Aside from the usual reasons why it's silly to duplicate static content from Web page to Web page, here is yet another:
If your Web site has content copied and pasted from one page to another, it is very likely that Google is filtering out some or all of the involved Web pages from search results. The reason: The Google search engine does its best to optimize user experience by returning unique content. Because no one wants search results listing page after page of the same stuff.
Higher Education and other organizational Web sites tend to needlessly replicate content. This happens perhaps most frequently when information is repurposed as marketing material. The same content ends up appearing at its original source as well as at one or two marketing pages. Unfortunately, if this marketing material resides above the core content in the site hierarchy - and it usually does - it can end up replacing the core content in Google rankings.
The result is that your users, who once were able to sail directly to the information they need in its entirety and in the best context, now have to wade through marketing fodder to find it.
This can be made worse, believe it or not, if the marketing page helpfully adds a "for more information" link back to the core content. The reason: this is exactly what content spammers do. Their raison d'etre is to dump content in multiple locations with links from one content dump to the next. Fortunately Google has gotten quite good at recognizing this pattern.
What can you do to prevent replicated information from killing search placement of your critical material? There's always the option of adding a robots.txt file to the directory containing the page you do not wish to have indexed. But to my mind, this is a skewed solution. More than 50 percent of users arrive at their destination via Web searches. So why go to the trouble to develop a Web page and then purposely block it from searches?
Better, if at all possible, is to keep redundant content to a minimum on your site. And this means redundant page titles, meta-information, and the like too - this repetition also can cause filtering. If you are still running a "text only" version of your site, LOSE IT. Switch to using Web Standards instead. Write fresh content when developing marketing pieces and similar information, keep it brief, and link to core content rather than redistributing it.
The added benefit is that you are no longer confusing your users with seemingly duplicate pages. Or, for that matter, thudding them over the heads with repetitive verbiage.
More Information:
If your Web site has content copied and pasted from one page to another, it is very likely that Google is filtering out some or all of the involved Web pages from search results. The reason: The Google search engine does its best to optimize user experience by returning unique content. Because no one wants search results listing page after page of the same stuff.
always crashing in the same car: recurring mistakes and misuses of the web
The result is that your users, who once were able to sail directly to the information they need in its entirety and in the best context, now have to wade through marketing fodder to find it.
This can be made worse, believe it or not, if the marketing page helpfully adds a "for more information" link back to the core content. The reason: this is exactly what content spammers do. Their raison d'etre is to dump content in multiple locations with links from one content dump to the next. Fortunately Google has gotten quite good at recognizing this pattern.
What can you do to prevent replicated information from killing search placement of your critical material? There's always the option of adding a robots.txt file to the directory containing the page you do not wish to have indexed. But to my mind, this is a skewed solution. More than 50 percent of users arrive at their destination via Web searches. So why go to the trouble to develop a Web page and then purposely block it from searches?
Better, if at all possible, is to keep redundant content to a minimum on your site. And this means redundant page titles, meta-information, and the like too - this repetition also can cause filtering. If you are still running a "text only" version of your site, LOSE IT. Switch to using Web Standards instead. Write fresh content when developing marketing pieces and similar information, keep it brief, and link to core content rather than redistributing it.
The added benefit is that you are no longer confusing your users with seemingly duplicate pages. Or, for that matter, thudding them over the heads with repetitive verbiage.
More Information:
- Google's Webmaster Guidelines
- Google's Guidelines on Duplicate Content
- Duplicate Content Penalty: How to Lose Google Ranking Fast
- The Perils of Duplicate Content, SearchEngineWatch.com
- Duplicate Content Issues and Search Engines
- Understanding SEO issues related to Duplicate Content
- The Illustrated Guide to Duplicate Content in the Search Engines
- Duplicate Content Issues: Yahoo and Google