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As I know the problem with duplicate content is related with spammer with hundreds of TDL trying to trick the search engine, in your case with 5 or 10 pages or post wouldn't be any problems. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ets7nHOV1Yo

1. It could certainly impact the number of pages indexed. Have you explored to see what those pages might be? 2. It could also impact your search rankings in a number of ways. Care to share the domain?

Hi Cyrus, Thanks for the feedback. I'm concerned that some of the other more urgent on-site optimisation changes will already impact traffic volume in the short-term so I don't want to compound this further by making the switch over to HTTPS. So this is off the table for now. Thanks everyone for the feedback on this. More on the discussion side, Google shouldn't really be re-evaluating URLs when there is a protocol change in my opinion, especially when moving from http to https. It seems this would discourage site owners from making the move as organic traffic would be more valuable than user privacy. -Jason

First off, I like the way you're thinking through this - it's critical to understand that no one solution should be applied to every scenario, so here are my thoughts on what you should do: For programs no longer offered, I would leave the page up with a notification that it's discontinued plus related products ('this program is no longer offered, but here are some other programs you might like'). Your idea of having a custom 404 for discontinued products (with the same type of language) could also work. If you do 301 redirect visitors, I suggest going to the category page & also incorporating some way of letting the visitor know. You basically want to avoid confusing the visitor by taking them somewhere different than expected. For the programs temporarily on hold, do not 302 redirect them - 302s should be avoided in almost all cases. Instead, leave the page live & let the visitor know that this program is currently unavailable, with a CTA to be alerted via email as soon as it's available. Also have related products in case they need the program/service now. There's an old Moz post (that I can't find atm) where Rand explains how he dealt with this situation - I believe he had the same idea as I shared, followed by closely monitoring the traffic to the pages; then adding 301s to the very low trafficked pages & working to improve the messaging/CTA/UX of the ones still receiving traffic. I hope this helps!

a) I would load up several awesome articles from the get go. that way if a person visits your blog when you first start dripping, there is other content than just the 1-2 posts for them to view. b) i do recommend dripping the posts... I don't believe staggering has any SEO effect. just think your potential readers and the ideal schedule for them to return to your site and convert.

Hi Jason, If you use the unique ccTLDs and the href lang / rel="alternative" tag, this duplication will be fine. The tag was brought out in late 2011 and tells Google: "just because this content is the same on an Australian site, a British site and an American site, this is okay - it has been done on purpose." You can also use it to point to direct translations, e.g. "this Spanish content is the same as this English content over here, but one is meant for the UK and one for Argentina." Lastly, you can also use this tag as mark up to say "This is French content meant for Canada, and this English content over here is also meant for Canada". More information about the tag is available here and here. Cheers, Jane