I have inherited an events website, built in Umbraco 4.8.1. I am not sure if this is the correct forum to post this question in, but figured I'd give it a shot.
I am curious about the effects of having multiple pages on the same website with virtually the same content on it, on our ranking in Google. We have multiple shows per year, in different cities, with different dates. But many of the same page titles, URLs and content are duplicated across the site for each show. I've heard this is bad in terms of SEO. But I don't know if Umbraco has built-in methods of handling this type of situation? Does it indicate to Google that this isn't duplicated content because they are in different cities? Or is that something that would have had to have been coded in? Or is it not something you can do with Umbraco?
Generally, is there a way to approach a multi-city event website with duplicate content so that it doesn't affect Google rankings negatively?
Duplicate content is not a good idea since google will de-rank the domain(s), which it think is/are duplicate(s).
This is not an Umbraco issue. And Umbraco has no method of dealing with duplicate content. But that does not mean there is nothing you can do. You can do whatever needs to be done in order to fix things - Umbraco does not limit you in regards to that in any way. But there is no default to use canonical tags, handle 301 redirects out of the box etc. - You'll need to either apply this yourself in code or by installing packages.
In short it all comes down to content planning and how you want to distribute your content. I don't know how your sites are build but sounds like some of it needs to be restructured.
Depending on how your sites are build and how you would like them to rank you could perhaps use the canonical tag to deal with duplicate content - the canonical tag tells search engines what the original source for the content was.
If you need to 301 redirect some pages etc. then you should have a look at the 301 tracker package. Not sure it's compatible with version 4.8 of Umbraco though. But then you can do 301 redirects using the webserver instead.
You can also Google to find articles on how to deal with duplicate content since it can be a complex issue to deal with and there are many things you need to take into consideration in order to fix things. But Umbraco does not hinder this in anyway. Once you know the cure you can implement it if some code changes are needed. This article from moz.com is a good start.
I hope this answers some of your questions. Please don't hesitate to ask any further if something is unclear or if you have doubts about something.
Jan is right, and the article he pointed you to is a great start. But honestly, if the content is actually different with different cities, dates, etc. you should be fine. Just because the title of an event is replicated doesn't mean it will be considered duplicate content. Why don't you just update the page titles and urls to reflect some of this unique content? Remember similar content with major key differences like time / date / location is not duplicate content at all.
Can you provide some indication as to how the pages are actually set up? I'm curious as to how the URLs are the same but the content is different for any "page" in your site?
Event website using same content on different cities - Google SEO hit?
I have inherited an events website, built in Umbraco 4.8.1. I am not sure if this is the correct forum to post this question in, but figured I'd give it a shot.
I am curious about the effects of having multiple pages on the same website with virtually the same content on it, on our ranking in Google. We have multiple shows per year, in different cities, with different dates. But many of the same page titles, URLs and content are duplicated across the site for each show. I've heard this is bad in terms of SEO. But I don't know if Umbraco has built-in methods of handling this type of situation? Does it indicate to Google that this isn't duplicated content because they are in different cities? Or is that something that would have had to have been coded in? Or is it not something you can do with Umbraco?
Generally, is there a way to approach a multi-city event website with duplicate content so that it doesn't affect Google rankings negatively?
Thank you for your time and any advice.
Hi ProducerTina
Duplicate content is not a good idea since google will de-rank the domain(s), which it think is/are duplicate(s).
This is not an Umbraco issue. And Umbraco has no method of dealing with duplicate content. But that does not mean there is nothing you can do. You can do whatever needs to be done in order to fix things - Umbraco does not limit you in regards to that in any way. But there is no default to use canonical tags, handle 301 redirects out of the box etc. - You'll need to either apply this yourself in code or by installing packages.
In short it all comes down to content planning and how you want to distribute your content. I don't know how your sites are build but sounds like some of it needs to be restructured.
Depending on how your sites are build and how you would like them to rank you could perhaps use the canonical tag to deal with duplicate content - the canonical tag tells search engines what the original source for the content was.
If you're using Google webmaster tools then you can also remove one or more pages from the search index if it has duplicate content.
If you need to 301 redirect some pages etc. then you should have a look at the 301 tracker package. Not sure it's compatible with version 4.8 of Umbraco though. But then you can do 301 redirects using the webserver instead.
You can also Google to find articles on how to deal with duplicate content since it can be a complex issue to deal with and there are many things you need to take into consideration in order to fix things. But Umbraco does not hinder this in anyway. Once you know the cure you can implement it if some code changes are needed. This article from moz.com is a good start.
I hope this answers some of your questions. Please don't hesitate to ask any further if something is unclear or if you have doubts about something.
Cheers, Jan
Jan is right, and the article he pointed you to is a great start. But honestly, if the content is actually different with different cities, dates, etc. you should be fine. Just because the title of an event is replicated doesn't mean it will be considered duplicate content. Why don't you just update the page titles and urls to reflect some of this unique content? Remember similar content with major key differences like time / date / location is not duplicate content at all.
Can you provide some indication as to how the pages are actually set up? I'm curious as to how the URLs are the same but the content is different for any "page" in your site?
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