Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Duplicate content, although page has "noindex"
-
Hello,
I had an issue with some pages being listed as duplicate content in my weekly Moz report. I've since discussed it with my web dev team and we decided to stop the pages from being crawled. The web dev team added this coding to the pages <meta name='robots' content='max-image-preview:large, noindex dofollow' />, but the Moz report is still reporting the pages as duplicate content.
Note from the developer "So as far as I can see we've added robots to prevent the issue but maybe there is some subtle change that's needed here. You could check in Google Search Console to see how its seeing this content or you could ask Moz why they are still reporting this and see if we've missed something?"
Any help much appreciated!
-
@rj_dale have you added a rel=canonical tag to the page to make sure you're marking to Google the correct version of the page? Even if it doesn't have a duplicate page, add a self-referencing canonical tag and if you need any more help - speak to a freelance seo consultant.
-
Based on your description, it appears as though the page is already indexed in the search engine. This is being picked up by the Moz tool and being reported as duplicate content.
What you can try to do is - for the page that is flagged by the Moz tool as duplicate enter it in Google as the following
site:example.com/moz-flagged-duplicate-url
This will show if the page is already indexed.
If the page is indexed, I would recommend you to:
a) Review the two or more similar URLs flagged as duplicates and see if they are actual duplicates or a tool-based error. If it is a tool based error you can ignore the issue. If you think the pages are actual duplicates you can evaluate pages in terms of backlinks or incoming traffic and choose the preferred page version that should be indexed in search engines. Place a canonical tag of the preferred page version on all the pages flagged as duplicate.
b) Please remove the noindex tag. This is not the right technique to handle duplicate content for SEO results.
c) You would have to wait for Google to crawl and update results. You can promote your new page on social media, email marketing campaigns, or build backlinks to the page. With time search engines will pick up these changes and updates its indexed results.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Is it Ok to have multiple domains (separate website different content) rank for similar keywords?
Is it 'OK' to have multiple domains in the following instance? Does Google actively discourage multiple (but completely different sites) domains from the same company appearing in the search results for the same and or similar keywords if the content is slightly different? This is where the 'main site' has the details, and you can purchase product, and the second site is a blog site only. We are creating a separate content blogsite; which would be on a second domain that will be related to one portion of content on main site. They would be linking back and forth, or maybe the blog site would just link over to the main site so they can purchase said product. This would be a similar scenario to give you an idea of how it would be structured: MAIN SITE: describes a few products, and you can purchase from this site SECOND SITE, different domain: a blog site that contains personal experiences with one of the products. BOTH sites will be linked back and forth....or as mentioned maybe the blog site could just link over to the 'main site' Logo would be a modified version of the main logo and look and feel of the sight would be similar but not exactly the same. MORE INFO: the main site has existed for way over 10 years, starting to gain some traction in an extremely competitive market, but does not rank super high, is gaining traction due to improvements in speed, content, onpage SEO, etc... So in addition to my main question of is this 'ok' to have this second domain, also will it hurt the rankings or negatively affect the 'main' site? Wondering about duplicate content issues, except it will be slightly different...
SEO Tactics | | fourwhitesocks0 -
Pages with Duplicate Content Error
Hello, the result of renewed content appeared in the scan results in my Shopify Store. But these products are unique. Why am I getting this error? Can anyone please help to explain why? screenshot-moz.rainyclouds.online-2021.10.28-19_53_09.png
Moz Pro | | gokimedia0 -
Quick Fix to "Duplicate page without canonical tag"?
When we pull up Google Search Console, in the Index Coverage section, under the category of Excluded, there is a sub-category called ‘Duplicate page without canonical tag’. The majority of the 665 pages in that section are from a test environment. If we were to include in the robots.txt file, a wildcard to cover every URL that started with the particular root URL ("www.domain.com/host/"), could we eliminate the majority of these errors? That solution is not one of the 5 or 6 recommended solutions that the Google Search Console Help section text suggests. It seems like a simple effective solution. Are we missing something?
Technical SEO | | CREW-MARKETING1 -
404 Error Pages being picked up as duplicate content
Hi, I recently noticed an increase in duplicate content, but all of the pages are 404 error pages. For instance, Moz site crawl says this page: https://www.allconnect.com/sc-internet/internet.html has 43 duplicates and all the duplicates are also 404 pages (https://www.allconnect.com/Coxstatic.html for instance is a duplicate of this page). Looking for insight on how to fix this issue, do I add an rel=canonical tag to these 60 error pages that points to the original error page? Thanks!
Technical SEO | | kfallconnect0 -
Localized domains and duplicate content
Hey guys, In my company we are launching a new website and there's an issue it's been bothering me for a while. I'm sure you guys can help me out. I already have a website, let's say ABC.com I'm preparing a localized version of that website for the uk so we'll launch ABC.co.uk Basically the websites are going to be exactly the same with the difference of the homepage. They have a slightly different proposition. Using GeoIP I will redirect the UK traffic to ABC.co.uk and the rest of the traffic will still visit .com website. May google penalize this? The site itself it will be almost the same but the homepage. This may count as duplicate content even if I'm geo-targeting different regions so they will never overlap. Thanks in advance for you advice
Technical SEO | | fabrizzio0 -
We have set up 301 redirects for pages from an old domain, but they aren't working and we are having duplicate content problems - Can you help?
We have several old domains. One is http://www.ccisound.com - Our "real" site is http://www.ccisolutions.com The 301 redirect from the old domain to the new domain works. However, the 301-redirects for interior pages, like: http://www.ccisolund.com/StoreFront/category/cd-duplicators do not work. This URL should redirect to http://www.ccisolutions.com/StoreFront/category/cd-duplicators but as you can see it does not. Our IT director supplied me with this code from the HT Access file in hopes that someone can help point us in the right direction and suggest how we might fix the problem: RewriteCond%{HTTP_HOST} ccisound.com$ [NC] RewriteRule^(.*)$ http://www.ccisolutions.com/$1 [R=301,L] Any ideas on why the 301 redirect isn't happening? Thanks all!
Technical SEO | | danatanseo0 -
Should we use "and" or "&"?
Our client has an ampersand in their brand name. The logo has "&", their url is spelled out. I'm trying to get them to standardize the use of the name for directories/listings. Should we use "and" or "&"?
Technical SEO | | vernonmack0 -
Duplicate Content issue
I have been asked to review an old website to an identify opportunities for increasing search engine traffic. Whilst reviewing the site I came across a strange loop. On each page there is a link to printer friendly version: http://www.websitename.co.uk/index.php?pageid=7&printfriendly=yes That page also has a link to a printer friendly version http://www.websitename.co.uk/index.php?pageid=7&printfriendly=yes&printfriendly=yes and so on and so on....... Some of these pages are being included in Google's index. I appreciate that this can't be a good thing, however, I am not 100% sure as to the extent to which it is a bad thing and the priority that should be given to getting it sorted. Just wandering what views people have on the issues this may cause?
Technical SEO | | CPLDistribution0