WordPress simplifies the lives of small businesses, bloggers, and large news sites. It applies best practices like canonical links, and there are plugins for almost everything else you might need.
However, with the convenience of publishing content and designs comes a new challenge:
Duplicate content.
Duplicate content is a common reason why a WordPress website might not rank.
Although it’s different from the traditional SEO definition of duplicate content (exact replication of content from wording to code), it’s similar and needs to be addressed.
Here are the five most common types of duplicate content issues in WordPress and how to fix them.
1. Tags
Tags pose a significant problem for many WordPress websites. When an article is tagged, it creates a unique page filled with other relevant content.
These pages feature snippets from articles or even entire articles. If the tag is the same as a category or a main page on your core website, then you’ve essentially created a competitor to that page within your own site.
Tags are often modified versions of themselves, leading to incredibly similar content that competes internally.
When this happens, none of the pages will rank, potentially devaluing the site.
Good news! This is an easy fix.
You can either remove the tags altogether or add a meta robots noindex, dofollow tag.
The noindex, dofollow tag will tell search engines that the page is thin but to follow the links and continue crawling and indexing your site.
Thus, search engines will know that the page isn’t as useful as others and will focus on discovering your valuable content – the individual posts and pages.
2. Categories
Category pages, like tags, often feature numerous posts and articles.
They might have H1 tags identical to the articles, don’t always answer a question, or provide a good solution since they are snippets and may not be useful for people seeking detailed answers.
This qualifies them as thin content.
However, there is an exception.
For instance, a WordPress website with categories dedicated to specific channels can be useful. A user searching for information on a particular channel may find the category very helpful.
In such cases, add a meta robots index and dofollow tags, and also create unique titles and copy for the category to introduce it. Add relevant schema if applicable.
This helps to define the types of queries and people the page should attract.
Search engines may reward you for this. Just ensure they aren’t competing with your core website pages if you’re a business.
3. Competing Topics
A common issue during WordPress site audits is a lack of unique content.
Think about food bloggers. Recipe schema and other elements might help to differentiate recipes, but if you’re not using those or were unaware initially, you could have issues.
For instance, having 20 recipes for chocolate chip cookies could result in similar wording and ingredients, causing competition among them.
Each recipe is unique and serves a different purpose, but failing to differentiate them can result in them competing against each other.
Creating a category or subcategory for the cookies or adding modifiers such as "spicy," "savory," "chewy," "for parties," or "for large groups" can help.
Additionally, add relevant copy (not necessarily at the top, to deliver the recipe quickly) about the finished product. Ensure the copy stays on-topic and explains why and how it’s unique from the other recipes.
Consider themed gift guides or holiday posts. Has only the year changed? For example, "Mother’s Day craft ideas" or "Romantic Valentine’s Gifts for XYZ".
These may not be unique enough. Multiple posts could compete.
Adding the year to your title (e.g., 2016, 2017) might cause people to pass you over in searches for not being current. The strategies above can help with this.
4. Search Box URLs
In less common cases, search boxes on WordPress sites might generate URLs.
If these URLs are externally linked or indexed by search engines, they can become problematic.
Although you can try adding a meta robots noindex dofollow tag, this might not be sufficient.
Address this by identifying a common unique identifier in the search box URLs, usually a “?” after the main URL.
Add a disallow rule for this parameter in your robots.txt file. This should, in theory, help to reduce thin or duplicate content issues.
5. Other
Automation can sometimes create other duplicate or thin content issues.
Review your site for such instances.
These could include indexable PDF versions of content, or alternate versions in quotes which may be problematic for short posts.
An RSS feed that posts content pages instead of snippets and titles can also be an issue, though this is rare.
Summary
Most WordPress issues mentioned can be easily detected and resolved using the strategies discussed. By eliminating duplicate content, you can achieve the organic search rankings you seek.
Image Credits: Paulo Bobita
