An array of text documents are laid out in a diagonal pattern. Every other document has a magnifying glass hovering over it.

September 16, 2024

Duplicate Content and SEO: What You Should Know

Digital marketers tend to think of duplicate content as an issue that detracts from a website’s overall SEO value. It should be avoided at all costs and any duplicate content will result in a manual action from Google.

But is this true? How much of what you’ve heard about this topic came from an authoritative source?

If you’re unsure what to believe about duplicate content and how it could affect your digital marketing efforts, you’re in the right place.

What Is Duplicate Content?

A man sits at a desk while viewing two seemingly identical documents on a computer screen.

Duplicate content is exactly what it sounds like—copy that appears in multiple places across the web. However, duplicate content can take many different forms.

Here are a few examples:

Republishing stories with permission, a common practice among news aggregators
Plagiarizing parts of content originally published elsewhere or outright stealing entire articles, blog posts, etc.
Using identical content in the footer of every page
Using the same product description on variant PDPs, collection pages, blog posts, etc.
Technical issues, such as unintended URL variations, creating duplicate pages with duplicate content
Quoting previously published content in your own original copy

You may be saying to yourself:

Really? Quoting someone else in a blog post counts as duplicate content? There’s no way Google would actually penalize someone for that, right?

Yes, this is indeed a recognized form of duplicate content, and no, Google would virtually never penalize you for this, except in extremely rare cases that likely involve other simultaneous black-hat SEO tactics.

Obviously, using quotes from elsewhere on the web is a common practice. In fact, it’s often vital when leveraging E-E-A-T to create high-quality content—just like a number of other practices that can result in duplicate content.

Which Forms of Duplicate Content Are Most Concerning?

Fortunately, the answer is vanishingly few.

Even so, Google tends to look less at the content format itself and more at the intent behind the content. Consider this core principle, published on Google Search Central back in 2008:

“Duplicate content on a site is not grounds for action on that site unless it appears that the intent of the duplicate content is to be deceptive and manipulate search engine results.”

That single sentence means the vast majority of digital marketers can breathe a sigh of relief.

Given this explicit guidance came straight from Google over 15 years ago, it’s a wonder that so many misconceptions about duplicate content persist to this day.

However, it’s important to note this piece of guidance only narrowly references the duplicate content penalty. It doesn’t cover other complications that stem from duplicate content.

What Are the SEO Consequences of Duplicate Content?

A courtroom scene is depicted with the judge's bench and two stands to either side. The Google logo floats above the judge's seat to symbolize that Google judges a site based on duplicate content SEO problems.

As a digital marketer, your goal is to maximize your brand’s online visibility. However, that doesn’t always align with Google’s mission.

Google wants to create the most valuable search experience possible for every query. That means displaying the most relevant, high-quality results.

But commonly—and especially in competitive industries like skincare and fashion—the best pages all look very similar.

Google doesn’t want to serve users SERPs full of identical results. Instead, Google tends to return a variety of results in order to comprehensively satisfy search intent, including rich results, featured snippets, and the People Also Ask box.

That’s why page uniqueness is crucial to helping your brand stand out online. If you rely on duplicate content, you’ll find yourself at the mercy of the Googlebot.

How Google Handles Duplicate Content in Organic Search Results

In the same Search Central post all those years ago, Google explained the steps it takes when it detects duplicate content while compiling search results.

In short, Google:

Groups duplicate URLs into a cluster
Chooses the “best” URL to represent the cluster on SERPs
Consolidates the cluster’s URL properties, like link popularity, to the URL picked to appear in search results.

Critically, Google’s idea of which URL is “best” may not be the same as yours, which presents the most significant issue caused by duplicate content: a conversion- or revenue-driving page isn’t appearing on SERPs because Google chose another page on your site to represent all of your URLs containing that particular set of duplicate content.

So while your site is almost certainly safe from manual action or penalty from Google, duplicate content can still pose problems and cost you organic search revenue.

For example, let’s say you’ve added high-quality, helpful content to a product or collections page to help it rank higher in SERPs.

However, if that same content appears in one of your popular blog posts, you’re essentially forcing Google to pick which page to rank—the blog post or the revenue-driving page. You might not be happy with Google’s decision.

The good news is that you have several options at your disposal to avoid the pitfalls of duplicate content.

How Do I Fix Duplicate Content Issues On My Website?

A digital marketer sits at a desk while working on a laptop. They are in the process of identifying and fixing duplicate content SEO issues on a website. Floating above the laptop are symbols for Google, CSS, gears, a security shield, and a Finder window.

Once you’ve identified duplicate content issues on your site, you can choose from a range of approaches to fix them, depending on the type of issue and your bandwidth.

Let’s explore our options, starting with one that won’t just help you resolve existing problems but also help you avoid these duplicate content SEO issues in the future.

1. Use Unique, High-Quality Content Wherever Possible

In this era of generative AI in SEO, it’s tempting to save time whenever possible. A few premium AI writing tools can significantly increase your productivity without compromising quality standards.

But if you think that sounds like a good idea, remember—your competitors are thinking the same thing.

Exclusively using AI to write website content is a great way to build a brand that’s indistinguishable from your competitors, which will make it exceedingly difficult to achieve meaningful online visibility.

