php duplicate content issue

question on PHP

[Niallniall]

I am looking here for some advice. I have a site which is mainly php. It's an ecommerce site and on the listings pages I have the main product picture and a short description underneath. Also there are up to 3 thumbnail pictures (products at various angles)

When the main product is displayed the url would be

http:www.widgets.com/productview.php?id=9

when you click on a thumbnail you are presented with the same page now displaying the new image, but still with the same text on the page. the new url is this

http:www.widgets.com/productview.php?id=9&picture=2

I wanted to know if this was duplicate content or not? Will I be peanalised for it?

[jonrichd]

Hello, Niallniall, and Welcome to WebmasterWorld [webmasterworld.com].

Assuming that the only thing that changes on your page is the image you display, then, yes, you are presenting some duplicate content under the different URLs. Will it cause a penalty? I don't think anyone knows for sure, which may be why it's taken so long to get a response to your question.

That being said, I would suggest that you assume the pages could cause a duplicate content penalty, and come up with a different way of displaying them to avoid it.

One way would be to have your PHP script put in a NOINDEX metatag in the header if the &picture= argument is in the URL. That way, the robots wouldn't see the duplicate content, only the 'plain' version of the page.

Another way would be to use JavaScript to display the alternate images when someone clicks on the thumbnail (similar to what you would do with an OnMouseover for rollover menus, except that it would be OnClick). This has the added benefit of reducing bandwidth and time because the page text doesn't have to be reloaded.

There may be other solutions to this problem, but perhaps these two will get you thinking.

[Niallniall]

Thanks for that. Great information I'll get on to it right away.

[activeco]

I see a lot of people worrying about duplicate content issue regarding pages from their own sites.

One thing is a penalty if you page is being a copy of a page from another site, but duplicate content "penalty" to one or more similar pages from the same site is totaly harmless.
It is not that Google deletes all of them from the index.
One remains authorative and which one is IMO totally irrelevant.

[Niallniall]

The content I have used is all origional. Nothing copied from anywhere else. I wrote it all myself. My problem is like I explained above. I have my main product page.

http:www.widgets.com/productview.php?id=9

this page has up to 6 thumbnail images which generate the following urls

http:www.widgets.com/productview.php?id=9&picture=1
http:www.widgets.com/productview.php?id=9&picture=2
http:www.widgets.com/productview.php?id=9&picture=3
http:www.widgets.com/productview.php?id=9&picture=4
http:www.widgets.com/productview.php?id=9&picture=5
http:www.widgets.com/productview.php?id=9&picture=6

The only difference between all 7 pages is the image. All the text is the same.

I think I will go with "no index" tag on the &picture= urls