Duplicate Content

Duplicate contentDuplicate content refers to identical or very similar content reachable under several URLs. It rarely triggers a penalty but causes a loss of control over which version becomes the main one.Open glossary entry → refers to content that is fully or largely identical across several URLs. For users it is the same page, but for search engines it can be different URLs.

A distinction is made between internal duplicate content (within a site, e.g. through parameters, www/non-www, httpHTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) is the protocol through which browsers and servers exchange web content. HTTPS is the encrypted, secure variant of this protocol.Open glossary entry →/https, filters or print versions) and external duplicate content (the same text across several domains, such as manufacturer descriptions).

As a rule there is no automatic penalty. The real problem is loss of control: Google picks a canonical version itself, signals spread across multiple URLs and snippetsA snippet is the compact display of a result in the search results, usually made up of a title, URL and description. It is what users see before clicking.Open glossary entry → look interchangeable. Common symptoms are duplicate title tags and meta descriptions. Depending on the case, duplicate content is resolved via canonical tags, 301 redirectsA redirect forwards users and search engines from one URL to another. It can be permanent (301) or temporary (302) and transfers signals to the target URL.Open glossary entry →, noindex or unique content. The robots.txt is usually unsuitable for this.