How To Avoid Duplication Issues
At Click Consult we have worked with many sites that have issues with duplicate content. If a search engine detects this within your website, you can be penalised for it and will receive a lower ranking in the SERPs.
These issues are a common pitfall in SEO so here are some of the most common issues and ways to resolve them:
Issue 1
One of the top duplication problems is known as canonicalisation. This happens when ‘www’ is removed from a website URL resulting in a duplication with the site which has the www.
Solution
To get around this, the most effective way is to use the 301 redirect to the version of the website with the www. In some cases this might not be possible so here you can use the rel=canonical tag. If that fails try using Google Webmaster Tools to set the preferred domain.
Issue 2
When you submit a site to a directory, you can make the mistake of entering text from your main website as a description. This may seem like a simple way to add descriptive text in the directories but Google will automatically see this as a duplication, particularly if a large block of text is copied.
Solution
The solution is simple – use unique text for descriptive content and check it does not appear on your site or any other sites.
You can use tools available to double check you are using original text. ‘CopyScape’ is a great tool for double checking your content and will quickly identify any issues when you are adding text to directories.
For more help and advice on search engine optimisation contact us at Click Consult.
