| Google Supplemental Results Wordpress Duplicate Content Fix |
« View previous topic :: View next topic » |
| Author |
Message
|
| Rose |
 Posted: Mon Jul 09, 2007 1:31 pm Post subject: Google Supplemental Results Wordpress Duplicate Content Fix |
 |
|
Site Administrator
Joined: Sep 06, 2006
Posts: 1845
Location: Canada
|
|
| Back to top |
|
 |
Sponsored Ads
|
 |
| William |
| Posted: Sat Jul 21, 2007 1:48 pm Post subject: |
|
|
New Member
Joined: Apr 02, 2007
Posts: 14
|
I noticed this problem with WordPress once I had several posts up. I solved it by creating a very detailed robots.txt file. If Shawn's fix works, it would probably be easier. I also use the All In One SEO plugin and have been happy with it and the authors support.
Last edited by William on Mon Jul 23, 2007 1:04 pm; edited 1 time in total |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
| Shawn |
| Posted: Sat Jul 21, 2007 2:51 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Site Developer
Joined: Sep 06, 2006
Posts: 324
Location: Canada
|
Hello William 
My fix seems to be working, when we first noticed the Supplemental Results on Roses blog it was showing on page 6 of Google Search Results!
Its now been almost 2 weeks and Google is starting to correct their index, as Rose's Blog is now gone from Page 6 to Page 22 which is a huge improvement!
Its a slow process on Google's end as I assume it will probably take up to 3 months before they completely fix their index results on her blog!
So hang in there, apply the fix and then wait...and wait some more LOL
Shawn DesRochers
_________________
| Affordable Web-Hosting | FREE Blog Directory |
PC Windows Tips |
Ultra Game Play |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
| DaneMorgan |
| Posted: Sat Jul 21, 2007 10:11 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Banned
Joined: Jul 15, 2007
Posts: 13
|
Let me say first that I'm on record as thinking that this issue isn't as big a problem as some think it is. Generally speaking, the pages that end up in the supplemental index are the ones you will be blocking from indexing in the first place.
That said, I've been looking at this issue for a little while and looking for a more elegant solution than wholesale no indexing pages.
First, I do eliminate all date based archives from my blogs. There are no links to them anywhere, and should an engine stumble on them, they are noindexed. They just aren't useful for the vast majority of blogs, since readers are going to find your categorization and tagging navigation structure much more meaningful, unless you have a new periodical or date sensitive blog.
So the first step in my more elegant solution is first to use the full text of a post only for the newest post on the home page, and on the single post pages. You still want the full text of the newest post on the home page for the rss and blog search engines that use this information to aggregate you pings and validate your feed. Other than that, the full text appears only once for any post, and that is only on it's own page.
(I recently posted detailed instructions on how to Mix Full Posts and Excerpts in WordPress on my Blog Strokes Blog.)
Second for the remaining posts on the home page use a post excerpt. Do not use the more tag as this will interfere with the home page first post display. Instead use the optional excerpt to create a completely new piece of content that simply describes the post and entices the reader. Now to make this work, you need to start using categories effectively. This means that your categories are broad stroke groupings. and each post goes in only ONE single category. Now the excerpt will appear only on one page throughout the whole blog. This makes each and every category page a unique, original content set.
Third, you need to be able to identify tag pages and serve them with a different template. I recommend using Christine Davis' Ultimate Tag Warrior plugin to do this. On the tag pages you want to display each post as either a simple link to the single post page, or display it with another 'excerpt' or short blurb. I am currently testing a plugin I have written to do this with. While this will not prevent small chunks of content from appearing on multiple tag pages, each piece is kept small, and if you exersize some restraint in your tagging any given one liner should only apear on five or so pages, and the mixture should be sufficient to reduce any real duplication problems. This combined with the fact that Google DOES know what a blog is, and DOES expect to see some duplication, should actually serve to increase the overal number of indexed pages, as well as minimize the number of supplemental pages.
And remember, having some pages in the supplemental listings is not really a problem, it's having the WRONG pages there that is a problem. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
| Rose |
| Posted: Sun Jul 22, 2007 1:20 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Site Administrator
Joined: Sep 06, 2006
Posts: 1845
Location: Canada
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
| Shawn |
| Posted: Sun Jul 22, 2007 1:37 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Site Developer
Joined: Sep 06, 2006
Posts: 324
Location: Canada
|
Hello DaneMorgan 
Welcome to bloggertalk.net!
Well you point out some very good facts but you’re wrong in your conclusion...
First the read more.. is required to insure the actual article page is indexed and not the page as well!
Example Search Engine Watch, Matt Cutts a discussion over at Web Pro News all recommend this method...
