Content Audit Questions

[ATP]

Hi Mozzers

Having worked on my companies site for a couple of months now correcting many issues, im now ready to begin looking at a content review, many areas of the site contain duplicate content, the main causes being

1. Category Page Duplications
e.g.
Widget Page Contains ("Blue Widget Extract")
Widget Page Contains ("Red Widget Extract")
Blue Widget Page Contains ("Same Blue Widget Extract")
Red Widget Page Contains ("Same Red Widget Extract")

2. Product Descriptions
Item 1 (Identical to item 2 with the exception of a few words and technical specs)
Item 2

Causing almost all the content on the site to get devalued. Whilst i've cleared all moz errors and warnings im certain this is causing devaluation of most of the website.

I was hoping you could answer these questions so I know what to expect once i have made the changes.

1. Will the pages that had duplicate content recover once they possess unique content or should i expect a hard and slow climb back?
2. The website has never receive any warnings from Google, does this mean recovery for penalties like duplicate content will be quicker
3. Several pages rank on page 1 for fairly competitive keywords despite having duplicate content and keyword spammy content. What are the chances of shooting myself in the foot by editing this content?
4. I know I will have to wait for google to crawl the pages before i see any reflection in the changes, but how long after google has crawled the page should I get a realistic idea of how positive the changes were?

As always, thanks for you time!

[PatrickDelehanty]

Hi there

1. Yes, they can come back if you create unique content to that page that takes on-site factors into consideration. The climb really depends on the industry and the queries you are trying to rank for.

2. No, just because you have never had a penalty before doesn't mean the climb out of a penalty would be easier than a site that has multiple. The best course of action is to get valuable and unique content up as quickly (but efficiently) as you can and avoid penalties at all costs.

3. I would honestly run through the content audit that Moz has - it's a step by step process that will help you distinguish what content needs to be removed, updated, or consolidated. Remember - Google provides resources and steps for you to take when you have duplicate content.

4. SEO Theory has a great post about this that covers multiple areas of your SEO - from meta tags, content, and penalty recovery. I suggest you read it as it's more comprehensive than anything anyone could write here. Marie Haynes also wrote a great post for traffic performance after a penalty if you want to read into that as well (not saying you have one! It's just useful information).

Hope this helps! Good luck!