Duplicate content - SEO

[JamesK 93]

Hi,

So SEO is a massive grey area for me and only really understand the very basics.

I've been browsing other websites (not just within my trade) as I have been looking to improve my organic ranking on google so that I can hopefully reduce my spend on payed ads.

When I search various keywords and then add "near me" I notice the higher ranking pages have specific pages on their site targeting that particular area by including the town and postcode as well as persistently using the specific keys words I have searched for. One thing I have noticed is they have a long list of towns and copied all the same content but changed the location and postcode. After doing some reading, it says google doesn't see this as an advantage and can have an impact on your ranking which is what is baffling me as it seems to work for them!

Would any one be able to shed some light on this?

Thanks

 

[UKSBD]

Google doesn't like it, can put lots of pages in supplemental index when you do it, but it frustrating thing is it still works for some.

Makes it a gamble on whether to do it or not, but when you see your competition doing it and getting away with it, it's hard not to take that gamble.

Some people get away with it for years - Choice is yours.

The worst thing is when SEO companies do it on clients sites without making them aware that it's a gamble, fair enough if the site owner is prepared to take the risk but not if they aren't informed of the risk.

 

[JamesK 93]

Hmm tough decision! Even a large nationwide company within my industry has done the same so gives me even more reason to do it.

I may just get in contact with a few SEO companies to see what they can do to help.

 

[fisicx]

I may just get in contact with a few SEO companies to see what they can do to help.

Most of whom will take your money and not deliver.

There is a very good way to promote your business in multiple locations: case studies. Write about the jobs you do in each location. Categorise how ever you want, add images and testimonials you will soon have a load of highly targeted and authoritative content.

 

[JamesK 93]

Hi fisicx, thank you for the headsup and informing me on the useful tip!! I will give this a try and see how It improves. I should have worked this out for myself really as its something I do on Instagram which has proven to help when people search for my service locally.

 

[Mollie Rhodes]

Google is showing results as a content which is available on the Internet as per user's search.
If you finding something at some specific location then the possible or best match content will be shown by Google.
But yes duplicate content may irritate users and they may not like to return to the website again. In that case, Google may lower the ranking of the website based on CTR and time spent on the website.
So, Google discourage the content duplication, but you may use your specific content in different form like fisicx said in the case study, infographics, blog, etc.

 

[Craig3141]

Google doesn't like it, can put lots of pages in supplemental index when you do it, but it frustrating thing is it still works for some.

Customers dislike it too. If I search for builders near me, then I want people who can build and who are well near me. It is frustrating to search for something local and find page after page of just the keywords, your disrupting my search. I'm more likely to give up and go to yell.com

I'd avoid doing this even if Google loved it.

 

[UKSBD]

It depends really on how it's done and what the service is.

5 or 6 towns within a 10 mile radius, and adding blocks of unique content can be fine.

What I don't like are the call centres that not only create separate pages but completely separate sites throughout the country and tricking people in to thinking they are local.

Edit to add: I shouldn't throw stones though as I do it myself sometimes (mainly as experiments though)

 

[Craig3141]

It depends really on how it's done and what the service is.

5 or 6 towns within a 10 mile radius, and adding blocks of unique content can be fine.

What I don't like are the call centres that not only create separate pages but completely separate sites throughout the country and tricking people in to thinking they are local.

Unique content is fine(e.g. a German builder whose site has content about the house they built in my town) Even though I'm searching for local builders, I understand that might pop up fine) I am ambivelant about the 5 or 6 towns ( I searched for this town, becuase I wanted it) I am mor elikely to search for the next station on the train line, rather than around the area) However if your target customers drive, or you visit/supply online I get that.

What I don't like are the call centres that not only create separate pages but completely separate sites throughout the country and tricking people in to thinking they are local.

That's mor elike what I was imagining, althought the separate pages one which annoys the hell out of me.

 

[StevePoster]

Area, town, and post code are one of the most important details in local citation in SEO. However I still believe that organic results are better that paid results listings.

 

[Corina]

One of my previous clients was doing that, although, I have strongly advised against this strategy. He had over 60 pages advertising his services in different locations all over UK with almost the same content. The best I could do is differentiate the content on these pages. His success lasted slightly longer than a year, then the best performing pages were loosing in ranking, furthermore, his potential customers got confused when they couldn't find his office in the location he was presumably based in.

