Duplicate content always results in a SEO penalty which is like a nightmare for bloggers and internet marketers because recovering from SEO penalty is not so easy. Every newbie, after entering in the world of blogging first starts copying content from other sites and finally it results into SEO penalty.
So, it is bad thing to copy other’s content and search engine also knows it. By using one piece of content many times on web, Search engine face a problem and that problem is to select a original piece of content.
First of all, let use see causes of Duplicate content and I am sure that your site also contain lots of duplicate content and you will agree after reading causes of duplicate content. There are many causes of duplicate content and they are stated below with detailed information.
Causes of duplicate content.
You don’t know but I know that currently your site also contains duplicate content. No matter your blog is powered by Blogger or WordPress but your blog contains duplicate content.
Duplicate content is caused by many reasons like URL parameters, Content syndication, Order parameters, comment URLs, and many more reasons but solutions are also there.
1. URL parameters.
So, URL parameters means the symbols and numbers and all the things used in URL to make any page dynamic or say anything else can also cause Duplicate content. For example, you have one post in which 500 words and additional 200 words are hidden. You allow your visitor to access that 200 words by clicking on any dynamic link and as a result, after clicking on that link your visitor can see additional 200 words.
Additional 200 words came dynamically as a result URL will be changed but other 500 words were already there on page before adding 200 words. It means that initial 500 words can be accessed by 2 URLs! and here comes duplicate content. Google will consider both URLs as a separate pages and will find duplicate content in it.
Practical example:
https://www.atulhost.com/article https://www.atulhost.com/article#content https://www.atulhost.com/article?content
Generally, dynamic content can be called using javascript and other languages too and by this, it adds “#” or “?” in URL which makes it different then old URL. By this way, URL parameters cause duplicate content on your blog so you have to solve it. Solution of this will be discussed later in this post. Currently let us move to another cause.
2. Content syndication.
If you have authority blog then you might face this type of problem. Some new bloggers who doesn’t have experience in the world of blogging starts their career by using other’s content with or without permission of owner. By this way, search engine has to face one more piece of duplicate content usually the blog with high authority wins.
More the visitors you have, more will be the problem of content syndication. So, problem also has same solution that first one has that will be discussed after some time.
3. Non-www vs www.
So, if your website is accessible with www as well as with non-www then you are in big duplicate content problem. For example, you have one article named “Best content” then it can be accessed by 2 URLs and they are,
https://www.atulhost.com/content https://www.atulhost.com/content
As you can see that google crawler is going to crawl both the pages separately and will find the same content on both the pages and will cause a duplicate content problem. So, if your site can be accessed with and without www then please select one from them either without www or with www.
4. Comment pages.
Do you get many comments on single article on your blog? if yes then you might be breaking comment pages if they can’t be handle on single page. By breaking comments in different different pages, you are creating duplicate content by yourself on your blog.
Do you want to know? yes, definitely. For this, let us consider one situation in which you got 100 comments on one article and you divided it in 2 pages with 50-50 comments. Now the thing which is going to happen is duplicate content. URLs of that pages are as given below.
https://www.atulhost.com/content#comments-1 https://www.atulhost.com/content#comments-2
You can clearly see that content can be accessed by 2 URLs and content same content except comments. This situation causes duplicate content problems. Now, let us see one stop solution of duplicate content problem.
How to use the canonical tags to avoid duplicate content?
Canonical tag is one stop tag to avoid duplicate content. By using canonical tag, you can use one piece of content anytime on web. Using canonical tag is very much easy that you can easily implement on your blog. It is just a link tag () tag with canonical as a attribute. Following is the structure of canonical tag.
<link rel="canonical" href="Link_to_Original_Content" />
You know that 301 redirect redirects users and search engines to the original content but in the case of canonical tag, it only redirects search engine to original content and by this, search engines can decide original content and will not penalize any of the site.
If your blog is powered by WordPress then you can install the Yoast plugin and it will add a canonical tag to every post and page automatically to save a lot of time. If you want to allow someone to use your content then also, tell him/her to add a canonical tag before the article so that the search engine can decide which content is original. It will work for every problem we discussed above like Comment pages, URL parameters, non-www vs www, and Content syndication too! So, it is always a good SEO practice to use a canonical tag on every post and page on your blog.
Conclusion
It is always a good practice to use canonical tag to avoid duplicate content. So, from next time, if someone copies your content then don’t tell them to remove… tell them to add canonical tag by which search engine will be redirected to your blog. Not only this 4 but there are numerous reasons of duplicate content but canonical tag is one stop tag of all of that. So, what do you think, There is any another way to solve duplicate content problem? if you are facing any types of problems or have any question in your mind then comment it below. I will give my best.
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