DUPLICATE PAGE TITLE ISSUE

[PH292]

Hi

We have 25 pages with a download form on it. People arrive at the page through a ink with optimised anchor text which sits on the information pages.

As there is no information on these pages we do not need them to be optimised so the developer has given all the download pages exactly the same page title.

Although the pages in themselves are not significant would this effect the way Google viewed the whole site, and would it pay to make each one unique or doesn't it really matter.

Alternatively, is there a better way to handle this?  and if so would that ligate the benefit of the anchor text.

Thanks

[brycebertola]

Is there a reason you have 25 different pages? Could you consolidate everything into one page or does each page offer a separate download item?

If they are different tasks, they should have different titles. If they are the same, then there should probably only be one page.

[EGOL]

Alternatively, is there a better way to handle this?  and if so would that ligate the benefit of the anchor text.

Put some unique and interesting information on those pages, describe your download in detail, show screenshots or samples, write unique and sexy titles, optimize them, enjoy the traffic.

Download pages on my sites get LOTS of traffic.  LOTS.  One received 2475 visitors from search yesterday.

Lots of people link to download pages, tweet about them, like them on FB. This could be a huge opportunity.

[evolvingSEO]

Do you mean to say that you do not want these pages indexed at all?  You say "there is no information on these pages and they do not need to be optimized".  If in fact, you don't want them indexed, you would add them to your robots.txt file as such:

Disallow: /filename.html

Disallow: /folder/filname.html

etc.

However, what EGOL and Bryce have suggested would be the most work, but make the most sense overall.  If you can find a way to re-structure the 25 downloads / add content etc to capture the additional traffic that would seem to be the best choice.

[PH292]

HI Dan

Thank you for your reply - I may end up going down your route as the subject matter is manufacturing issues - so not rivetting facebook content, that's for sure.It is amazing how three different answers all contribute another perspective - all helpful as well.

My other challenge is battling with the developer!!

I would love an answer to the query tucked in the middle of my question - does having 25 identical page titles effect the way Google view the whole site?

Many thanks again

[PH292]

Hi Byrce

Thank you for your helpful  reply - there are different products and this allows for tracking and ultimately collating the product against the applicants details whch are then forwarded to the sales guys.

[PH292]

Hi EGOL

Thank you for your reply - very good suggestions, especially for some other products - however, this one is about a certain element of manufacturing - so sexy titles don't quite work in this market (and my client may have a fit).

Having said all that, we have had a better response than we expected and it does create great leads.

I will speak with the developer to see what can be done though.

Thanks again

[PH292]

Hi EGOL

Thank you for your reply - very good suggestions, especially for some other products - however, this one is about a certain element of manufacturing - so sexy titles don't quite work in this market (and my client may have a fit).

Having said all that, we have had a better response than we expected and it does create great leads.

I will speak with the developer to see what can be done though.

Thanks again

[evolvingSEO]

Hi

First check to see if the pages are indexed in Google by doing site:www.mydomain.com as a search.  If they are not, you have nothing to worry about (as long as you block them in robots.txt soon)  Your developer should be able to edit your robots.txt file extremely easily.  Its just a file that sits in the root directory of the website.

If the 25 pages are indexed though, it could have a negative impact to have 25 duplicate title tags.  As to how much impact, that may depend on how large the site is, how deep into the site they are, etc.

-Dan

[PH292]

Hi Dan

Thank you - that is the final piece of information I needed to get so I could have an overall feel as to the way I should look at this. in a holistic way.

Best wishes

PH