Duplicate content

[stlastla]

I have to sentences that I want to optimize to different pages for.

sentence number one is

travel to ibiza by boat

sentence number to is

travel to ibiza by ferry

My question is, can I have the same content on both pages exept for the keywords or will Google treat that as duplicate content and punish me? And If yes, where goes the limit/border for duplicate content?

[Dan-Petrovic]

Definitely invest in two unique copies of text. If there are thousands and you are unable to get them all done at once you may try variable driven text, however replacing one element and expecting Google to like it is a bit too much.

[stlastla]

Thank you, but can the url be similar?

like this www.domain.com/ferrytoibiza and www.domain.com/boattoibizza

And then make unique content on both pages?

[Dan-Petrovic]

Any difference or are you actually on the same thing once you hop on a boat/ferry?

[GKLA]

Why not use - www.domain.com/your-key-word.html

[mememax]

I don't know how much control do you have on your url structure but you can always create:

-domain.com/toibiza/ --> tips on how to travel to ibiza

-domain.com/toibiza/ferry/ --> create a content focused on advantages on going by ferry to ibiza (and link to book now if you have)

-domain.com/toibiza/boat --> create content focused on advantages on going by boat (and link to book now if you have)

You can link to both boat and ferry from ibiza page, an to each other using them as alternatives.

Creating 3 different text of 200 words won't be high cost with a freelancer, though you can always try to mash up some content elsewhere.

[CommT]

I may be missing the point here, but why do you need two pages at all? Google understands synonyms so surely as boat / ferry are essentially the same thing, you could probably get away with just writing one... Especially as the message would be the same for both topics.

If you feel you need two pages, then definitely make them unique!

As for URLs - if you can, make sure your keyword is in the url.

Hope this helps

[fablau]

Yes, I agree with ameliavargo, you could make just a single page including both keywords and potentially rank for both phrases. Boat and ferry are really similar, and I am not sure if you can really make two different pages differently relevant enough to rank both well. That could actually fireback.

I would definitively opt for a single optimized page which includes both words.

[BipSum]

you cannot use the same copy to replicate it for some other topic by replacing the words

[Staunton_Rook]

yes, I agree with this!