Category pages with teaser from articles

dupe content or not?

[carpediem]

Hi,

Let's say I have articles that belong to 1 category...

So I have in my main navigation link to that category.

WHen you get to the category page, I set up to automatically list 10 articles from that category with their teasers, and teaser for one article are first 255 characters from the article. + there is "read more" link that leads you to article.

So basically I have a category page where its content is a "mix" of beginings (first 255 chars) of 10 articles....

Is this bad or not? Should I "noindex" those category pages or not?

Thanks

[Marshall]

This would be no different than the home page of an online newspaper or magazine and, to my knowledge, does not cause any duplication of content issues. Basically, you are posting headlines to stories with "read more" or "continued" links.

Marshall

[carpediem]

yes, but they are not just headlines.... there's headlines and after that abobout 250 chars of the begining of the article....

[Rosalind]

If you're worried, write unique teasers rather than taking the first part of the articles, or shorten the snippet length. But the chances are, you don't need to worry about this since it's a very common method of organising navigation.

[Marshall]

yes, but they are not just headlines.... there's headlines and after that abobout 250 chars of the begining of the article....

I understand that. But if you look at any online paper or magazine, the "headlines" generally include the first paragraph or so of the entire story, and sometimes a picture, followed by a "Full Story" link. Your category pages would be no different.

Marshall

[carpediem]

no way I'm writing those teasers manually :)

yeah I guess I'm too worried about this, it's not a big deal.

[maximillianos]

It is no big deal. Just make sure you keep it to 2-3 sentences max. Very common around the web.