Even with the advanced tools available today, the unique, best-of-web content Google wants to rank highly still comes from real humans who are genuine subject matter experts.

AI simply can’t create content that is aligned with Google’s E-E-A-T guidelines the way a true expert can.

Sure, generative AI tools can help you cut costs and increase productivity. But at the end of the day, if your content isn’t serving its intended purpose—enhancing your online visibility and converting traffic—it’s still a waste of resources.

That doesn’t mean you need to leave technology out of the content creation process entirely. In fact, you should absolutely use a plagiarism checker as you write.

This not only avoids legal risk, but it also helps you avoid creating duplicate content.

2. Apply Canonical Tags

A canonical tag allows you to specify a page as the URL you want people to see in search results.

By adding a canonical tag to a page, you’re telling search engines like Google that this page is the primary version of the content. Even if that content is accessible via other URLs, Google can ignore those other URLs.

To apply a canonical tag, add a <link> element with the attribute rel=”canonical” to the <head> section of duplicate pages. Here’s the example Google uses in their Search Central documentation.

A screenshot from Google Search Central showing an example of a canonical tag implemented on a web page.

It’s vital to include the canonical tag in the <head> section of the page. Google won’t accept it if you place the tag anywhere else on the page or if the <head> section isn’t valid HTML.

3. Use a Noindex Robots Meta Tag

Some CMSs, like WordPress, automatically generate tag and category pages, which can be a significant source of duplicate content and aren’t particularly useful to site visitors.

A “noindex” tag is a great fix for the duplicate content SEO issue on these pages. Your pages will still exist, so any interested users can access them, but search engines won’t index them, so these pages won’t contribute to your duplicate content collection.

4. Consolidate Similar Pages When Appropriate

Whether Google chooses the right canonical page isn’t the only complication caused by duplicate content.

Having similar content on multiple pages dilutes the value of that content and can lead to cannibalization. This occurs when your priority landing page is outranked by another page on your site.

As you can see, there are multiple reasons to consolidate pages with similar or duplicate content.

Centralizing information on your site typically results in a better user experience by allowing people to access the comprehensive content they’re looking for with less navigation required, which means less effort on their part.

Consolidation is also key to prioritizing your most important pages.

For example, e-commerce sites with collection pages often create buying guides, how-to guides, or product comparisons but host these resources at a different URL than the collection page.

It’s a missed opportunity to build a more valuable collection page.

Whereas a collection with only a product grid leaves users to do the legwork themselves, a collection page enhanced with product overviews, comparisons, and an FAQ section is much more useful to shoppers and creates a more valuable, engaging experience.

When consolidation doesn’t make sense, a 301 redirect is an easy solution to reduce duplicate content. Just be sure to point the redirect to a priority page that will remain in place to avoid inadvertently creating redirect chains.

5. Preserve a Consistent Internal Linking Structure

Understanding proper URL structure is one of the fundamentals of running a website. However, it’s also easy to get wrong.

Unintended URL variations are another common way site owners find themselves in a sea of duplicate content.

Here are a few examples:

HTTPS vs HTTP (secure vs non-secure)
www vs non-www
Case-sensitive URLs
Trailing slashes or lack thereof

Hopefully, you’re serving all of your pages on HTTPS, since this has been the standard for quite some time.

As for the rest, be sure to pick a lane and stay in it. Avoid inconsistent URL structures, and be sure to apply any changes to your URL structure sitewide.

Duplicate Content Issues You Can’t Control

Everything we’ve covered so far is about duplicate content on your own site—the things within your control. But even when you’re doing everything right, duplicate content elsewhere on the web can still pose problems for your site.

This usually occurs when other sites scrape your content—stealing your published content and repurposing it as their own. The practice is illegal, but that doesn’t stop some unscrupulous people from doing it.

Like most SEO issues, content scraping isn’t worth worrying about unless it is clearly causing a measurable negative impact on your site.

If you’re convinced that it would be worth the lift, there are a few things you can do to prevent your content from being scraped:

Use bot management solutions like Cloudflare.
Implement CAPTCHAs (but consider whether this is worth the additional funnel friction)
Block problem IP addresses from sending bot/scraper traffic to your site

Fortunately, when it comes to SERP competitiveness, Google recognizes scraped content and can determine its original source, so in most cases, you wouldn’t have anything to worry about.

That said, a periodic audit of your site and the SERP landscape is time well spent, as it allows you to identify duplicate content problems early and take action if needed.

Maximize Your Search Visibility with VELOX Media

A Google Search results page is shown with four links. The result in position four is highlighted in yellow with an arrow pointing up to the first position to symbolize the potential for the result to move up on the page.

Navigating Google and duplicate content issues on your own can be a bit daunting, especially if you’re an enterprise with thousands of pages to deal with. Looking to work efficiently and maximize your ROI? See how a partnership with VELOX can help you scale revenue.

As an ROI-focused digital marketing agency, VELOX uses leading-edge technology, the latest research, and proven techniques to execute fully customized organic search campaigns that enhance digital revenue. We’re recognized as a Google Premier Partner and ranked among the top 3% of agencies globally because we consistently exceed client expectations.

With a VELOX campaign conservatively targeting 400 to 800% ROI, your brand can achieve sustained search dominance. Contact VELOX today for your free marketing plan.