Duplicate content. My experience. How about percentage?

[jakomo]

Hi guys!

I HAD a website with a long menu:

IE:
Car lawyers in Florida
Car lawyers in Michigan
Car lawyers in Georgia
.
.
. n50
(Around 50 states)

As you can see, we have around 50 pages with duplicate content, THE STATE MENU

Page structure
Unique Title tag
Unique Meta tag description
Unique text body around 150 to 200 words (few words)
Duplicate Manu

The pages are new around 1 month, we have got traffic before Christmas, but right now many pages disappear from Google Index and many pages are as Supplemental result.

I have used < an online tool > to get the percentage of duplicated content, and we got around 78% to 80% of duplicated content for these pages, we compare Car lawyers in Florida and Car lawyers in Michigan

Well, right now, I got rid the &#8220;STATES MENU&#8221; and the percentage of duplicated content is around 40%, I will see if this situation change&#8230;.

I have other pages with around 19% of duplicated content and these pages are indexed OK on Google

I have checked another website pages, and have duplicate content with around 80%, but they have PR3 or PR4 (old pages).

Anyone knows about percentage of duplicated content?

Best!
Jakomo

<Sorry, no tool names.
See Forum Charter [webmasterworld.com]>

[edited by: tedster at 12:28 am (utc) on Jan. 8, 2007]

[Quadrille]

No-one knows for sure, and I've seen a multitude of different figures quoted. But some general thoughts may be helpful:

1. No-one knows for sure what is 'acceptable'

2. No-one knows for sure what it's a percentage of - all the visible content? all the code? Code minus js etc? We don't know.

3. In view of the above, it might be a tad unwise to put any reliance on a 'tool', which may (or may not) use similar methods to google.

But if you apply the Golden Rule - "content is king" - and you build your site for visitors, as Google strongly advises, then common sense says you really do not need a figure; your visitors will be bored / irritated / confused if you duplicate too much, and avoiding unhelpful duplication isn't difficult.

I'm sorry if that's not what you wanted to hear ... but just try conversing with someone who constantly repeats themselves ... you'll soon be planning your escape ;)

[tedster]

Note what Google's Adam Lasnik says in a currently active thread

re: wanting specific percentages (re: duplicate content, boilerplate stuff, etc.)
There aren't any. Again, too many variables.

[webmasterworld.com...]

[Pirates]

I am loving this idea, brillant stuff from google. :)

[jakomo]

Hi! Yup I'm agree about the Content is the king, I'm giving "gold" information for my visitors.

In my example about Lawyers directory, so I'm showing “Lawyers” in a city called Astor in Florida. (I don’t know if Astor is a small city, but in my example I use this beautiful city as small town)

I was looking around the yellow page (paper), internet, and many resources; maybe I went to Astor to find information. Ups! Bigggg problem, just I found two lawyers, ok fine! I wrote a small summary about these lawyers, around 100 / 150 words in total, something like the address, phone number, skill, clients, etc (UNIQUE CONTENT).

For people living in Astor, this information is “short but Gold content”, right? Why? For example I’m unique on internet, and before Christmas I was first! They can get the information to call for an accident, etc etc.

But now, I have a nice but long MENU showing my 50 states, this menu is duplicated on each page, of each state and cities….

Google say, hey you! You haven’t quality content; you have around 80% of duplicate content on your pages! Now let go to Supplemental result! My small page cry and cry, my visitor cry, and I am crying LOL.

This is my example about useful but short content.

Solution: maybe I should get rid the menu, or try to do it with Flash :)

Sorry, sometime, I am crazy. :)
Best,
Jakomo

[Quadrille]

You really do not need to have the links on evry page, do you?

And even if you feel that's essential, 50-odd words will be dwarfed by your solid gold unique content.

Repeating 'car lawyer' 50 times is pointless, unsightly and positively suicidal, of course!

Good Luck :)

[jakomo]

Hi Quadrille! Thanks!

You are agree! I was my 2 cents about my stupid but true experience.

Best regards,
Jakomo

[soapystar]

Repeating 'car lawyer' 50 times is pointless, unsightly and positively suicidal, of course!

well thats subjective not a point of fact.
However it may well be an example of how you cannot design just for users any longer (if u ever could) and not for search engines. In the old days if the algo decided that menu was spam it was most likely to ignore it for ranking purposes. Currently is most likley to cause a drop in rankings if unliked by the algo.

[Quadrille]

well thats subjective not a point of fact

But of course; I make no claim to know the internal details of the Google algo.

But it does not take rocket science to recognise that

Car lawyers in Florida
Car lawyers in Michigan
Car lawyers in ... x50

is not the way to go.

Unless, of course, you do know the internal details of the Google algo. I'm guessing your comments are equally subjective, as are the comments of every member here when discussing the internal details of the Google algo?

When it comes down to it, we are ALL making best guesses based on our knowldge and experience. But why do we need this conversation at this time, in this thread?

[soapystar]

is not the way to go.

in what sense? If your saying because google doesnt like it then your making my point.

TX.

[Quadrille]

Sorry, I thought you were posting after me?

Anyway, I really have no idea what point you are now making, so I'm off to the pub. Sorry, but there'll be someone along soon ...

[edited by: Quadrille at 10:34 pm (utc) on Jan. 8, 2007]

[youfoundjake]

I too, have this problem as well.
I think what i'm going to do to resolve it is setup a php form based on the state selection. The returning page will give the results of lawyers contact information. I think that this will present the one page to search engines, and not get dinged for dup content, even thought the title and description are all different. I'm not sure how it will perform, since I don't get alot of visitors yet, or how it will rank in the search engines, but more will be revealed.

[edited by: tedster at 11:51 pm (utc) on Jan. 8, 2007]

[econman]

Repeating the words "car lawyers" 50 times is not user-friendly. The average human would prefer reading a menu/list with a headline followed by the unique choices -- something like this:

Car lawyers:
Alabama
Alaska
Arizona
...for 50 rows.

The SE's may treat a repetition of "car lawyers" 50 times as a mere template/boilerplate, or they may penalize you for "keywords stuffing" or the like. In any event, I don't think it does you any good, and some members think it harms the site, by reducing the site's credibility -- it makes the site look like it was designed for SEO purposes, rather than for users.

There was a thread a few months back directly on this same issue; it used "hotels" or some other travel related keyword as the example, you might want to look for that thread and read the comments.

[mattg3]

Content is only king if you are the mass accumulator and some rare exceptions.

Accumulators are Wikipedia, Forums and everywhere where other people write for you.

[edited by: mattg3 at 2:46 am (utc) on Jan. 9, 2007]

[jakomo]

Hi
Thanks you!
I have changed the menu, I will see what happen..

Cya
Jakomo

[soapystar]

Sorry, I thought you were posting after me?

thats ok, no need to apologise. Again!