Duplicate content query

**PriceInspector** · 16-01-09

Hi,

I have a website that allows users to search a product database - if it returns zero results it automatically runs a second search and goes to a second search where it queries a second product database.

The problem I am seeing is that when Google crawls www.site.com/search1/ it is redirecting to www.site.com/search2/ and both urls are being indexed with the same TITLE tag and page content - webmaster tools is then picking this up as a problem.

Has anyone else had this type of problem, and if so how can I get around it?

Cheers,
Wesiwyg

**Jack Russell** · 16-01-09

Hi Wesiwyg,

You can login in your google.com/webmasters/ account and have google to ignore this 2 links.

you won't face any problem even if you leave your existing setup as it is.

Google will simply ignore one of the 2 duplicate content and display only 1 in search results when searched by potential visitors.

**KirstyM** · 16-01-09

Actually, Google doesn't always ignore the dupe content. If it sees a high percentage of it, penalties can happen. It's not a hard and fast rule, but I have had issues with this with my Wordpress based site.

If its generally the results from the second database that are causing the issue, you might want to consider blocking Google from indexing those results via your robots.txt file. I suppose it really comes down to whether or not you want / need the content from the second DB indexing. However if it is going to potentially cause you problems with SEO down the track it is worth considering.

**Brendon** · 20-01-09

According to Google, they'd rather not have any search results in their db anyway (unless there is "value added" data in there too)

**websurfer** · 20-01-09

Originally Posted by Jack Russell

Hi Wesiwyg,

You can login in your google.com/webmasters/ account and have google to ignore this 2 links.

you won't face any problem even if you leave your existing setup as it is.

Google will simply ignore one of the 2 duplicate content and display only 1 in search results when searched by potential visitors.

Thanks Jack Russell for important and useful suggestion.
I did not have any idea about these types of queries, but you gave a nice answer.
Thanks for sharing knowledge.

**Jack Russell** · 20-01-09

Originally Posted by websurfer

Thanks Jack Russell for important and useful suggestion.
I did not have any idea about these types of queries, but you gave a nice answer.
Thanks for sharing knowledge.

You are welcome

Cheers !

**ContentBoss** · 30-01-09

there's an article about the duplicate content penalty myth here :-

Duplicate Content Penalty Myth Exposed

**donniebasco** · 01-02-09

Duplicate content penalty is a myth and I don't think that you should worry.
Gogle just filters out and ignores dup content, but it doesn't penalize.

**Andrew Starr** · 01-02-09

Originally Posted by donniebasco

Duplicate content penalty is a myth and I don't think that you should worry.
Gogle just filters out and ignores dup content, but it doesn't penalize.

But surely filtering out and ignoring duplicate content is a penalty?

**ContentBoss** · 02-02-09

Originally Posted by Andrew Starr

But surely filtering out and ignoring duplicate content is a penalty?

indeed. As it explains in the article, even if there's no explicit penalty, if the end result is the same, duplicate content = bad.

I'm constantly amazed when people don't get this point - it reminds me of a few years ago when the die hards used to argue that 'there was nothing wrong with doorway pages or cloaking'.

A bit of commonsense then would have revealed the obvious way it was going to unfold, and a bit of commonsense now will reveal exactly the same thing now.

**Schebesta** · 04-02-09

Originally Posted by ContentBoss

indeed. As it explains in the article, even if there's no explicit penalty, if the end result is the same, duplicate content = bad.

I'm constantly amazed when people don't get this point - it reminds me of a few years ago when the die hards used to argue that 'there was nothing wrong with doorway pages or cloaking'.

A bit of commonsense then would have revealed the obvious way it was going to unfold, and a bit of commonsense now will reveal exactly the same thing now.

I have always found that the more tickets you have in the Google lottery the more likely you are to win each month. Duplicate content just kills 2 tickets in one move.