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Loading...- Is It Really Bad for SEO to Have Duplicate Product Descriptions?
- What Can You Do With Duplicate Product Descriptions? 9 Practical Tips You Can Use Right Away
- Duplicate Content Product Descriptions & SEO - The Takeaway
Is It Really Bad for SEO to Have Duplicate Product Descriptions?
Product descriptions are an indispensable part of every online store. They serve both users (who can learn about the features of a given item) and search engine robots (that can better understand your page, and decide what keywords should be assigned to it). So, what if you're dealing with duplicate product descriptions on your webiste? If you’re familiar with SEO and Google guidelines, you certainly know that unique, quality content is a must-have if you want to rank high. Why? Because using the same descriptions for various products leads to internal duplicate content and keyword cannibalization. As you may guess, these two definitely won’t help you reach the TOP10. In the beginning, it’s worth mentioning that according to John Mueller from Google, there is no need to write unique descriptions for each product variant and version. This is particularly applicable if you offer e.g., 100 color versions of one T-shirt. Google’s Search advocate states it’s simply a waste of time because Google won’t penalize you for duplicate content. While unique content helps Google crawl and rank particular pages, it’s not a necessity. Therefore, during the SEO process you should focus on writing unique, quality descriptions only for products and pages whose positions you want to improve:Mueller said that Google won’t demote a site for duplicate content. But he also said that a lack of text content that describes the visual quality of a product makes it harder for Google to rank those pages. - https://www.searchenginejournal.com/duplicate-product-descriptions/432167/#close
What Can You Do With Duplicate Product Descriptions? 9 Practical Tips You Can Use Right Away
If possible, it’s worth getting rid of duplicate product descriptions. SEO can’t be fully effective when important keywords on your website are cannibalized. Fortunately, there are a few simple steps that will help you solve the problem.1. Add Descriptions of Unique Visual Elements to the Text
If you offer 50 product versions in your online store, these products may somehow differ from each other. Otherwise, you’d simply sell one item, wouldn’t you?
To get rid of duplicate content product descriptions, mention unique features that make your products stand out from each other.
If the offered shoes are blue, mention it in the description, and title. If you sell a V-neck T-shirt with an animal print, write about it.
Product design, size, or color are only some elements you can use to make the descriptions more unique. Once you do it, the rest of the text, meaning specification, can stay the same. This way you'll avoid duplicate product descriptions and won't hurt your SEO efforts.
It’s all about giving Google a chance to understand your website better and help it decide what keywords match given pages. Thanks to such detailed descriptions and unique visual elements, the robots are able to differentiate between similar products and show users the ones they’re looking for.
Remember that images aren’t enough for Google. As stated by Mueller, to understand your product range, it needs text:
So that’s… the angle I would take here is it’s fine to have parts of the description duplicated. But I would definitely make sure that you at least have something in there that really has text about the visual elements that are unique to those individual products that you’re selling.
2. Add Visual Elements to Alt Texts of Images
Alt text is an alternative description created for both visually impaired users and Google robots. It helps them understand what’s in the image. Therefore, when writing alt descriptions for your images, make sure that they include important product keywords as well as characteristic features such as color, size, or style. This way, you’ll inform both Google and users about elements that make your specific product page stand out.3. Create Unique Descriptions
Creating a unique description for each product page is the most favorable method to deal with internal duplicate content and keyword cannibalization. This way, you can saturate your website with additional quality content and expand the list of keywords your page is displayed for. Why is it worth writing product descriptions from scratch? The more unique descriptions on the website, the smaller the percentage of duplicate content. This solution is perfect for shops that don’t offer too many colors or sizes of the same products. It makes sense if the costs don't outweigh the benefits. Remember that cooperation with qualified SEO copywriters can be expensive. Especially, if you successively introduce new products, colors, and sizes to your offer. Unique content can give you a lot, provided that you’re able to continue creating it for new product versions without sacrificing the quality. If not, use our tips to avoid problems with duplicate product descriptions.
4. Use Synonyms
If creating unique descriptions for each product version seems infeasible in your case, you may benefit from other possibilities offered by the language. Why don’t you use synonyms or paraphrase existing descriptions, adding unique elements describing features of individual products? It’s a great way to avoid keyword cannibalization and internal duplication without spending too much money on copywriting. If you aren’t sure whether this option will help you with duplicate content product descriptions, try to implement changes gradually and monitor the SERPs. If your positions don’t deteriorate, it’s a sign you can continue with the remaining products. Note that this is a rather temporary option. It should be implemented carefully and you need to regularly monitor the pages to see how Google reacts and evaluates them.5. Use Canonical Links
Creating canonical links is the most popular method of dealing with duplicate content product descriptions. This solution doesn’t require big financial resources and isn’t particularly time-consuming. A canonical tag tells the search engine robots to index only one particular, “preferred” page version from a group of URLs. It’s advisable to implement canonical links on pages with different sizes, or color versions of the product. Thanks to that, Google robots are going to index only the main product page and description. Canonicals are a great way to avoid internal duplication. Nevertheless, it’s worth mentioning that applying them means it’s impossible to search the site with the use of long tail keywords (such as black jeans pants). Consequently, the SEO process can take a bit longer in this particular case.6. Apply Filters
Online shops with a wide range of products can also benefit from filters. They allow users to sort the assortment by color, size, fabrics, brand, and other attributes that make it easier to find products users are looking for. Color or size filters aren’t only a method of dealing with internal duplicate content. The solution has a positive impact on UX and improves website navigation. It works well in sizeable online stores offering thousands of products because browsing all of them manually would take ages.
Imagine that you’re looking for a new TV.
You aren’t sure about the brand, but you know what size you want, and how much money you can spend. Thanks to filters you can quickly see whether the store offers any tellies meeting your expectations, and you can select the one that suits you best.
Content filtering is user and search engine-friendly. It works well in industries where color, size, or the material the product is made of plays a key role.
This might be a solution for you if you operate in the clothing, electronic, footwear, or jewelry sector.
Remember that the implementation of filters may lead to some problems.
Why?
Search engine robots see each of the created addresses (URLs with attributes such as sizes, or colors) as a separate one.
[caption id="attachment_19835" align="aligncenter" width="384"]
The main category - women’s skirts[/caption]
[caption id="attachment_19837" align="aligncenter" width="419"]
Women’s skirts filtered according to the black color[/caption]
Consequently, filtered pages are copies of the main product category. To fully benefit from this solution and make sure that it doesn’t harm your ranking, you should either use the noindex tag to mark newly created pages or block the indexing of the filtered content in the robots.txt file.
