Also known as duplicate content or similar texts. These are texts or text passages that are similar or even identical in their entirety. Since search engines like Google and Co. focus on an individual and above all positive user experience, it is important to avoid duplicate content. If duplicate content is found and evaluated as such or even as an attempt to deceive, the website will be removed from the index and may even be penalized.
If the same content appears on multiple websites, this can be confusing for users. In addition, the search engine crawler, which is designed to index content, cannot distinguish which of the pages is the originating page. Therefore, to avoid being penalized by Google, it is recommended to create original, original content.
How does duplicate content happen?
Duplicate content can be caused by several factors, including:
- Scraping: When someone uses the content of your own website and publishes it on their own website without permission. This can happen if the own website offers added value and good content.
- Both www and non-www versions, http and https versions of your own website: For example, if your website is www.example.com and someone types example.com, users will still be redirected to the first website. However, Google may consider this as two separate websites with duplicate content. The same applies to the http and https versions of the website in the index.
- Product descriptions: When webmasters sell products on their site, there is a high likelihood that the product descriptions will be similar (or even identical) for different products. While this is not technically “duplicate” content, it is classified as low quality content by Google because it does not provide much added value to the user.
To avoid duplicate content on your own web pages, you can also use a Canonical-Tag.
Thematically relevant sub-pages:
