How to Resolve Duplicate Content Issues With Webmaster Tools

Google takes action against duplicate content pages by not only downranking them but also by not indexing them at all, potentially harming organic search performance and performance.

Launched originally in 2005, Webmaster Tools (now Google Search Console) provides users with free web tools that help keep their sites Google-friendly, such as submitting XML sitemaps, tracking crawl errors and ensuring mobile usability.

Duplicate content may result from multiple causes, including content syndication (like social media posts or news aggregators); URL parameters like click tracking or specific analytics code; and product pages displaying similar material.

Check for Broken Links

Duplicate content is a common SEO problem and can have serious repercussions for search engine rankings. It occurs when identical or similar material appears multiple times across your website’s URLs – for instance scrapers republishing blog posts; having identical page titles for post pages, home pages and archives pages; as well as having duplicate product info on e-commerce websites being some of its major causes.

Solution: Utilize 301 redirects to direct all pages with duplicate content to its original version of page, consolidating all different versions into one URL or using rel=canonical tags as signal to search engines which version should take precedence. The site allows you to gather information about Webmaster Tools quickly.

Monitoring broken links should be an integral part of website maintenance, with tools such as Google Webmaster Tools, Xenu Sleuth and Ahrefs being helpful in quickly and easily detecting broken links.

Check for Crawl Errors

Duplicate content is one of the primary factors contributing to SEO issues. It occurs when similar or identical pieces appear at different URLs or appear multiple times within one website’s pages – though exact duplication should always be avoided (for instance when used for news syndication). While exact duplication should never occur, some duplication is acceptable (as is seen with news syndication).

SmallSeoTools can help you avoid duplicate content issues by checking for duplicity and plagiarism. Copy and paste your blog content into its box for comparison against that from other websites, while simultaneously detecting duplicate phrases that might exist within it.

Search Console Error Report displays crawl errors URL by URL, showing where Google cannot access pages on your website resulting in poor SEO performance and impacting overall website health. Prioritize and address these issues immediately in order to maintain healthy site operations.

Breakaway link checkers such as Screaming Frog or Xenu Link Sleuth can assist with detecting crawl errors and ensure your pages are correctly structured. Furthermore, site audits should be regularly conducted in order to detect issues early.

Utilize a freemium crawler like Xenu Sleuth to scan your website for duplicate metadata. This tool will identify similarities in page titles, meta descriptions and URLs – export this data as a spreadsheet for further examination and determine which page elements contain duplicates before taking steps to address them.

Check for Indexing Issues

Mark Twain famously famously famously said “there’s no such thing as originality”, yet duplicate content remains an ongoing problem for website owners. If Google indexes multiple versions of a single page, this can harm SEO performance significantly if there is no canonicalization setup or use of an X-Robots-Tag HTTP header to noindex specific pages.

Common sources of duplicate content are URL parameters used for click tracking or analytics codes, session IDs and printer versions. Mobile subdomains or AMP URLs can also result in duplicated material.

Search engines may punish pages if they contain duplicate content that appears identical to another page, although intentional duplication or that which serves a specific purpose (for instance news syndication or creating unique post pages for each category on a blog) should still be allowed as long as it 301 redirects properly.

Check for Rank Changes

If the same content appears across multiple pages on your site, search engines could become confused as to which version should rank higher; this could result in reduced search engine rankings and decrease organic visitor count.

Common sources of duplicate content are scrapers republishing your blog posts and product info pages to their own websites, though internal sources can also cause it. Uneven capitalization among URLs — where different pages have either all or only some letters capitalized — counts as duplicated material; to prevent further duplication it’s wise to implement 301 redirects towards preferred versions of URLs.

Sources of duplicate content can include URL parameters like click tracking and analytics code or session IDs; printer versions with similar content being indexed multiple times; or multiple pages featuring identical text being indexed at once. These duplicates can be addressed using rel=canonical, 301 redirects or Webmaster Tools parameter handling tool to resolve them.