Duplicate content due to numerous sub category level pages

[ozil]

We have a healthcare website which lists doctors based on their medical speciality. We have a paginated series to list hundreds of doctors.

Algorithm: A search for Dentist in Newark locality of New York gives a result filled with dentists from Newark followed by list of dentists in locations near by Newark. So all localities under a city have the same set of doctors distributed jumbled an distributed across multiple pages based on nearness to locality. When we don't have any dentists in Newark we populate results for near by localities and create a page.

The issue - So when the number of dentists in New York is <11 all Localities X Dentists will have jumbled up results all pointing to the same 10 doctors. The issue is even severe when we see that we have only 1-3 dentists in the city. Every locality page will be exactly the same as a city level page. We have about 2.5 Million pages with the above scenario.

**City level page - **https://www.example.com/new-york/dentist - 5 dentists

**Locality Level Page - **https://www.example.com/new-york/dentist/clifton, https://www.example.com/new-york/dentist/newark - Page contains the same 5 dentists as in New York city level page in jumbled up or same order.

What do you think we must do in such a case?

We had discussions on putting a noindex on locality level pages or to apply canonical pointing from locality level to city level. But we are still not 100% sure.

[GlobeRunner]

You'll definitely want to take care of the duplicate content issue. Rather than using a noindex tag, we usually recommend using a canonical tag in this situation. If you're able to only show the canonical tag on pages that have fewer listings, that would be great.

Another option would be to always make sure you have a certain number of listings showing up. Perhaps in those cases where you only have a limited number of listings you can show listings from other cities in the area? I know in our area, I wouldn't have a problem traveling to another city in order to get the service (like a dentist) that I need.

[MattRoney]

Hi ozil! Did Eric's answer help? We'd love an update.