Duplicate content problem

[Tobman]

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Hi

I've got a website where I use id=12345 at the end of urls from adwords to track keywords.

domain.co.uk/product/toy.html?id=12345
domain.co.uk/product/toy.html?id=12346
domain.co.uk/product/toy.html?id=12347
domain.co.uk/product/toy.html?id=12348

I am a bit worried about duplicate content problems. I asked adwords about this and they said it wasn't a problem from the PPC side of things and that the URLs wouldn't be seen as dupe content.

Now I'm working more on SEO, I'm concerned about the SEO side of things.

Would it be wise to do a 301 redirect on:

domain.co.uk/product/toy.html?id=12345

To:

domain.co.uk/product/toy.html

So far it doesn't SEEM to have had a negative impact on the free SEO traffic, but I'd really appreciate some advice.

Thanks

Tom

[John Jupp]

Not a prob as far as I can see. Never been penalised. Should be ok as is.

[Brendon]

>> I asked adwords about this and they said it wasn't a problem from the PPC side of things and that the URLs wouldn't be seen as dupe content.

Never ask the PPC types about SEO issues. Their search engineers are only barely SEO literate in some cases...

The central issue is whether your site delivers the same content for different URLs. If yes, then there will be action taken on the free search side. However, the most likely action is filtering, rather than a penalty. This would mean that all but 1 (hopefully) of the identical content URLs will be dropped from the index, rather than an actual penalty. Keep an eye on it thouhg; what *should* happen and what *does* happen are sometimes different things

[jeff1906]

to be on the safe side i would do a 301 redirect just to be sure.
hope that fills you in!
jeff

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[4ndy]

Hi

On the subject of dupicate content if you have a hosted indexed website with content say

domainnames.co.uk

but you also own the following domain names

domainname.co.uk
domian-name.co.uk
domain-names.co.uk

and have them forward to your main site domainnames.co.uk

will you be penalised by google for doing so.

Any advice appreciated


4ndy

[Brendon]

So long as they all use a 301, you should have no problems whatsoever. If you use other methods, the potential for problems exists, although it's still very slight. Normally, you have to work quite hard to have problems with domain forwarding

[Schebesta]

@Tobman - If these tags are just for tracking then it wont do anything as these will not be indexed by Adwords.