The parable of a replica content material penalty has existed for years. Google seeks numerous search outcomes and should select when two or extra pages are the identical or related, ensuing within the others shedding natural site visitors — completely different from a penalty.
Google’s “Search Central” weblog features a information on rating techniques that describes deduplication:
Searches on Google could discover 1000’s and even tens of millions of matching internet pages. A few of these could also be similar to one another. In such circumstances, our techniques present solely probably the most related outcomes to keep away from unhelpful duplication.
But the information doesn’t specify how the deduplication system chooses a web page. In my expertise, duplication happens in 4 methods.
Related pages
When a web site has related product or class pages or syndicates content material (knowingly or not), Google will possible present just one web page in search outcomes. It’s not a penalty, but it surely does dilute site visitors among the many similar pages. Thus, guarantee Google ranks the unique, up-to-date, detailed, and related web page (not a syndicated or scraped model).
Canonical tags and 301 redirects can level Google to the very best web page. Neither is foolproof, as Google views them as options. The one method to pressure the very best web page is to keep away from duplicating it.
The hazard of duplicate content material is when a third-party scraped model overranks the unique. Google can often establish scraped content material, which is usually on low-quality websites with few or no authority alerts. Thus a higher-ranking scraped model implies an issue with the unique web site.
Featured snippets
Featured snippets seem above natural search outcomes and supply a fast reply to a question. Google removes featured snippet URLs from decrease natural positions to keep away from duplication.
The aim of featured snippets is to reply queries, eradicating the necessity to click on. Thus a featured snippet web page possible receives much less natural site visitors, and there’s no surefire methodology to stop it. If a web page all of the sudden loses site visitors, examine Search Console to see if it’s featured.
Google will possible deduplicate AI Overviews in the identical method.
High tales
“High tales” is a separate search-result part for breaking or related information. A URL in high tales usually loses its natural place.
Domains
Domains set off a special kind of duplication past content material. Google gained’t usually present the identical area in high outcomes, even for model identify queries. Keep watch over queries in your model to know different domains that rank for it and the best way to fight them.
