Duplicate product information on ecommerce site

[Emphi]

I am planning to launch an ecommerce website soon. There is no way to start with the original content for such a small startup like me.

It's pretty expensive to get original content for 1000 (around) products. You know, there are a lot of other costs such as, software licences, modules, developer, designer fees, wholesale purchases, monthly subscription for services etc...

This is what i am planning to do:

• Start with duplicate manufacturers' or amazon's product description, meta tags etc. Then gradually turn them into an original one.

I assume, google will give me a low score due to duplicate content but, if i start with duplicate content first, and then change with the original ones over the time, will this change my score?

[eyepaq]

Hi,

Bellow is a suggestion of one approach that you can take based on your overview.

Based on the limitation as far as content and approach you can start the way you mention however there are a few additional things you need to consider:

• don't start with content from Amazon. Amazon and ebay content have a different approach in google since a lot of people are copying that content. Try and find smaller resources even if you can say those are not better then amazon.

• set those duplicate pages to noindex - in this way you will have the pages online for the users but not for google. You can't and won't rank anyway with those so there won't be any organic traffic and google won't flag you as a copycat. Then when you start adding additional content or transform those pages into more high and rich resources pages with custom content or with contnet from multiple sources then you can move forward and release those pages into the index by removing the nofollow.

In this way you will end up with the pages into the index in a progressive manner and that's good and you will start from day 1 (as far as pages into the index) with a good score.

It's harder to move from a site that has only duplicate content to a site that can actually rank then to move the pages into the index on a later date but with good content from day one.

My 2 cents.

Hope it helps.

[josh-riley]

I understand the issue, however, you are going to create a lot more issues that will need more help by going this route. It's much harder to go back and try to fix things after the fact, especially since just managing a site introduces a whole separate set of issues that will require your resources and costs. I inherited a situation like this and it's probably cost us more in lost opportunities than it would have to build it correctly. Off soap box now.

The no index is a good start, and focus on the main pages you really need to care about to get visibility for and make sure you follow best practices for those.