How much replication is considered duplicate content?

[LD]

Yep - another duplicate content question, but it has to do with the ratio of duplicate to unique content.

I've been looking at Movers websites and some sites in this industry have landing pages for multiple communities in the general area of service. The thing I noticed is that the top portion of this one sites particular community pages has the same 150-200 words which are moving-related content which is duplicated on all the site's community-specific pages. It's the bottom 700 words on all those community pages that are unique and consists of community-specific verbiage. Not "moving-related verbiage", just info relating to things about town history, points of interest etc.

So if I provide enough efforts with SEO, I can get my community-specific pages to rank well, even though all my community pages start out with the same verbiage that's repeated on perhaps dozens (or more) pages on the site.

So the question: Does 3/4 unique content on any page negate any duplicate content issues with pages when the top 1/4 page content exists on many other pages within the site?

[deepsand]

As each page is evaluated as a whole, not as a sum of parts, and with such being query string dependent, the question as stated is invalid.

The proper question is one of how the content of a given community-specific page compares with that of other pages whose display in the SERPs is triggered by a specific query string.

[Tubby]

I do not think it matters.

I have pages that target a particular make and model. Often this same information requires to be on a page that targets users in say, Florida . . If the users require that information, then I place it on the page.

I myself have never seen any evidence that suggests google finds anything undeserving on what might be described as duplicated 'instructional text' on a page with original content.

Maybe there should be an (Instructional text " TAG . . But I think search engines understand that a proportion of duplication is perfectly acceptable.

I have personally observed google ignoring a completely duplicated page (same page twice)

[Tubby]

So if I provide enough efforts with SEO, I can get my community-specific pages to rank well, even though all my community pages start out with the same verbiage that's repeated on perhaps dozens (or more) pages on the site.


I think so - The right page title, Matching inbound text links (and internal navigation) . directing search engines. should send the right message .

[deepsand]

To follow up on the above, suppose that Tubby's site provides for a virtual tear-down and rebuild of selected sub-assemblies; and, that each Make/Model page has the same instructions on how to use this feature.

Unless I am explicitly searching for information about that feature, that content which is duplicated over many of his pages never comes into the picture when I search for a particular Make/Model.

[Sweet Tooth #3]

Ever since this new Panda tweak rolled out (today), I've noticed some of my WP Syndicator blogs ranking on the first 2 pages. And they're 100% duplicate content.

And if one ever finds a consensus on the answer to this question, Google is liable to change it in bizarre fashion.

[deepsand]

There is no right answer, 'cause it's all subjective.

you've got to hide your love away - Big G gives me the Beatles version.

Wrong; I prefer the Silkie.

[LD]

So to reiterate, and make sure I've made myself understood, here's how it the web pages are arranged...

Unique title with Geo-Specific reference
Boiler plate paragraph or two on the services followed by...
4 or 5 unique paragraphs on Geo-specific community information drawn from a Wiki or some other local municipal source.
So when someone is looking for a "moving company in (small community name)" these site pages seem to rank pretty good. Mind you, competition in the small community framework with respect to "moving" would be minimal and not too hard to rank for. And, for that matter, as you can imagine, it doesn't just apply to the Movers; it could be any number of "trades" or other type of services as far as one's comfort zone in terms of their desired "area of service".

[weegillis]

As I understand @deepsand, the boilerplate is the only piece of content you need to be concerned with, as SERPs go. Only one, or possibly more, page will be returned for terms contained in the boilerplate. To be effective, it would have to blend into the background as marketing copy, but not with a strong enough scent to appear high in the results. The unique page content is what one would want coming up, for all the communities in scope.

You could go so far as to hide the content (though possibly not for long, according to Google) by pulling it down at page load time with AJAX. It would be a long time before any of it ever made it into the index. No interference, whatever in the pages getting their own fair shake.

[deepsand]

So to reiterate, and make sure I've made myself understood, here's how it the web pages are arranged...

Unique title with Geo-Specific reference
Boiler plate paragraph or two on the services followed by...
4 or 5 unique paragraphs on Geo-specific community information drawn from a Wiki or some other local municipal source.
So when someone is looking for a "moving company in (small community name)" these site pages seem to rank pretty good. Mind you, competition in the small community framework with respect to "moving" would be minimal and not too hard to rank for. And, for that matter, as you can imagine, it doesn't just apply to the Movers; it could be any number of "trades" or other type of services as far as one's comfort zone in terms of their desired "area of service".
In my hypothetical example using Tubby's site, the repetitive instructions re. the cited feature are equivalent to your item no. 2; the Make/Model specific data, your items 1 & 3.

For query stings that are relevant to your geo-specific data, only SE indexed data re. your items 1 & 3 are material. Thus, only your pages that are relevant to that geo-specific are under consider re. SERP placement. All other of your pages are moot, as they offer no more re. item 2 than do the relevant geo-specific pages; and, they offer less geo-specific data than the user seeks, as evidenced by his query string.

[LD]

I'm curious as to what the purpose of point #3 on all those community pages might be for. Possibly value-added community info for visitors and/or to help with SEO in terms of the added usage of geo-specific reference/qualifiers?

Or, might the added unique community content make the pages less of a possible duplication issue considering the repeated use of the boilerplate sales-pitchy opening paragraphs which resides at the top of each of perhaps dozens of community pages designed to catch prospects from many different communities?

Or am I just over-thinking this... :|

[Tubby]

Or am I just over-thinking this... :|

You might be. personally I like to over think things . . (get dizzy and fall over)

I think a webmaster can reasonably offer directions, suggestions, how to, submit forms, navigation aids ect or even a site wide Merry Christmas message . . . and not have search engines ponder the 'duplication' question.

[LD]

You might be. personally I like to over think things . . (get dizzy and fall over)

I try to stay seated in these types of circumstances, just in case. ;)

[deepsand]

I'm curious as to what the purpose of point #3 on all those community pages might be for. Possibly value-added community info for visitors and/or to help with SEO in terms of the added usage of geo-specific reference/qualifiers?

Or, might the added unique community content make the pages less of a possible duplication issue considering the repeated use of the boilerplate sales-pitchy opening paragraphs which resides at the top of each of perhaps dozens of community pages designed to catch prospects from many different communities?

Or am I just over-thinking this... :|
Yes. Go back to the example using Tubby's site.

If I search for Ford Mustang, the SE looks into its indices for words relevant to Ford & Mustang. It does not look for anything dealing with the cited virtual tear-down/rebuild feature.

When it finds Tubby's pages listed in its indices, it does not look at those pages, and compare them to any others on his site or any other site; no such comparisons happen when a search is done. All that is used at search time are the data already stored in the SE's indices.

[Tubby]

Tubbys site does not cater for "Ford Mustang" It does cater for "1967 Ford parts".

I certainly hope Deepsand knows what year his mustang was made.

A lot of these Search engine results are not dependant on google . . They are regularly dependant on the webmasters valuation of individual words.