Duplicated Meta Descriptions on Dynamic Paginated Pages

[TomKing]

If the title didn't put you off please read on!

According to our latest Moz Crawl Report we have circa 700 instances of duplicate Meta Description on pages that are both dynamically created and also paginated, however, I believe that number to be greater!

We are unable to manual make changes to these pages (because they are dynamic) and so we need ask our web devs to create a change in how the Meta is created...

If I am not making myself clear (and there is a good chance that I'm not!) then here is an example of what I mean;

http://www.bolsovercruiseclub.com/cruise-deals/silversea-cruise-deals/

There are 92 pages of cruise deals for this particular operator with the results of each page having the option to sort by 4 categories;

• Recommended
• Cruise Price
• Sail Date
• Best Value

4 x 92 = 368 instances just for this one operator!

The current Meta Desc is;

A selection of the best Silversea cruise deals taking in over 800 destinations across all 7 continents.

...which isn't great I know!

The problem is how to make each page (in each category) unique

If any of you have incurred anything similar and have any kind of solution or recommendation then please respond - I would be most grateful!

Andy

[donford]

Hi Andy,

I have to options. First the easiest. Canonical the pages to the main page. Pretty simple but possibly not the best.

The second solution would be to make the descriptions & titles dynamic as well. For example (I don't have all the info) so bare with me.

Base Description:A selection of the best Silversea cruise deals taking in over 800 destinations across all 7 continents.

On Category Selection:
$category Silversea Cruise Deals $silversea_deal_1

Which would give you these 4 initial descriptions:

• Recommended Silversea Cruise Deals
• Cruise Price Silversea Cruise Deals
• Sail Date Silversea Cruise Deals
• Best Value Silversea Cruise Deals

Then you define the deals..
$silversea_deal_1 = 4 Day 3 Night Key West To Bahama's $499

Now you append the variable to the description:

• Recommended Silversea Cruise Deals 4 Day 3 Night Key West To Bahama's $499
• Cruise Price Silversea Cruise Deals 4 Day 3 Night Key West To Bahama's $499
• Sail Date Silversea Cruise Deals 4 Day 3 Night Key West To Bahama's $499
• Best Value Silversea Cruise Deals 4 Day 3 Night Key West To Bahama's $499

That is how I typically handle multiple pages that need to rank SEO'wise but have dynamic content. You just find a pattern that you can use and plug in the variables, just like any of the content but you do it inside the SEO part.

Hope that makes sense and helps,

Don

[TomKing]

Thanks for your reply Don but I don't think that is going to work...

Taking this page (page 4) as an example; http://www.bolsovercruiseclub.com/cruise-deals/silversea-cruise-deals/?order_by=departure_date which is categorised by 'sail date'

There are 10 cruises on this page sailing to different destinations on different dates - each cruise opens up a new (child) page where the meta desc is actually correct (unique at least) due to previous web development rules being implemented!

The problem is with the actual 92 (parent) pages - the only solution I can see is to include a page number to the meta...

Something along the lines of;

Page 4 of  Silversea cruise deals to over 800 destinations across all 7 continents ordered by sail date.

Page 4 of  Silversea cruise deals to over 800 destinations across all 7 continents ordered by best value

Page 4 of  Silversea cruise deals to over 800 destinations across all 7 continents ordered by recommended

Page 4 of  Silversea cruise deals to over 800 destinations across all 7 continents ordered by cruise price

Actually I think that works...

Thanks again Don, between us I think we might have cracked it!

Andy

[donford]

With the link I see what you mean. Hard to put a variable on a listing like that.

There is possibly another option that would be to use canonical with rel next / previous this defines the relationship to the search engines. Have a look at Google's Webmaster blog here.

Good luck,

Don