What is duplicate content? This is when content appears more than once on the internet. These identical pieces of content make it extremely problematic for search engines to determine which version of the content to use as a search engine result. Therefore, the search engine is forced to choose one piece of content as the best, and this may not always be the page that was intended.

Checking for duplicate content is this essential so that the search engine robot is not confused by your website and ranks and indexes your page faster. If your website does contain duplicate content, it can be corrected with a 301 redirect – moving from the duplicate to the correct and original page. In fact, a 301 direct can boost SEO ratings because combining pages that can be ranked will increase their relevancy.

Duplicate content can also be prevented when syndicating pages by adding a link back to the original content, or by minimising similar content. This means combining pages that share similar features or content.

Although Google does not penalise a website for having duplicate content, it does remove pages with identical content from search results. This means that if you have two websites that contain the same content, only one of them will be displayed in the search results, and it might not be the website that you want displayed. Therefore, content should unique, original, and never duplicated for SEO purposes.

Search Engine Optimization explained.

Keyword Assessment | Meta Data | Webmaster Tools | Google Analytics | Monthly Reporting | Robots.txt | .htaccess | Favicon | Site Map | Search Engines | Google Maps | Forms and E-mails | Footer Link | Google Search Engine | Picture Tagging | Directory Page | Social Media | Heading Tags | Indexed Pages | Robots | Sitemap | HTML Errors | Search Engine Errors | Broken Links | Pages and Content | Search Engines | Picture Tagging | Flash and iFrames | Hierarchy | Forms and Emails | Add Media | Static URLs | Descriptive URLs | Duplicate Content | Plagiarism Check | Positive Content | Negative Content | Character Coding | Downloadable Files | Optimize Graphics | Optimize Navigation | Incoming Links | Outgoing Links | Page Content | Meta Data | Rich Content | Reduce Bounce Rate | Social Media | Analyze Competitors | Website Security | 3rd Party Tracking