Pages with near duplicate content

[SammyT]

Hi Mozzers,

I need your opinion on the following. Imagine that we have a product X (brand Sony for example), so if we sell parts for different models of items of this product X, we then have numerous product pages with model number.

Sony camera

parts for Sony Camera XYZ

parts for Sony Camera XY

etc.

So the thing is that these pages are very very similar, like 90% duplicate and they do duplicate pages for Panasonic, Canon let's say with small tweaks in content. I know that those are duplicates and I would experiment removing a category for one brand only (least seached for), but at the same time I cannot remove for the rest as they convert a lot, being close to the search query of the customer (customer looks for parts for Sony XYZ, lands on the page and buys, insteading of staying on a page for Sony parts where should additionally browse for model number). What would you advise to make as unique as possible these pages, I am thinking about:

• change page titles. meta descriptions

• tweak the content as much as I can (very difficult, there is nothing fancy or different in those :(()

• i will start with top top pages that really drive traffic first and see how it goes. I will remove least visited pages and prominently put the model number in Sony parts page to see how it goes in terms of organic and most importantly conversions

Any other ideas? I am really concerned about dupes and a penalty, but I try to think of solutions in order not to kill conversions at this point.

Have a lovely Monday

[gazzerman1]

In multiple conversations with Google's John Mueller we have discussed this matter. There is NO penalty for internal duplicate content, if its unique to your site then you have nothing to worry about, especially if it is there for genuine reasons.

What John suggests is to focus on top level pages and try to cover the main details on those pages creating on great page to capture the traffic and funnel them down to other pages if need be. If that works you could effectively noindex the other pages.

There is nothing wrong with the way you have it if its genuine and serves a purpose and works in Google. It is always good to add more useful content if you can.

If however its dup content from other sites then I would really make sure you have your own unique content to add.

[MonicaOConnor]

I would disagree that this does no harm. If you are targeting the keyword "Sony" for example, it loses relevancy the more you have it dispersed throughout your site with duplicate content. Matt Cutts has a great video here, http://searchengineland.com/googles-matt-cutts-duplicate-content-wont-hurt-you-unless-it-is-spammy-167459 where he discusses this. If any of those duplicate pages have keywords, you are losing ranking opportunities.

Have you thought about adding a reviews system to those pages? That helped me a lot with all of the parts and accessories I have on my site. I also started putting them on the main pages to build some prioritization. For example:

My Generator Page: Includes the Generator, then displays the accessory and parts pages. I allow my users to add them to the cart from this page in order to focus the traffic in one location. This has helped my main pages and and my accessory pages.

I added reviews to the parts pages and then helpful tidbits of information where I could. Such as maintenance schedules, how to articles and any other topic I could think of that would be helpful to someone looking for those parts and accessories.