CODEWITHSUNDEEP
seo
Steven
Steven

Reputation: 19455

Two URL's, same content, is this considered duplicate content by search engines?

I've developed a service that allows users to search for stores on www.mysite.com. I also have partners that uses my service. To the user, it looks like they are on my partners web site, when in fact they are on my site. I have only replaced my own header and footer, with my partners header and footer.

For the user, it looks like they are on mysite.partner.com when in reality they are on partner.mysite.com.

If you understood what I tried to explain, my question is:

Will Google and other search engines consider this duplicate content?

Update - canonical page
If I understand canonical pages correctly, www.mysite.com is my canonical page.

So when my partner uses mysite.partner.com?store=wallmart&id=123 which "redirects" (CNAME) to partner.mysite.com?store=wallmart&id=123, my server recognize my sub-domain.

So what I need to do, is to dynamically add the following in my <HEAD> section:

<link rel="canonical" href="mysite.com?store=wallmart&id=123">

Is this correct?

Upvotes: 0

Views: 851

Answers (3)

Tony McCreath
Tony McCreath

Reputation: 3409

It's duplicate content but there is no penalty as such.

The problem is, for a specific search Google will pick one version of a page and filter out the others from the results. If your partner is targeting the same region then you are in direct competition.

The canonical tag is a way to tell Google which is the official version. If you use it then only the canonical page will show up in search results. So if you canonicalise back to your domain then your partners will be excluded from search results. Only your domains pages will ever show up. Not good for your partners.

There is no win. The only way your partners will do well is if they have their own content or target a different region and you don't do the canonical tag.

So your partners have a chance, I would not add the canonical. Then it's down to the Google gods to decide which of your duplicate pages gets shown.

Upvotes: 1

webtemplatenow
webtemplatenow

Reputation: 9

Yes. It will be considered as duplicate content by Google. Cause you have replaced only footer and header. By recent Google algorithm, content should be unique for website or even blog. If content is not unique, your website will be penalized by Google.

Upvotes: 0

Bob C
Bob C

Reputation: 509

Definitely. You'll want to use canonical tagging to stop this happening.

http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=139394

Upvotes: 1

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