Best Way to check for duplicate pages

[joemas99]

With Google's updates we know they want to clean out duplicate content. i have been seeing the same crap spit out even word for word on different sites. Anyway how do you experienced SEO people test for dups on your own site as well as other sites. The only thing i can come up with is paying copyscape 5 cts a test. There has to be other ways. Advise/

[RyanPurkey]

You can search for long quote, supposedly unique phrases in Google. If you find multiple pages from other domains you'll have located duplicate content. Duplicate content isn't a death knell though as Google understands that there are many sites out there which scrape and farm content. With enough authority you should outrank those sorts of sites and also be able to highlight your original content status in Google Webmaster tools.

If you have copyright status to your content you can always pursue DMCA removal requests.

[joemas99]

Thanks, I am aware of those things. I still don't want to worry about duplicate content. i have many pages that have similar key words that i can rank for, and I have to write them. I also have a lot of header and side bar info and need my content long enough to overcome that. Writing many pages that focus on similar key words can cause me to inadvertantly write similar info that i need to watch out for. that's why i need a copyscape type program.

[RyanPurkey]

Does your situation benefit from having higher content pages that rank for your target keyword plus variables and long term additions?  If so that might be an easier path to tread than something like page 1: kitten, page 2: kittens, page 3: young kittens...

If you're really looking into cranking out the content you're more along the lines of a eHow or other Demand Media property and then yes, you'd need a program to prevent duplication of both content created and keywords targeted.  Still, even they get variable content by avoiding overly similar topics.

Finally, if header, footer, and side bar info is complicating things too drastically you could take steps on some pages to keep it unindexed via flash, image map, or by minimizing where applicable.

[Marcus_Miller]

Hey Joe

I think you have likely answered your own question to some extent - there are lots of manual ways to check for duplicate content by searching for it. You could even automate this against new sites by setting up Google Alerts to check for various random search strings in double quotes from all the pages across your site but why do this when there are professional solutions like copyscape?

Sure, there is a charge involved with copyscape and such tools but it is a fairly low. Alteratively, you will have to spend more time (money) coming up with a manual solution that will likely be less comprehensive.

A client of mine recently got hit quite badly by duplicate problems, some internal repetition (chunks on multiple pages) & loads of other sites had taken chunks of text from multiple pages, some entire pages had been copied with small edits. The offshoot of this was nearly 3 months without rankings whilst we identified and resolved the issue and being an internet company this was nearly three months without any new orders coming in.

If your have concerns about being caught up in a duplicate filter & this could have a series impact on your business then copyscape is a solid investment.

Hope it helps

Marcus

[joemas99]

Thanks, so then 5ct a test will add up but then it will be worth it. That's the feedback i was looking for, just wanted to make sure i wasn't missing another cheaper service that was as good.

[joemas99]

Well there's the rub. Close key words...

avoid an audit

avoid a tax audit

avoid audit

all get hits from the rankings data. they bring up different pages as top ranking because different sites and pages rank differently based on the key word optimization.

Now I have the experience to know that in the past a good well developed linking structure will overcome this and you actually can rank for several variations by having a good topical silo structure. I am sometimes surprised what my main page ranks for just because a term is on the page! Content dominating the page does get hits.

BUT...competition is getting crazy in my industry. Sales companies are ranking and then selling the leads.I'm not just competing with similar businesses anymore. It seems like as long as I can vary the content, and i really can, because I have over 30 years in the business and more experience than anyone i know , so i can write varied content all day long!

As for the page, we don't use flash or anything. Had over 100 links on many pages so some changes had to be made.

Tell me more about an easier path to trend instead of doing pages for slight variations. Long term phrases don't seem to get many hits in my business. At least I don't think it's worth doing pages for till we knock off the shorter ones we have a chance of ranking for, which includes the three listed above.