What is worse, higher bounce rate or duplicate content

[youngerjedi]

I am working on an ecommerce website with dynamic content. I have a product list page which is also a major landing page. I noticed when I decided to divide my product list page into 2 pages my bounce rate lowered 6% - 7% but now webmaster tools is complaining that there is duplicate content, meta keywords, title, and description on the productlist page 2. It's just basically pulling the same data from the server for productlist page 1 and 2 and the developers say it's going to be very hard to make page 2 grab different data.

What should I sacrifice, the higher bounce rate or the duplicate content?

[vivesoftech]

Just to try to remove all the duplicate content from your website, as Google has a policy that it will show you just one page in Search if multiple pages or websites contain duplicate content. If you get rid of duplicate content more and more of your pages will appear in search engines with different keywords and will get you more business.And 6 - 7 % drop is not significant.

[rjjj111]

a follow up question, has anyone done a test on putting all products on a category page versus putting say 9 products on a single category page and then offering the user the ability to page through the rest of the results?

[imvain2]

personally, I would find new developers.

It is really simple. Page one would have products 1 to 500 and page two would have products 501 to infiniti.

Of course my numbers are purely for example, but the concept is simple.... Split the products up on the pages.

Also, creating unique meta description, content and title isn't a big deal.

--------------------------

But for the actual question...

Duplicate content is worse... Why?

Because bounce rates can be fixed by making the landing pages more user friendly and helping visitors find what they are actually looking for.

Where duplicate content can have a negative impact on your rankings, so the visitors will never even find your website.

[morestar]

Originally Posted by youngerjedi

I am working on an ecommerce website with dynamic content. I have a product list page which is also a major landing page. I noticed when I decided to divide my product list page into 2 pages my bounce rate lowered 6% - 7% but now webmaster tools is complaining that there is duplicate content, meta keywords, title, and description on the productlist page 2. It's just basically pulling the same data from the server for productlist page 1 and 2 and the developers say it's going to be very hard to make page 2 grab different data.

What should I sacrifice, the higher bounce rate or the duplicate content?

Webmaster Tools has "found" what they could consider duplicate content but your content is NOT duplicate content.

Personally I wouldn't worry too much about it. Just because there is an indication in WTs that they have found duplicate title and meta tags means nothing more than "hey you might want to do something about it".

If you're bounce rate is lower could I assume that you're conversion rate has increased?

I think you're fine but if you want to re-program your two pages to at least add:

keyword keyword page 1
keyword keyword page 2

in the title and metas than I'm sure the 'error' will go away.

Swiftly...

P.S. and your pages aren't duplicate because you have different content on each page. Only your titles and meta tags are so try to re-program them.
P.P.S. yes it might be a bit of a job to customize your title and meta tags for page two but that's what you're paying them for. if they don't do it for pay I'll do it for you for free!

[Terry Van Horne]

Yeup G's seeing duplicate meta description and title... most of the suggestions are way over the top overkill. How many different pages can you write for the exact same product in a different color without possibly eliminating something important to your user? IME, it's a wasted effort sure they come out of the supplemental index but... you don't sell much more product so long as at least one is there.... IME, supplemental will get served especially if it's say a different color. It also does serve the right color page out of the supplemental. IMO, that's why G stopped showing the Sup numbers because it was just a waste of ewveryone's time and their crawling bandwidth.

[imvain2]

Terry,

The original post clearly stated that there are only two pages, both simply list the available products. So, it shouldn't be that difficult to write two different title tags and two different meta descriptions. This should be easy for anyone that can type.

[GameFriends]

What a very interesting question. If you can't fit the product description on one page then what you have created is probably the only way to handle it...but morestar makes the most sense I think when he says you can always find a way to lower bounce, but not necessarily duplicate content. Your $$ is from low bounce though so you have to weigh the risk/reward. Maybe by adding some text above the fold for your product page you will lower bounce? People read left to right..and something worth considering.

[jgruen]

Very much agree - you NEED a new developer!! That kind of response is totally inaccurate. A good developer can do anything you want!

[NJ]

Originally Posted by jgruen

Very much agree - you NEED a new developer!! That kind of response is totally inaccurate. A good developer can do anything you want!

