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SEO Guide · Chapter 7 of 30
How duplicate content quietly hides your pages
This page is for an owner who has pages that never show up in search and cannot see anything wrong with them. After reading it you will know how Google handles pages that match and how to find every pair on your site.
In one paragraph
Duplicate content is two or more pages, on your site or on another, that carry the same or nearly the same text, and Google responds by keeping one in its index and dropping the rest. There is no penalty, only the quiet disappearance of every copy but one. On a local site it shows up as location pages that share one block of copy, listings syndicated word for word to other sites, and the same address reachable under several URLs. The fix is to make each page say something the others do not, or to tell Google which one to keep.
What duplicate content is
Duplicate content is a page whose text matches another page closely enough that Google treats the two as the same thing. The match does not have to be perfect. Two location pages with the same 400 words and a different town name in three places are duplicates. A listing description copied to a listing site is a duplicate. A page reachable at two addresses, with and without a trailing slash for example, is a duplicate of itself.
Google does not punish a site for this. What it does is pick one version to keep in its index and drop the rest, and it does not always pick yours. In Search Console the dropped pages appear as “Duplicate without user-selected canonical” or “Duplicate, Google chose different canonical than user”.
The effect is that pages you built to rank for a place or a property do not exist as far as search is concerned. The canonical tag is the tool for telling Google which copy to keep when copies have to exist. Rewriting is the tool for everything else.
What duplicate content looks like on a ranch and land brokerage site
Gros Ventre Land and Ranch in Jackson, Wyoming lists ranch and recreational property across Teton County and into Idaho’s Teton Valley, with 31 active listings and prices from $850,000 to $14 million. The site had 58 pages, and Google had kept 19 of them.
Three things had happened. Each listing’s description had been written once and sent to the same four listing sites the brokerage always used, so by the time Google crawled the brokerage’s own page the text already existed on four larger sites, and Google kept one of those. Six area pages, for Jackson, Wilson, Alta, Driggs, Victor, and Tetonia, had been built from one template with the same 500 words about the Teton range and the lifestyle, and only the town name and a listing feed changed. Google kept the Jackson page and dropped the other five. And every listing was reachable at two addresses, one from the search results page with a tracking parameter and one clean, so half the listings competed with themselves.
The broker had written good descriptions. He had also given them away to sites with more authority than his own before his own page had been seen.
A worked example: recovering the dropped pages on a Jackson land brokerage site
The Search Console Pages report gave the list of dropped addresses, and each one fell into one of the three causes. This is what was done with each group.
| Group | Pages dropped | What Google kept instead | Fix | Indexed after |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Listings syndicated to other sites | 22 of 31 | The listing site’s copy | Each listing page given 200 to 300 words the listing sites do not have: water rights, access in winter, the nearest town’s services, and the broker’s own note on the ground | 29 of 31 |
| Area pages from one template | 5 of 6 | The Jackson page | Each page rewritten around its own town, with elevation, drive time to Jackson, school district, typical parcel size, and the listings there | 6 of 6 |
| Listings at two addresses | 14 of 31 | The tracking-parameter version on some, the clean one on others | Canonical tag on every listing pointing to the clean address, tracking parameter dropped from internal links | All at the clean address |
The Driggs area page shows the change. The before paragraph appeared on all six pages with the town swapped. The after paragraph could only be about Driggs.
Driggs offers the Teton lifestyle at its finest. With stunning mountain views, world-class recreation, and a welcoming community, it is no wonder so many people choose to call Driggs home. Browse our Driggs listings below.
Driggs sits at 6,100 feet on the Idaho side of the Tetons, 32 miles and about 50 minutes from Jackson over Teton Pass, and it is where most of our buyers land when they want acreage under $2 million. Parcels here run 5 to 40 acres, the Teton School District serves the whole valley, and Grand Targhee is 12 miles up the road. We currently hold seven Driggs listings, from a 6-acre building lot on the west side to a 160-acre irrigated farm.
Every fact in the after paragraph came from the broker, and none of it appears on any other page, on this site or any other.
How to check your own site for duplicate content
- Open Search Console, go to the Pages report, and look for the rows that begin with “Duplicate”. Click each one to see the addresses Google set aside and, where it says so, the address it kept instead.
- Take a full sentence from one of your service or location pages, paste it into Google inside quotation marks, and see how many pages return. More than one is a duplicate, and if the other page is not yours you have found where your copy went.
- Crawl the site with the free Screaming Frog SEO Spider and open the Content tab. The Near Duplicates filter lists pairs of pages with the percentage of text they share. Anything over 90 percent is a pair Google will treat as one.
- Open one of your pages, then open it again with
?utm_source=testadded to the address, and again with the trailing slash removed. If all three load, check the page source for arel="canonical"line. The canonical tag guide explains what it should point to. - If you list properties, products, or menus on other sites, check whether your own page for each one says anything those sites do not. A location page needs the same test against your other locations.
What we do about duplicate content
You will get a list of every pair of pages on your site that Google is treating as one, with the page it kept, the page it dropped, and the reason, drawn from Search Console and a full crawl. Each dropped page is either rewritten so it says what the other does not, merged into the page that already ranks with a redirect, or given a canonical tag that names the copy to keep. Where your content appears on other sites, you will get a note on which pages need copy that only you can write. Duplicate cleanup is part of the site audit that opens the SEO work we do for local businesses.
Questions people ask about SEO: how duplicate content quietly hides your pages
Does duplicate content hurt SEO?
Duplicate content does not bring a penalty, but it does cause Google to keep only one version of the matching pages and set the others aside, so the pages you built stop appearing in search. On a small site that can mean most of your location or listing pages are invisible.
How much duplicate content is acceptable?
Shared headers, footers, menus, and a common paragraph or two are normal and Google ignores them. Trouble starts when the main body of two pages matches, which in practice means somewhere above 80 to 90 percent shared text in the content area. Screaming Frog's Near Duplicates filter shows the exact figure for each pair.
Is it duplicate content if I copy my listing to Zillow or a listing site?
Yes, the same description on a listing site and on your own page is duplicate content, and Google usually keeps the larger site's copy. Your own page needs paragraphs the listing sites do not carry. The syndicated text can stay as long as your page adds something.
Can I have the same content on two pages of my own site?
No, two pages on your site with the same body text will be treated as one, and Google will choose which to keep. If both pages need to exist for visitors, put a canonical tag on the copy pointing at the original. If both need to rank, each has to say something the other does not.
How do I find duplicate content on my website?
The Pages report in Google Search Console lists every address Google set aside as a duplicate, with the address it kept instead. For pairs Google has not yet reported, a Screaming Frog crawl with the Near Duplicates filter shows every pair and the percentage shared. Searching Google for one of your sentences in quotation marks finds copies on other sites.
This page is part of the The SEO guide for local businesses. The other guides: SEO, AEO, GEO.
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