Reason, it informs Google Bot of the article homepage,
Example:
http://your-blog.com/2007/06/04/your-title-of-post-and-article
Where on page 2 or whatever there it appears again???
http://your-blog.com/page/2
Read more is an article blurb and not the full article, for if it was it would be counted as duplicate content
The problem with posting in full excerpt is the entire article now displays on two pages using WordPress if you don't use the 'read more'
It would display in full on the page it's on and in the article homepage as well, and the category selected if your not blocking them as well, example
The Page:
http://your-blog.com/page/2
Plus the Category / Page
http://your-blog.com/category/page/2
Article Home Page:
http://your-blog.com/2007/06/04/your-title-of-post-and-article
Try it your self with a post on your blog, see the problem? I know I do and so does many of the SEO’s
By using the read more, its considered an article teaser a small blurb to incise readers to read further...the read more then goes to the full article where as before the visitors and the search engine bots only see a portion which is more beneficial and keeps you in smiling with the big G!
Your method is sure to slip many pages into Supplemental Hell!
My method works very effectively!
Rose’s whole blog was slipping in to Supplemental Hell as she was up to page 6 not more then 2 weeks ago and now her blog is up to page 29 which is a huge improvement and proves My Method Works!
So I think you should reconsider your argument - and check Google for supplemental results on your blog!
I been doing this for 12 years and I ‘am pretty sure I know what I am doing especially when the results of Roses blog have already proven themselves!
Shawn DesRochers
_________________
| Affordable Web-Hosting | FREE Blog Directory |
PC Windows Tips |
Ultra Game Play |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
| DaneMorgan |
| Posted: Sun Jul 22, 2007 2:03 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Banned
Joined: Jul 15, 2007
Posts: 13
|
Repetition of content on your pages is not what's likely to be causing your problem.
Right now you have only one page that is not considered "similar" or duplicate on your whole blog. If you search site:http://rosedesrochers.todays-woman.net/ at Google, two listing come up, one of which is supplemental. If you click on the "repeat the search with the omitted results included" link you will see 749 pages listed, the first 213 of which are in the regular index, and the remainder are in the supplemental.
Now if you search site:danemorgan.com you will see that I have 454 results listed right off, and the first 314 are in the regular index with the remainder in the supplemental index.
I don't restrict Google from indexing anything on that blog. So if the duplicate page theory were correct you would expect to see that nearly all of my blog was in the supplemental index.
If you also look at the descriptions served by Google, nearly all of my main index results has a different description, and when you get into the supplemental section you will find that they have the same description, because they were posted before I started generating dynamic meta data, or that they are indexed error pages. In short they are pages that I don't need in the main index.
When you look at your results you will see that the descriptions served are all nearly identical with only slight varriations.
The biggest problem you actually have on your blog is that you are telling Google that every page is about the same thing in your meta data. You need to be generating your keyword and description meta data dynamically.
In reality you have a lot more pages on your blog than I do on mine, and you would see a tremendous gain in regular indexing by doing nothing more than getting your meta data to reflect individual page content.
Either way works, and everyone has to do with their blog as they see best, but your approach is going to reduce the number of pages you can index long term, when you could make a slight alteration in plans and greatly increase them. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
| Rose |
| Posted: Sun Jul 22, 2007 2:32 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Site Administrator
Joined: Sep 06, 2006
Posts: 1845
Location: Canada
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
| DaneMorgan |
| Posted: Sun Jul 22, 2007 3:52 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Banned
Joined: Jul 15, 2007
Posts: 13
|
| Shawn wrote: | Hello DaneMorgan
Welcome to bloggertalk.net!
|
Thank you.
| Shawn wrote: |
Well you point out some very good facts but you’re wrong in your conclusion...
First the read more.. is required to insure the actual article page is indexed and not the page as well!
Example Search Engine Watch, Matt Cutts a discussion over at Web Pro News all recommend this method...
Reason, it informs Google Bot of the article homepage,
Example:
http://your-blog.com/2007/06/04/your-title-of-post-and-article
Where on page 2 or whatever there it appears again???
http://your-blog.com/page/2
Read more is an article blurb and not the full article, for if it was it would be counted as duplicate content
The problem with posting in full excerpt is the entire article now displays on two pages using WordPress if you don't use the 'read more'
|
This is where you are going off course. An excerpt is not the full article. the full article is displayed in a Wp blog with the function the_content() and the excerpt is called with the function the_excerpt();
The excerpt can be managed in several ways from displaying the first ## characters of the post to specifying a specific excerpt in the "optional excerpt" entry field on the write post form.
