In this post, I am going to share the issue of WordPress duplicate content and solutions to fix it for SEO. The issue of duplicate content on WordPress SEO is of great concern today. Everyone, who is directly or indirectly associated with WordPress is now trying to avoid this issue as much as they can. Though, it is believed that “WordPress is SEO optimized”, still there are many reasons because of which the duplicate content issue often arises with WordPress. Of course, you cannot afford any kind of penalization on your website or blog because of any content duplication charge.
So, to avoid it, you just need little consideration, awareness, and the open mind to tackle the issue and figure out the way to fix it.
Let’s find out the reasons which are responsible for it and the method to fix them accordingly.
What is WordPress duplicate content?
In the terms of WordPress, a duplicate content is a piece of content that is same but accessed by two different URLs. A big reason for this content duplication can be a copy paste blog within your blog. For example, if there is a not so well optimized WordPress blog, an article can be accessed by following ways:
- http://www.domain.com/tag/SEO
- Http://www.domain.com/category/SEO
- Http://www.domain.com/SEO-optimization
- http://domain.com/SEO-optimization
- http://www.domain.com/Category/SEO
- http://domain23.com/SEO-post (external website)
By viewing all the above URL’s, we can understand clearly that the above URL’s are the six copies of the same content that have been created unknowingly with enough of confusion. And on determining it on any search engine, it will simply give the search engine a fair ground to start penalizing your blog for a great deal of duplicate content. So the question is, what are the possibilities of duplicate content in WordPress and how to fix it.
How to find the duplicate content on WordPress?
Let’s start with finding the duplicate content within your WordPress blog. As per the opinion of WordPress experts, if you manage to fix the duplication problem at this level, you will be able to deal with at least 40% of your SEO problems. To start with, follow the below steps.
1. Go to the Google page and type your site name in the given format:
As the result, you will receive many links that Google has indexed from your blog. At this point, you can determine that which are the links that Google should not index. Some common parts of your content that the search spider should not index are Tags, Author, search, category, and archive. If the results obtained give any such sign, it means that it is the time to work on your blog SEO and improve it.
Must Read:
SEO Mistakes to avoid for best search results for your website.
How to get Google site links for your website.
2. Tags and categories:
If all of your posts are shown in Tags and Categories pages then, as a result, your tags and categories are being indexed by default which means that you are unknowingly and unwillingly creating the duplicate content for your blog. To make it more complicated, you think that your tags and category pages will add a big value to a search engine but the experts suggest that they should not be indexed and followed. It is advised to use plugins like WordPress SEO by Yoast to quickly configure your index tag.
3. Archives / Author:
WordPress facilitates you to browse author archive for older months. It is known as its usability feature and is useful for the audiences. But for Google, it should be just another page which is needed to be indexed. There can be a copy of the same content as your original post. So, there is no need to complete post as per the theme you have set.
4. Attachment of Image URL:
It may be a small issue for you, but if you see it clearly, you will realize its real importance. Whenever an image is attached to the post, an image attachment URL is also added. With a click on the image, the image attachment page is opened.
Here the URLs will be like:
- domain.com/1/
- domain.com/1/SEOimage.
Must Read:
List of best 28 WordPress plugins for effective performance.
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How to fix image attachment URL issue in WordPress?
The quick and smart method is to apply Permalink setting off Yoast SEO plugin. Here you will get an option”redirect attachment URL’s to parent post URL”. Keep it checked and it will take care of your matters. Here is one more way: whenever uploading an image, link it directly to the image or none.
Canonical URL:
This is a highly important aspect of on-page SEO. You can access a URL by using
- http://domain.com/1
- http://www.domain.com/1/
Both the URLs are pointing to the same post, but at the same time, they are creating a duplicate content for you. The solution is setting up the canonical URL, you can suggest the search spiders that what they should index. Do it with a greater priority.
It is a default feature in WordPress 2.9+ or you can apply any plugin such as SEO by Yoast that has an inbuilt feature which adds canonical to a WordPress blog.
Also Read:
What is URL Canonicalization and how to use Canonical properly?
How to fix content duplication issue if someone copied your article?
The above-described points were suggesting the reasons of content duplication arise within your website. But if you found guilty for duplicating content from any other website, you can be penalized for this action. As an example, anyone copied your piece of content and also outranked your post, here only Google DMCA can help you. It is a powerful help to webmasters and bloggers to file a complaint concerning any content that is copied from your blog post. In case, it is a BlogSpot blog. It will be immediately removed by Google and if it is any static site or a self-hosted blog, it could be removed from the entire Google web index.
Also Read:
How can I protect my content against being copied or theft?
Some things to be taken care about:
It is also suggested to use a good WordPress theme to take care of the content duplication issue.For example, there are various theme clubs like Genesis and others that offer an SEO optimized framework and that’s where you can find your premium theme stand out of free WordPress theme. You can also use some WordPress plugins and codes that make your content free from duplication.
