Duplicate Content Penalties?

It did for me ” title=”” class=”bbcode_smiley” />

I had an include file which was called lowerpageindex.html because it contained content which was on the lower portion of my page.

Since this content consisted of about 75% of the overall content on the page and I had it on every page of my template – it cost me my listing in Yahoo. Luckily, I went through every page on my site and created unique content.

However, I would suggest doing that from the beginning. I found this out by running a duplicate content checker (some web site, can’t remember which one) on my pages. It came back as 75% duplication. That’s VERY bad ” title=”” class=”bbcode_smiley” />

Okay, that sucks!

Here’s what I’ve done,

The “Include File” is for my sitewide link partners” so its not like I have alot of the same content, percentage wise.

But if this causes a penalty, you would have to say we’d all have penalties because most (I think) have a menu that is the same across the site.

I guess I should have mentioned this in my first post, does this change your thinking, atleast for what I’m using it for?

Thank You,
dalster44

Drastically ” title=”” class=”bbcode_smiley” />

Yes, I have an include for my side menu as well on another site. This contains internal and external links. Because it is such a small percentage of the content of the page, no duplication penalty is enforced.

However, if that menu were a large percentage of your content, I think you would see a penalty even though it is a menu.

Thanks, I feel alot better :colgate:

Lot’s of people have asked the same question on the SEO forums, pretty much the same answer always comes back. Something like this…

The duplicate content penalty isn’t meant to harm sites that use the same content within their pages, (ie: menu structures, page templates, etc.). The duplicate content that is being considered is from one site to another site, and even that is up for interpretation. Definitely scraper sites that copy another site page for page changing about 1% of it (ie: affiliate codes) are penalized. What about sites that incorporate articles and content from other sites. Well, the news sites seem to do fine by including content from the AP newswire that is basically the same thing word-for-word. Essentially, as long as you are well intending with the content you are using you should be fine.

As for header information like Title Tags and Meta Descriptions and Meta keywords, you should definitely change those for every single page of your site for indexing purposes. The SEs consider a page on your site by the title and description, so if they are all the same, you often only have one page that shows in the results. I had this issue with our site which is over 2500 pages, as soon as every page title and description was made unique, the number of indexed pages skyrocketed.

Webber nice post!

That made it all pretty clear!

dalster44

HI all,

what do you think of the includes on our site ?
xxhttp://www.toponlinegambling.com ?

Top, left right and bottom links navigation links are SHTML includes, should this be a problem? (Maybe this casued our problems with Yahoo , with google all 91 pages are indexed though)

thanks!

Your content from your home page to your slots page is 54% similar. I would reduce this however necessary, but your site LOOKS fine. Mine are down from 75% to 25%. All I know is that when I made this change, I got re-listed in Yahoo.

USED: xhttp://www.webconfs.com/similar-page-checker.php

Also, TOG, you have a very nice site. I would love to exchange links with you. PM me if you are interested. (or I would like to purchase a link on your slots page).

Hi ,

Well yah, I thought that all those repeating navigation bars are quite a lot.
In case I want to keep than ( I find them to be very comfortable for the user) should I add more text content or are there any other options?

BTW – I PM’d about links swap, I have seen your site several times before and liked it a lot

Thanks

The way I see it… Anything you can do to cut that ‘similarity percentage’ down is good. You may be fine with menus, though… I am not sure. My problem was with content being the same because I included a menu AND content. That’s why I was up at the 75% similarity mark.

If it were me, I would just try to find a way to get it below the 50% mark and see how Yahoo reacts. Do not go crazy, because it may not take that.. Just a little at a time.