Ditto! I'm guessing that your developer had some pretty bad code on the backend. Doesn't each page pick up different products? Just that should give you different content. If you want different title tags, content meta tags, page title, etc on each subsequent page, those can be programmed dynamically too. Have you looked at your database design (or XML file schema) to see if there are product category fields? You can only have a smart website if you have a smart database design.

[SemAdvance]

You should worry about the bounce rate more than what might be misconstrued as duplicate content.

Most e-commerce websites have duplicate pages and do very well in organic SERP. Amazon, E-Bay, Gifts.com, Expedia and many many others are duplicate page sites.

Duplicate content becomes an issue when someone takes pages from one website and places it on another website. Otherwise it is not an issue with Google.

Bounce rate however is a metric that should be closely monitored with continual improvement. Google tells us to build websites for visitors and it is thought they measure the bounce rate as well so the more you can improve the bounce rate the better off you will be revenue wise.

I would agree with imvain2 and find new developers. I have quite a few clients who run e-commerce websites, and who use a pull of information from their database, to populate the Title Meta Description and Meta Keyword tags, per page.

Good luck!

[morestar]

Originally Posted by SemAdvance

I would agree with imvain2 and find new developers. I have quite a few clients who run e-commerce websites, and who use a pull of information from their database, to populate the Title Meta Description and Meta Keyword tags, per page.

OK but we don't want anyone to have to go on un-employment, lose their wife and kids and so forth because they're a little intimidated by code.

Just ask your developer to hack the code to check which page they are on (page 1 or page 2) and then based on the results just change the title and meta tags a slight.

OR just worry nothing about it cause in the end, as most experts on here are saying, the bounce rate is much more important than what webmaster tools has 'considered' to be duplicate content.

NO FIRING!

[Terry Van Horne]

Originally Posted by imvain2

Terry,

The original post clearly stated that there are only two pages, both simply list the available products. So, it shouldn't be that difficult to write two different title tags and two different meta descriptions. This should be easy for anyone that can type.

Agreed then just edit the two you could likely just add a number 2 and remove the mesage in WT. My bad imvain2 thanks for settin' it str8t.

T

[imvain2]

Originally Posted by Terry Van Horne

Agreed then just edit the two you could likely just add a number 2 and remove the mesage in WT. My bad imvain2 thanks for settin' it str8t.

T

I apologize if I came off a little rude, I was just confused by your response as there was only two pages involved.

[Terry Van Horne]

No rudeness... I am not afraid to admit a mistake... we all make 'em;-0

[Web Res]

Bounce Rates indicate people are going to the page and leaving. In theory, that is bad unless by leaving they are clicking on to another url that gives you advantage, i.e., Adsense link or perhaps you have a shopping cart hosted on another website. You can implement a javascript tracking on outbound links that will help you see the clicks as well as convert them from bounces.

If people go to your page and don't like what they see, then you've got a problem - especially if your running a PPC campaign to drive traffic. There you want to refine your keywords and statements to clarify what you sell so that they don't click. Do you think people are bouncing off the page because they can't find a product that they want that you sell, or have they come to your website by mistake looking for something you don't sell?

Assuming your problem is people want what you sell and leave in frustration (bounce), then you need to fix it. You need to improve your website - better GUI, better navigation, better presentation to develop trust.

Duplicate Content: Like others have said, Google WT sees Page Titles and Meta Tags and alerts you to duplicates, but that is only one element of the pages. The actual content would not be duplicate because in theory your product list would change from page to page. I would not worry about it. Good page titles are a great place to implement a keyword strategy, but having some as duplicates shouldn't cause a penalty.

Helping buyers buy is what you need to fix!

[pervezalam_mzn]

Its simple update the fresh content and meta info, warning message in Webmaster tool will be remove.

[Janna122003]

Originally Posted by youngerjedi

I am working on an ecommerce website with dynamic content. I have a product list page which is also a major landing page. I noticed when I decided to divide my product list page into 2 pages my bounce rate lowered 6% - 7% but now webmaster tools is complaining that there is duplicate content, meta keywords, title, and description on the productlist page 2. It's just basically pulling the same data from the server for productlist page 1 and 2 and the developers say it's going to be very hard to make page 2 grab different data.

What should I sacrifice, the higher bounce rate or the duplicate content?

