Help fixing duplicate content issues

[cmscss]

This post is deleted!

[cmscss]

Just thinking that we may be able to hack the CMS so it outputs the tags into the title and the description. Would that solve this duplicate content issue?

We won't be able to add the tags to the URL or change the content that is output.

Cheers

Ben

[RuthBurrReedy]

Does the page /blog/recipes/recipe-search have anything on it? With search results pages, I often recommend that people use rel=canonical to point back to the main search page. You should be able to change the tag search results page template in your CMS to automatically add a canonical tag that always points back to the main search results page. This will mean your search results pages won't be indexed, so this may not be a perfect solution if you're currently getting organic traffic to those pages. Google is known not to really want "search results in the search results," though, so it could be worth doing.

Another solution would be to go into Webmaster Tools/Search Console and tell Google to ignore the paramater ?akID%5B21%5D%5BatSelectOptionID%5D%5B%5D. Again, you should only do this if you're sure you don't want these pages to appear in the index.

Does that make sense? Let me know if you have any questions.

[cmscss]

Thanks heaps Ruth, very much appreciated.

So it seems like the best option here is to just tell Google to ignore these pages. But it feels like we're sacrificing humans (and the randomness of real life) to satisfy a machine!

However, I guess if duplicate content ranks us down, then it seems like the right way to go.

Cheers

Ben

[RuthBurrReedy]

Presumably  humans will still be able to find your search results pages as needed by using the search function on your site. This way, they won't enter your site on a page that might be confusing for them - in my view, it's a win-win! Best of luck!