How to Find & Repair Duplicate Content Issues

Duplicate content can be a huge issue for websites. Not only can it cause your site to rank lower in search engines, but it can also confuse visitors and make your website look unprofessional.

In this article, we will discuss how to find and repair duplicate content issues on your website. We will also provide some tips on how to prevent these issues from happening in the first place.

Perform a Manual Search for Duplicate Content

The first step in finding and repairing duplicate content is to perform a manual search of your website. This can be done by going through each page of your site and looking for any instances where the same content appears more than once.

If you find any duplicates, you will need to decide which version of the content you want to keep and which one you want to delete. Once you have made this decision, you will need to update all of the pages that contain the duplicate content so that they all point to the same version.

You can also use a tool like Copyscape (https://www.copyscape.com/) to help you find duplicate content on your website. This tool will scan your site and compare it to other websites on the internet. If it finds any instances of duplicate content, it will report them to you so that you can take action.

Duplicate content

Monitor Google Search Console (GSC) for Duplicate Content Errors

Another way to find and repair duplicate content issues is to monitor Google Search Console for any errors that relate to duplicate content. GSC is a free tool provided by Google that allows you to monitor your website’s performance in the search results.

If Google detects any duplicate content on your site, it will send you an error report via GSC. This report will contain information on which pages are affected and what you can do to fix the issue.

To access the error report, simply log into GSC and click on the “Search Traffic” tab. From there, click on “Manual Actions” and then “Duplicate Titles”.

You can also use GSC to monitor your website for other types of errors, such as 404 errors (pages that can’t be found) and server errors (problems with your website’s hosting).

Update Your Robot.txt File

Another way to fix duplicate content issues is to update your robot.txt file. This file is used by search engines to determine which pages of your site they should index. By including specific instructions in this file, you can tell search engines which version of a page they should index and which one they should ignore.

Redirect Duplicate Pages to the Original

One of the best ways to handle duplicate content is to simply redirect all of the duplicate pages to the original. This can be done using a 301 redirect, which is a permanent redirect that tells search engines to index the new page in place of the old one.

To set up a 301 redirect, you will need to edit your website’s .htaccess file. This file contains instructions for how your website should be displayed in the search results.

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