Big retailers and duplicate content

[SaraCoppola]

Hello there!

I was wondering if you guys have experience with big retailers sites fetching data via API (PDP content etc.) from another domain which is also sharing the same data with other multiple sites.

If each retailer has thousands on products, optimizing PDP content (even in batches) is quite of a cumbersome task and rel="canonical" pointing to original domain will dilute the value.

How would you approach this type of scenario?

Looking forward to read  your suggestions/experiences

Thanks a lot!

Best

Sara

[WDaubenmire]

My experience is the biggest Retailers aren't necessarily penalized for having the same content as other sites.  I regularly compete with Amazon, Home Depot and two other websites for the same keywords from Motorola.  Typically, Motorola, Amazon, and Home Depot win those top three spots with their canned data.  Motorola should win as they're the manufacturer.  The rest of us are competing for the the fourth spot on the page.  The smaller competitors have better and deeper content.  We even have higher Moz scores but still rank lower.  So if you're one of the Big Boys don't sweat it so much.  If you're not, start with your best selling sku and get busy.

[Everett]

Chances are you're going to lose with a lesser-known brand If you have the very same content as Amazon, eBay and Walmart. If you can customize the PDP content, I suggest choosing your top products and making those pages unique. If not, you may have to stick with optimizing category pages and picking up the crumbs for PDPs, as Billy alluded to.

Having unique reviews on your site for those products makes a huge difference.

[WDaubenmire]

Don't let Everett's comments about "picking up the crumbs" discourage you.  My client isn't isn't trying to be Amazon, Home Depot, or the Manufacturer.  Bouncing around in spaces 3-6 for the most common keywords in their respective space has helped them build a very nice business.  For them, and for you, long tail keywords are money!

Absolutely agree that having unique reviews on your site and third party sites make a huge difference in rankings.

[Everett]

Billy,

This client has product detail pages ranking #3 with content that is duplicated verbatim on multi-merchant marketplaces like Amazon? Are you able to share what those keywords are, even in a private message? I ask out of curiosity because I usually don't see that. I usually see category pages ranking. But, as you said, sometimes you can do this with long tail keywords.

[SaraCoppola]

Apologies for the very late reply but Thank you both Billy and Everett, really appreciate your feedback, I feel better and more confident on my next steps!