One SEO professional asked John Mueller during a hangout about duplicate content.
Their situation is they have had a news publishing website since 2009. They post articles that are related to things like recipes, health, fitness, etc.
However, what they tend to do is recreate another version of said recipe – say they would tweak it around to something like sugar-free, sodium-free, or something like that.
So, it would still be considered duplicate content.
SEO tools are suggesting that they remove it because none of the duplicate content is being ranked or indexed by Google. They were curious about what the best solution for this would be.
John answered that he would be cautious about blindly following any SEO tool. Because SEO tools make assumptions regarding what Google will do and what will happen.
Sometimes these assumptions are okay.
And sometimes, they are incorrect.
John thinks taking this type of feedback from SEO tools is useful, because it’s still something where they can examine the feedback from the SEO tool, and make a judgment call as to whether the SEO tool’s feedback is correct.
The SEO pro might say they will choose to follow the guidance in this case, and choose not to follow the guidance in the next case.
If they are seeing something from an SEO tool that tells you “You should disavow these links,” or “You should delete this content,” in a case like this where it may not be duplicate content, because it’s slightly different content–this is something where the professional must always consider the strategic aspect of how you want your pages to be shown, and what the competitive environment is like in the search results.
Sometimes it makes sense to have one article split up into different variations, because these individual variations are unique enough that people are actually searching for them.
And sometimes it makes sense to combine an article and say “Well, I have three or four variations, so I will create a page out of that.”
Usually what happens here is that one page will be a bit stronger in the search results.
So this means if you have a very competitive environment, having fewer pages that are stronger is usually a good idea.
Whereas if you’re already doing really well in these types of queries, then perhaps sometimes having multiple variations is an option to better target the specific intents that people have.
And this is not something where John would say that there is always one clear answer.
This happens at approximately the 15:36 mark in the video.
John Mueller Hangout Transcript
SEO Professional 4 15:42
I’d like to ask these two questions. First off, we have a news publishing website since 2009. We post articles related to recipes, health, fitness, and stuff like that. So we have articles that are considered per an SEO tool as duplicate, as duplicate content.
But what we tend to do is recreate another version of this recipe, let’s say, or maybe tweak around, maybe sugar free, or salt free, or everything related to that. So it’s still considered as duplicate content. What this SEO tool suggested is that we remove it because none of the duplicate content is being ranked or indexed by Google. So what is the solution for this?
John 16:37
Yeah. So I think first of all, I would be cautious about blindly following any SEO tool, as something to start with, in that SEO tools tend to make assumptions with regards to what Google will do and what will happen. And sometimes those assumptions are okay. And sometimes they’re, they’re not correct.
And I think taking this kind of feedback from SEO Tools is useful, because it’s still something where you can take a look at it, and you have to make a judgment call. And you might choose to say, Well, I’m ignoring the tool in this case, and I’m kind of following the guidance in a different case. So just kind of like to start with like, if you’re seeing something even from a very popular SEO tool that tells you, oh, you should disavow these links, or you should delete this content.
Like always use your judgment first, before blindly following that. With regards to duplicate content like that, or I guess, in this case, it wouldn’t be duplicate per se, because it’s slightly different content. It’s something where you always kind of need to consider the strategic aspect of how you want your pages to be shown and what the competitive environment is like in the search results.
And sometimes it makes sense to have one article kind of split up into different variations, because these individual variations are unique enough that people are actually searching for them. And sometimes it makes sense to combine an article and say, Well, I have three or four variations, I will make one page out of it.
And usually what happens there is that one page is a little bit stronger then in the search results. So that means if it’s a very competitive environment, having fewer pages that are stronger is usually a good idea. Whereas if you’re already doing really well in those kinds of queries, then maybe sometimes having multiple variations is an option to kind of better target the specific intents that people have.
And that’s not something where I would say like there’s always one clear answer, you should have fewer pages or you should have more pages. It’s really something where if you see this kind of situation popping up, you can make a judgment call. And it’s more like a strategic decision rather than an SEO decision.
SEO Professional 4 19:06
Yes.
John 19:09
So I think in a case like this, I would check to see like, what are the queries leading up to these pages? Are you even getting enough visibility for these pages individually? And if you’re seeing that they’re ranking very badly at the moment, maybe it makes sense to combine them. Maybe it’s also the case that the competitive environment for those queries that you’re targeting is so strong that even if you combine it, it doesn’t make a difference. And so it’s kind of like, yeah, you have to look at all of those sides.