For me I think they are both worse, try to remove duplicate content and sooner your bounce rate would decrease.

[Clarrie]

Originally Posted by youngerjedi

I am working on an ecommerce website with dynamic content. I have a product list page which is also a major landing page. I noticed when I decided to divide my product list page into 2 pages my bounce rate lowered 6% - 7% but now webmaster tools is complaining that there is duplicate content, meta keywords, title, and description on the productlist page 2.

Webmaster tools is purely giving you information that the meta data is duplicated, NOT that the page is duplicate. The actual pages have different content and are not duplicated, so you don't have to worry too much about duplicated content per se.

Originally Posted by youngerjedi

It's just basically pulling the same data from the server for productlist page 1 and 2 and the developers say it's going to be very hard to make page 2 grab different data.

If because you have too many products in a particular category (i.e. of a type) to list on a single page it is common for the category meta description and keywords to be the same on each listing page (after all, it is all the same type of product). And it won't harm how the page ranks.

But you should ideally try and at least make the meta Title different - your developer should be able to append a page number to the meta title to differentiate each listing page (e.g. Widgets Page 1, Widgets Page 2 etc)

Originally Posted by youngerjedi

What should I sacrifice, the higher bounce rate or the duplicate content?

Duplicate meta data does not = duplicate content

Higher bounce rate = lost vistors, and lower sales.

Without question you should put retaining your visitors and improving conversion first.

[tara33]

Originally Posted by youngerjedi

I am working on an ecommerce website with dynamic content...

What should I sacrifice, the higher bounce rate or the duplicate content?

Correct me if I am wrong, but isn't this person saying he or she is the developer? Everyone keeps saying "hire a new developer!" I think this person is the one developing the site.

I agree that many e-commerce sites exist with duplicate meta information, due to automatic pagination (sometimes). I worked for an e-commerce business for five years, and the shopping cart we used did not allow us the option to edit our meta information on pages, which were automatically split after so many products were added. It had NO EFFECT on our rankings. We were at (or very near) the top spot for every keyword the web site was optimized for. The web site was super-successful, and is still going strong.

As for high bounce rates, in my experience, it doesn't always mean that the user did not find what they were looking for. If someone is looking for my company's telephone number, and goes to our contact page after a Google search, he or she is not likely to stay on that page for 29 minutes (the time Google requires you stay on one page, or it's considered a bounce), or click another page of our web site. Sometimes users find exactly what they are looking for, and leave the site within a few seconds. It's plausible. That said, I still work to lower my bounce rates, even though we have great goal conversions.

My honest answer would be that bounce rate, overall, is more important than your duplicate meta information...but it's not the "be-all-end-all" for your site. Focus on your content. Make certain that you are delivering the best content possible to your users. Many times you will find if you build a site with the end-user's experience in mind, it will be successful in Google. Make sure your content is fresh, relevant, and original. Give users what they are looking for, and you will find success.

Good luck!

[kellyburby1]

both r worse

[Pico_Train]

Tara33 has it right, attend to your bounce rate as that is more critical, the developer part too. You can fix the meta data by adding a page number to the title and the description if those messages bother you. Then spend time reducing your bounce rate.

[rusli zainal]

I used CMS (wordpress) for my site, it has a plugin to avoid duplicate content, all aregoing ok..

[MediaPrecision]

WOW. great question.

Whilst I would always recommend having unique content, having a high bounce rate indicates you are targeting the wrong traffic. I really wouldn't like to choose.

A lot of people are saying duplicate copy will affect your serps, however if we ask ourselves why we want good serps? the answer is aways 'to drive relevant traffic to our website' therefore the quality of traffic should out way the importance of serps. If you can keep your bounce rate down you are obviously keeping traffic on your site, thus meaning you are generating relevant traffic.

I am not saying this is the right answer mearly putting the other side of the argument across

[morestar]

Originally Posted by MediaPrecision

therefore the quality of traffic should out way the importance of serps.

I don't usually correct spelling errors but he meant 'out weigh'.

[MediaPrecision]

Originally Posted by morestar

I don't usually correct spelling errors but he meant 'out weigh'.

OMG that's a shocker. I cant even put that down to regional dialect

[articlemaster9]

hmmm. for me both are worse .. bounce rate and duplicate content.