How to fix duplicate page content error?

[RGEQUIPNET]

SEOmoz's Crawl Diagnostics is complaining about a duplicate page error.

The example of links that has duplicate page content error are

http://www.equipnet.com/misc-spare-motors-and-pumps_listid_348855

http://www.equipnet.com/misc-spare-motors-and-pumps_listid_348852

These are not duplicate pages. There are some values that are different on both pages like listing # , equipnet tag # , price.

I am not sure how do highlight the different things the two page has like the "Equipment Tag # and listing #". Do they resolve if i use some style attribute to highlight such values on page?

Please help me with this as i am not really sure why seo is thinking that both pages have same content.

Thanks !!!

[JustinTaylor88]

Hi Matthew

In Googles eyes these would be duplicate pages as 99% of the text on the page is almost identical.

Google takes a pretty tough line with this, so re-ordering a few words here and there wouldn't solve the issue, to solve the issue you really need to write unique content for each product.

You may want to consider including the product description in the area next to the picture as Google tends to put more significance on text which higher up the page.

Hope that helps.

[Matthew_Edgar]

Hey,

Those two pages are not identical but they are nearly identical. I've seen SEOmoz's tool trigger these types of duplicate content before. For example, both page headers and titles are "Misc. Spare Motor and Pumps", both contain nearly the same equipment description, and the same links to the right of the buttons. That is normal on product sites, but that is probably why they are considered duplicated.

When I've seen this happen on my campaigns it almost always follows that Google has only indexed one of those pages and not the other. Is that happening to you as well? Or, has Google indexed both pages (and ranking both pages and sending traffic to both pages)?

If Google is performing okay with these pages (the pages rank for relevant terms and you get traffic), I wouldn't worry too much about the duplicate content errors in your campaign. However, if Google hasn't indexed either page (or one but not the other) you should find ways to differentiate these pages.

To make these pages unique, formatting changes won't do it because the content will still be the same. You would need to add content that is truly unique. For example, you could add a short paragraph about each product to each page. You could make the title tag and header more unique. Or, you could try adjusting your alt text (right now, the alt text on the main image is the same on both pages).

I hope that helps.

[RGEQUIPNET]

Thank you Matthew.

Google is indexing one page not the other. If I search for "misc spare motors and pumps" it returns one result from EquipNet not the other. Our campaign has almost thousands of duplicate content error, and we need to get rid off them as we are loosing our index in google.

If i can i would definitely try to change the content if possible.

Thanks.

[RGEQUIPNET]

Thanks Justin.

I think we should add some description of the product.

Thanks.

[JustinTaylor88]

It will almost definitely solve the issue.

If it is any use to you, the approach I would typically take is to concentrate on 10 products and make the content changes to those pages.

These can be top 10 sellers, top 10 products in terms of value, 10 random products etc, re-write the descriptions for each of these and make them live.

I would then run a test crawl to ensure the pages are no longer seen as duplicates, then wait for Google to pick up the changes and see what effect it has on rankings and indexing.

Assuming this experiment is successful start working thru the rest, I find that concentrating on 10-20 products at a time works better for me as its more actionable and easier to work on a smaller product subset.

I hope thats of some use to you

[RGEQUIPNET]

Thanks Justin.

I liked your way of targeting this.

Thanks.