Duplicate Content & SEO

Duplicate content refers to large blocks of content within a single domain or across multiple sites that are substantially identical or very similar. This phenomenon can occur internally (within a single site) or externally (between different websites). Duplicate content can negatively affect search engine rankings, as Google and other search engines may have difficulty deciding which version of the content should be prioritized.

Why is Duplicate Content a Problem in SEO?

Search Engine Confusion: Search engines try to provide the best possible results to users. When they find several pages with identical or very similar content, it is difficult to determine which is the most relevant or authoritative for a specific search. This can lead to poorer visibility in the results.

Dilution of Link Value: When multiple pages with duplicate content receive inbound links, the value of those links is distributed among them. Instead of consolidating the authority of a single page, duplicate content reduces its ranking potential.

Wasted Crawl Budget: Google allocates a crawl budget to each website. Duplicate content can consume that budget, leaving less room for unique and valuable content to be crawled and indexed efficiently.

Correcting Duplicate Content

Using Canonical Tags

<link rel="canonical" href="URL" />

The canonical tag tells search engines which is the main version of a page when multiple variants exist. In this way, link signals and SEO authority are consolidated into a single URL, preventing duplicate versions from negatively affecting rankings.

<link rel="canonical" href="https://www.example.com/page-main" />