Have a duplicate content question

Looked haven't seen this as a question

[bwnbwn]

Ecommerce site dealing with health products and have a duplicate issue due to being an static site I built pages for the different flavors.

Page for van 5lb
Page for ch 5lb

and so on pretty much same description just a minor difference in ingredients so this has caused a massive dup issue and drug the site down.

I am in the process of rebuilding the products pages were all the urls go to just one url per product and can purchase different flavors from this page. One description etc

In the redo of site I will be removing about 500-600 uls would you add
<META NAME="ROBOTS" CONTENT="NOINDEX, NOFOLLOW">
to all of these pages to get them out of all the search engines.

This is approx 40% of my product pages. I will have to at some point delete the buy buttons and have a url to the new products page to keep from have incorrect prices on products.

Anyway I look at it I have a ton of work still to do one reason I have put if off for so long, I know poor excuse but the only one I have.

[jimbeetle]

No reason to keep the old flavor pages around. Delete them and 301 redirect the URLs to the appropriate replacement pages.

[bwnbwn]

jimbeetle thanks for the answer but
have you ever tried to 301 600 pages not that simple on an static page each one has to be set up say around 5 minutes per that is 3000 minutes about 6 days at 8 hours Good thought but to much trouble.

I quess my question is ( I know it is all going to be an opinion)would it help me get out from under this supplemental cloud it I get these pages out of the index using the tag.

[jimbeetle]

Well, just my opinion, but I do think the 301s are the correct way to carry out a, well, let's face it, very drastic change in site structure. Using a meta noindex is not going to tell the SEs where the new pages are and it will not tell the SEs that the new pages are the new locations for the old content. You're basically going to be starting from scratch in trying to get these new pages reindexed.

Now you're doing all of this because you want to get your product pages out of the supplemental index. Well, until you build up enough link juice to those new pages they are going to stay supplemental. Any backlinks to the pages you are scrapping are going to disappear if you go the meta noindex, nofollow route, whereas the 301s -- if kept permanently in place -- will eventually pass on PR.

Again, just my two cents.

[bwnbwn]

jimbeetle
Sorry I think you misunderstood me.
I am not changing any of the url's just removing duplicate ones and having one page (already indexed and was a Chocolate Flavor example) as a page were any flavor can be purchased but with only one description.

So the other pages Vanilla, strawberry etc as no longer needed and I would like them removed from the indexes of all the SE's.

Trying to do a 301 is correct the best way but I just don't have the time.

In your opinion adding the no index in theory should remove them from all SE's directories.

jimbeetle I have plenty of links that isn't the issue having 40% of the site duplicate is the problem and one I feel puts a site under a filter till it is resolved.

I can already see a positive change as Google has added another 50 pages to my indexed pages I am almsot complete the change and as soon as I update my sitemap upload my database I will see it this does the trick of getting me lifted from supplemental.

[bwnbwn]

jimbeetle
after pondering on what you said I will do a 301 from the pages I want out of the index. I have been thinking on this and it may be a bit slower but well worth the effort as you suggested.

I took out about 500 pages so it may take a month to do them as I can only put a couple hours in a day, but I won't lose any possible sales this way and can only help the site were the other does have the chance of causing me issues.

Issues I dont need...

thanks for that 2nd 2 cents sometimes it takes a little while for others to see the light...

[bwnbwn]

Wanted to update this as I have completed all the changes and will not do antything else for some time to see if these chages lift the site out of supplemental nighmare.

What I did.
Ecommerce site approx 1200 pages before rebuild all static pages. Took out approx 500 pages rebuilt all the others. Different flavors now all on one page.
Rebuilt manufacture pages about 50 of them
Rebuilt databse to reflect all the chages in the individual product pages.
Did a 301 from all the pages taken out of database to the single description and supplement facts for that product.
And added buy buttons for the different flavors on manufacture's page and individual product page as each page is a static page.

Why did I rebuild the databse if all the pages are static. Search feature.

Worked from 4am to 7am did my day job 8-5 and worked till 9pm went to bed repeated the process. Worked most weekends on the site as well. Reduced the product pages to 650.

I am done so will wait and see. I really should have done this over a year ago but I just knew this was going to be a maassive job and kept putting it off till I lost most of my rankings in Google due to the supplemental issue.

Google has only taken out 100 of the 500 pages.

[jimbeetle]

It's good to be patient after major changes such as this. Good luck.