So the result...
1. Good ranking for a year, with consequences in the long-term
2. Cannibalisation issues started showing up - as he was basically targeting the same cluster of kws
3. Frustrated clients thinking that his business was a scam leaving bad reviews on social and google

 

[UKSBD]

So the result...
1. Good ranking for a year, with consequences in the long-term
2. Cannibalisation issues started showing up - as he was basically targeting the same cluster of kws
3. Frustrated clients thinking that his business was a scam leaving bad reviews on social and google

The biggest problem is the digital agencies and call centres get away with it with burner sites.

They then flood the Google My Business listings

The Bulgarians are taking over the services sector in London

 

[OldWelshGuy]

Don't do it with your branded site, but other than that if it works why not? As long as you have a genuine reason for having that page on that area then it's fine.

Google can't tell its backside from its elbow, hell in a recent SEO contest run by one of the groups I'm in the winner used lorem ipsum content to prove just that

 

[ukbf0001]

Hi,

So SEO is a massive grey area for me and only really understand the very basics.

I've been browsing other websites (not just within my trade) as I have been looking to improve my organic ranking on google so that I can hopefully reduce my spend on payed ads.

When I search various keywords and then add "near me" I notice the higher ranking pages have specific pages on their site targeting that particular area by including the town and postcode as well as persistently using the specific keys words I have searched for. One thing I have noticed is they have a long list of towns and copied all the same content but changed the location and postcode. After doing some reading, it says google doesn't see this as an advantage and can have an impact on your ranking which is what is baffling me as it seems to work for them!

Would any one be able to shed some light on this?

Thanks

I would stay clear of things like this.

What you should do is invest in some keyword research - so you can discover exactly how many searches there are per month on any given keyword phrase. You can them target keyword phrases with high monthly searches and low competition. DM me if you want this doing for you.

 

[Sam Khan]

Google is considering the location and post code then show the result. And I prefer organic results that are better paid results.

 

[dcuttridge]

While not all companies target every location, it's not uncommon.

I worked with one company back in 2014/15 that targeted every City, Town, Village, County and in some cases the region for their search campaign.

Like most companies doing things at this scale, it wasn't all unique content.

We just used a mixture of templates, say 10% of locations shared a template.

Then they would "spin" the content, but usually at the sentence level instead of the word level.

This resulted in similar words and less similar sentences. But overall the site was still massively filled with duplicate and computer spun content. It was readable enough compared to some of the garbage you see out there (people just aren't doing it properly in those cases).

The company sold for around £4.2 million in 2015. So it's fair to say for an organic-driven business it ranked extraordinarily well.

--

Fast forward 4-5 years and it's definitely not as easy as it used to be to do this, even when you're doing it "properly".

But I set up a site for testing purposes in late 2018 and ranked it for several cities in the UK with dupe content using the same method. It's definitely still possible.

But I think if you're working with under a hundred locations, that ideally, you should be getting the content written uniquely.

What my story here shows is that if your writer does have some content crossover between locations, as is inevitable in service-based businesses, then I wouldn't sweat it.

Sometimes finding new ways to write something just to avoid "duplicate content" actually results in worse content that isn't as concise. I think that search engines know this and make concessions within certain thresholds.

 

[Alan]

Back in 2015 I did that with a list of UK towns ( 2,829 of them I still have the list ) and just replaced the names into a duplicated landing page. It actually worked really well for the smaller towns where there were zero competition on the money keyword.

Would I do it again? I wouldn't risk a brand domain, but certainly may consider a 'burner domain' as a way of getting leads. I might test this shortly ... and report back.

 

[UKSBD]

The best way of making it work is having telephone numbers on the page, but unless you have someone good at answering the phone and someone good to pass the lead to it just isn't worth the effort.

I find that most people putting small locations on ends of search phrases are looking for someone local and are more inclined to call rather than filling in forms.

Putting AdSense or other ads on the pages just doesn't seem to work like it used to.

This is why the digital agencies can do it well as they have the call centres set up to take the calls, and maintain the belief that they are local, a one man band or small business will struggle.