Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
To use the same content just changing the keywords could be seen as duplicate content?
-
I want to offer the same service or product in many different cities, so instead of creating a new content for each city what I want to do it to copy the content already created for the product and service of a city and then change the name of the city and create a new url inside my website for each city.
for example let say I sell handmade rings in the USA, but I want o target each principal city in the USA, so I have want to have a unque url for ecxh city so for example for
Miami I want to have www.mydomain.com/handmade-rings-miami
and for LA the url would be www.mydomain.com/handmade-rings-la
Can I have the same content talking about the handmade rings and just change the keywords and key phrases? or this will count as a duplicate content?
content:
TITLE: Miami Handmade Rings
URL :www.mydomain.com/handmade-rings-miami
Shop Now handmade rings in Miami in our online store and get a special discount in Miami purchases over $50 and also get free shipping on Miami Local address...
See what our Miami handmade rings clients say about our products....
TITLE: LA Handmade Rings
URL: www.mydomain.com/handmade-rings-la
Shop Now handmade rings in LA in our online store and get a special discount in LA purchases over $50 and also get free shipping on LA Local address...
See what our LA handmade rings clients say about our products....
There are more than 100 location in the country I want to do this, so that is why I want to copy paste and replace..
Thanks in advance,
David Orion
-
This used to work superbly until about 2003. Then google was able to identify these sites and would drop all of the pages except one or two.
Cookie cutter pages are no longer useful.
-
Check out articles on the Panda update recently to see a lot about this topic.
I especially like this one from Vanessa Fox
The gist of it is that Google has started to devalue sites with lots of "cloned" pages where the content is very similar from page to page, but the area info, or keyword swaps out.
This is based on the idea that content that is tailored to a page's topic is more useful to the user, and it is more likely to carry nuances than broader content.
So for example I can talk about hotels in Dallas, or New York the same exact way "See Dallas/New York Hotels downtown and be close to all of the hip restaurants and activities"
Or I could go with something more Dallas Specific "See our Downtown Dallas Hotels near the American Airlines center, the Dallas Museum of Art, and direct access to the DART Trains"
The second example is WAY more useful to the user, and so Google's latest updates will tend to favor that over generic topical text.
So if you can afford to get copywriting for each topic I would.
If you can't then I would start picking out the biggest value terms and build content specific to that, use generic content for the other terms for now, but slowly replace those over time as well with more valuable content.
You may be in a situation where there isn't more valuable specific content to outrank you right now so the generic content will do decently in the rankings. In this case you may not see such a horrible ranking, but when someone eventually competes with you and catches on to your scheme it will be better to have the unique content already working for you.
Just my 2 cents

-
Yes, this will be seen as duplicate content. There's no "easy" way to create unique content for each locale. The best you can do is have a general outline and outsource the content creation to a high quality writer (or sit down and start writing yourself). Article spinning or cheap writers will lead to low quality articles that will be difficult to get to rank well.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Does Google ACTUALLY ding you for having long Meta Titles? Or do studies just suggest a lower CTR?
I do SEO in an agency and have many clients. I always get the question, "Will that hurt my SEO?". When it comes to Meta Title and even Meta Description Length, I understand Google will truncate it which may result in a lower CTR, but does it actually hurt your ranking? I see in many cases Google will find keywords within a long meta description and display those and then in other cases it will simply truncate it. Is Google doing whatever they want willy-nilly or is there data behind this? Thank you!
Algorithm Updates | | Bevelwise0 -
Has anyone used Capterra and will I get penalized for paid links?
Hello - I'm contemplating buying a directory listing on the software promotion website http://www.capterra.com/ . It's a site that gets quite a bit of traffic for people searching for software products and I was interested in promoting my software product there, but I don't want to ruin our very good standing with Google at this time if Google deems Capterra as selling paid links. I'm not interested in this for links but instead as a good source of referral traffic for my software site. If anyone has used Capterra or has advice on whether Capterra might injure my SERP rankings, I would appreciate it. Thanks, Jeff
Algorithm Updates | | DenverDude0070 -
Should we use brand name of product in URL
Hi all, What is best for SEO. We sell products online. Is it good to mention the brand in the product detail page URL key if (part of) the brand is also in the home url? So our URL is: www.brandXstore.com Is it best to do: www.brandXstore.com/brandX-productA.html of just do: www.brandXstore.com/ProductA.html Thanks for quick answering 😉
Algorithm Updates | | RetailClicks1 -
How to Change Geo Target Location of Country Specific Domain
Hi - I have a country specific domain (www.updater.in), used it for writing blog articles Now when i go to site settings in Webmaster - the Geo target by default is coming for India, and no option of changing geographic target. Is there any way to let Search Engines know (despite .in domain) that site Geo Location is not country specific, but is meant for users from all across !!
Algorithm Updates | | Modi0 -
Does adding lots of new content on a site at one time actually hurt you?
When speaking with a client today, he made the comment that he didn't want all of the new content we'd been working to be added to the site all at once for fear that he would get penalized for flooding the site with new content. I don't have any strong data to confirm or refute the claim, is there any truth to it?
Algorithm Updates | | JordanRussell0 -
How to find which keywords bring traffic to a particular page on my website ?
I have been using Google Analytics and SEOMoz tools for a while now. I know which are my top landing pages and some of the keywords which bring me traffic. But I don't know which are the top searched keywords for my website as these are "not provided" by Google Analytics. More importantly, I want to know which keywords are directing traffic to a particular page on my website. Can anyone help ?
Algorithm Updates | | EricMoore0 -
Low Domain Authority - Rank Well For Competitive Keywords
I have been following a competitor's link profile on OSE for over 8 months. Their linkbacks have remained the same (3 follow, 9 nofollow links), all from low-quality directory sites. However, my competitor continues to improve in rankings and is now #1 for competitive keyword searches. How is this possible? Is there a way to hide your link profile or links from OSE? Any tips are appreciated - Thanks!
Algorithm Updates | | TheSEODR0 -
Is there a way to pull historical rankings for a keyword?
I have someone who's come to me and said that they have lost all of their organic keyword rankings. They did launch a site redesign a few months back so that could be a reason as to why. But after looking at the site, link profile, etc. It doesn't look like they could have been ranking for the terms they say they were. They have never implemented any SEO on their sites btw. I did not build this site and have not done any SEO, they are coming to me to solve the problem. I did notice in SEM rush that a couple months ago they were ranking organically for more terms (20 in July vs. 5 now), so they did lose some. Is there any way to see what terms they WERE ranking for?
Algorithm Updates | | MichaelWeisbaum0