]

Thanks Ryan, much appreciated!

Andy