People who run WordPress sites can have much trouble because of duplicate content. It could be better for search engine optimization (SEO). People who visit your website may find it confusing or annoying. There are good ways to deal with and fix WordPress problems that have the same kind of information.
By learning what causes duplication and putting real solutions in place, you can ensure your website stays unique, helpful, and search engine-friendly.
This guide will show you how to find and eliminate duplicate information. This will help you keep a WordPress site that is clean, easy to use, and stands out from the rest.
Let’s start and find out how to eliminate duplicate content on your WordPress site. Finally—the importance of addressing exact content issues in WordPress.
You will find the essential WordPress SEO checklist to follow in 2023.
1. Understanding Duplicate Content
Three types of duplicate content can be present on your WordPress Website.
Different kinds of duplicate content:
1.1 Internal Duplicate Content
Content that is the same or very close to your website is called “internal duplicate content.
It can happen when multiple pages on your site have the same or very similar text, names, Meta descriptions, or other elements.
This can make search engines confused. Also, make it hard for them to figure out which page is the most appropriate to show in search results.
1.2 External duplicate Content
Content on your website and other websites across the web is called external copy content. It can happen when you copy and post content from somewhere else without giving credit.
Also, when your content is scraped or shared by someone else without your permission.
Search engines may need help figuring out where the content came from in the first place. This can hurt your site’s search results.
1.3 Near-Duplicates
Near-duplicates are very close versions of the same information that are not exact copies. They can happen when you make several copies of the same page with only minor changes—the changes like- a few words or sentences.
Even if you don’t mean to, near-duplicates can confuse search engines. That makes your material less critical.
1.4 Why WordPress has a lot of duplicate content
Content Cloning,
URL Variations,
Tag and Category Archives,
Pagination and Pagination Links,
Content Scraping and Syndication
By understanding what causes this kind of duplicate content and how to correct it, you can make sure that your WordPress site has unique, well-optimized content.
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2.Identifying Duplicate Content
Tools for identifying duplicate content:
The tools and plugins that help identify duplicate content are enormous. They help to understand where the content is duplicated and gives you valuable insights.
Some popular tools are:
2.1 Yoast SEO
This is a commonly used WordPress Plugin that provides complete SEO features.
It helps examine the website and offers recommendations to solve the issues.
2.2 Copyscape
External duplicate content can be spotted using this tool. You can use the URL of two websites and check for any copied content.
2.3 Siteliner
It is a website analysis tool that inspects your website for duplicate content, broken links, and other SEO problems.
You can find the percentage of duplicated content on your website.
2.4 SEMrush
This is also a useful duplicate content checker.
It offers an understanding of the keyword rankings, backlinks, etc.
You can use these tools to find the duplicate content and sort them out.
3.Technical Solutions to get rid of duplicate content issues
3.1 Implementing canonical tags to specify the preferred version of content
Even if you know that the URL is wrong, you could potentially not be possible to get rid of a similar piece of information (mostly stories). To fix this problem, search engines made a function called “Canonical link,” which requires you to put in your site’s “head” part. It appears to be the following:
In the ‘href’ part that contains the canonical Link, it’s necessary to put the correct Link corresponding to the article’s canonical URL. When an internet browser that approves canonical spots the URL, this will do a gentle 301 change and send the majority of the website’s URL flow to the actual canonical page.
Remember the fact the procedure takes a little longer. Do it when you can’t use the standard 301 reroute anymore.
3.2 Optimizing URL structure and using 301 redirects for duplicate URL
In most cases, the ideal way to eliminate duplicate content is to set a 301 redirect. The redirect from the “duplicate page” to the original content page is activated.
When you identify multiple pages that rank well and combine them into one page,
The competition between the pages stops,
It creates strong relevance and becomes popular.
This will help the page to have a positive impact and rank well.
3.3 Configuring the robots.txt file to prevent indexing of duplicate content
While utilized with the default settings “no index, follow,” the Meta robots tag can be beneficial for getting rid of similar content. Meta No index, Follow is a common name for the content= “no index, follow” Meta robots tag. This attribute could be appended to the HTML header for every web page that a search engine should not index.
The format in general:
Search engines can crawl a page’s links with the Meta Robots tag but can’t add those links to their indexes. Even though you’re asking Google not to search an identical web page, it must continue to be viewed.
Google warns you not to block crawlers from accessing identical material on your site. (Search algorithms like to view everything in case you made a mistake within the source code. It lets them make a [probably automatic] “judgment call” when things aren’t clear.)
Meta robots are a great way to fix problems with duplicate content caused by scrolling.
4.Content Optimization
The pages on your website must rank and propel traffic. You have to make sure that the content is of high quality and unique and meets the specific user’s expectations.
4.1. Improve Product Pages
You must refrain from copying the general product description from the producer.
It could cause problems with having the same information on different sites.
4.2 Assure that category pages are unique and relevant
The content should be unique and relevant to the user intent. Search engines would be happy for that.
It is vital to review the categories and ensure they are needed.
4.3 You merge the content and remove some pages
You can merge different small pages into one more extensive page and give detailed information.
4.4 You can create Supplementary content
Duplicate pages are made more different and valuable with supplementary content. This assures the indexing and ranking well among others.
4.5 Manage User-generated content
Content that users create gain more views. You can ask the customers to give a feedback or review and publish them on the website.
5. Handling Syndicated Content
You can republish the content on a different website like Quora or medium.com. The audience size would be big, and the content will get more exposure. Syndicate content will not be treated as duplicate content. You can add the information about the source of the content. Make sure to add a link to the original content with the proper URL.
6. Additional Considerations
Additional considerations that can be made are:
- Monitoring duplicate content regularly,
- Leveraging tools like Google Search Console for identifying and resolving issues,
- Keeping up with WordPress updates and best practices,
- Handling migrated or consolidated content with redirects and customizations.
Conclusion
Usually, Google does not prefer pages with duplicate content and does not rank the pages. Google make sure to give information that is unique and make sure to index pages with that type of information. So, how does the duplicate content issue affect SEO?
Reduced Organic Traffic: Google does not rank pages that are copied and duplicated. So, the organic traffic is reduced.
- Less Indexed Pages: This applies mainly to e-commerce websites where the number of pages is more. It is important to remember that Google does not down rank the copy of content; it does not index it at all.
- Penalty: This is an extremely rare case where Google penalizes for the duplicate content.
So, it is vital to check for the duplicate content and use the necessary tools to get rid of the duplicate content.
If you decide to use WordPress for your website, check out WPBlazer, a WordPress management tool.
Author Bio
Saelvizhi. V grew up in Coimbatore city with a lot of time on her hands and a vivid imagination. A passion for writing began to take hold at 12 when her first poem was published in a popular magazine.
She began with poems and progressed to essays, articles, blogs, and other forms of writing. Then, she became a full-time writer.
Saelvizhi enjoys spending time with her friends and family and loves to explore different cuisines. She has made it her goal to one day hike to the pinnacle of Everest and become a mountaineer.