Is your website seemingly invisible to customers? The problem might be simpler than you think. When the exact text shows up (duplicate content) on multiple pages, it confuses Google and hurts your business.
Understanding and fixing these issues is crucial for any SEO strategy that aims to drive real business results.
What Is Duplicate Content?
Picture this: you write the perfect description for your services. Then you copy it to five different pages, just changing the city name. That’s how most businesses accidentally create problems.
When identical text appears across your website or matches content on other sites, search engines get confused. They can’t figure out which page deserves to rank higher.
Why This Hurts Your Business
Google faces a tough choice when it finds matching content on your site. Should it show your “Services in Boston” page or your “Services in Cambridge” page?
Instead of showing both, Google picks one and ignores the rest. This means potential customers never see your other pages. Even worse, Google might choose the wrong page to display, which is why a proper content strategy becomes essential.
Your pages end up fighting each other instead of working as a team. It’s like having five salespeople arguing over the same customer.
Does Google Ban Websites for This?
Here’s some good news: Google rarely punishes websites for accidentally matching content. The search giant simply hides similar pages from results.
But “not punishing” doesn’t mean “not affecting.” Your website still loses visibility when customers search for your services.
How This Problem Starts
Many companies use the same copy across location pages. You change “Boston” to “Worcester” but keep everything else identical. Local service companies often generate separate pages for each service area that use nearly similar content, just changing the city name.
Manufacturers and suppliers sometimes provide the same product descriptions to dozens of businesses. Using this content word-for-word puts you in competition with every other company that took the shortcut.
Finding Problem Pages
Siteliner makes this easy. Just enter your web address, and it scans up to 250 pages for free. The tool highlights which content appears multiple times and shows you exactly where.
For bigger websites, professional technical SEO audits can spot both obvious and sneaky content matches across thousands of pages.
The scan takes a few minutes and gives you a clear list of pages that need attention.
Fixing the Issues
You have three main options, depending on what works for your business.
Delete pages you don’t need and redirect visitors to your main page. This combines the ranking power of multiple weak pages into one strong page.
Keep essential pages, but add canonical tags. These tell Google which version matters most. Modern websites often handle this automatically through website optimization services.
Rewrite your content to make each page unique. This takes more time but gives you the best results. Each page can target different customers and answer various questions.
Ready to Boost Your Search Rankings and Attract More Customers?
Contact Boston Web Marketing today to learn how our comprehensive SEO services can improve your business’s online visibility and drive real results!