| Shawn wrote: |
It would display in full on the page it's on and in the article homepage as well, and the category selected if your not blocking them as well, example
The Page:
http://your-blog.com/page/2
Plus the Category / Page
http://your-blog.com/category/page/2
Article Home Page:
http://your-blog.com/2007/06/04/your-title-of-post-and-article
Try it your self with a post on your blog, see the problem? I know I do and so does many of the SEO’s
By using the read more, its considered an article teaser a small blurb to incise readers to read further...the read more then goes to the full article where as before the visitors and the search engine bots only see a portion which is more beneficial and keeps you in smiling with the big G!
|
I'm doing exactly that right now. I don't use the <!- more -> tag on my posts at all. And I display the entries three different ways on blogstrokes.com and two different ways on danemorgan.com using the_content(), the_excerpt();, and a plugin function called c2c_get_custom_field();
| Shawn wrote: |
Your method is sure to slip many pages into Supplemental Hell!
My method works very effectively!
Rose’s whole blog was slipping in to Supplemental Hell as she was up to page 6 not more then 2 weeks ago and now her blog is up to page 29 which is a huge improvement and proves My Method Works!
So I think you should reconsider your argument - and check Google for supplemental results on your blog!
|
I gave you a link to one of my blogs and told you just how many were in the supplemental index. How do you suppose I did that if I didn't check it myself?
| Shawn wrote: |
I been doing this for 12 years and I ‘am pretty sure I know what I am doing especially when the results of Roses blog have already proven themselves!
Shawn DesRochers |
I've been doing this for a minute or two myself. I'm sorry that you took this as some kind of indictment on your abilities. I don't know you or your abilities and made no mention of them. I'll keep it too myself from now on. Sorry.
Dane Morgan |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
| DaneMorgan |
| Posted: Sun Jul 22, 2007 3:59 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Banned
Joined: Jul 15, 2007
Posts: 13
|
| Rose wrote: | | Dane, would the All in One SEO Pack for Wordpress plugin prevent this? |
It's a little heavy, but yeah, that's what it does.
I use this plugin.
http://www.coffee2code.com/archives/2004/06/30/plugin-get-custom/
It lets me pull custom field information from posts and insert them into the templates.
I do a "keywords" key and a "description" key and then pull those into the header meta's using this plugin. I use some conditional tags to also display different description/keyword values for page, tag and category pages.
Also I use custom title code that is 100% template driven instead of plugin to display titles differently throughout the blogs. The code for that is also posted at blogstrokes.com. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
| Rose |
| Posted: Sun Jul 22, 2007 4:48 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Site Administrator
Joined: Sep 06, 2006
Posts: 1845
Location: Canada
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
| Shawn |
| Posted: Sun Jul 22, 2007 4:56 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Site Developer
Joined: Sep 06, 2006
Posts: 324
Location: Canada
|
Hello DaneMorgan
No no don't take me out of context, I didnt mean that in my reply!
Your knowledge of WordPress is welcomed and appreciated! I was debating that the SEO All In one is the same as my code in it uses the same principle
Example in the All in One SEO it has the following options ...
Options --> All In One SEO
> Home Title
> Home Description
> Home Keywords (comma separated)
> Rewrite Titles
> Use Categories for META keywords
> Use Category Description as Title
> Use noindex for Categories
> Use noindex for Archives
> Autogenerate Descriptions
> Max Number of Words in Auto-Generated Descriptions (Default 25)
Now if you look at the ones in red, my code does this as well so in reality you’re using the same thing, but instead you’re using a plugin!
I do include a few more options like RSS feeds and Pages/1,2,3, etc.. as in the Google search results it showed many pages where marked as Supplemental Results in Roses blog!
This plugin is a plus for those users who don’t want to mess in the code or alter their theme template manually!
DaneMorgan, the more information provided for users is a plus, as there is no one way that’s going to work best for all users.
Diversity is they key to growth...
Shawn DesRochers
_________________
| Affordable Web-Hosting | FREE Blog Directory |
PC Windows Tips |
Ultra Game Play
Last edited by Shawn on Sun Jul 22, 2007 5:01 pm; edited 1 time in total |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
| DaneMorgan |
| Posted: Sun Jul 22, 2007 4:57 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Banned
Joined: Jul 15, 2007
Posts: 13
|
| That will help going forward, but it would be a good idea to pick a number of posts a day or a week and go back into the archives and set your meta data on the archived posts too. It'll probably take a while to see the new data coming in to play in the SERPs, but if you are using a sitemap.xml, that should help move it along some. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
| DaneMorgan |
| Posted: Sun Jul 22, 2007 5:21 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Banned
Joined: Jul 15, 2007
Posts: 13
|
Home Title
> Home Description
> Home Keywords (comma separated)
> Rewrite Titles
> Use Categories for META keywords
> Use Category Description as Title
> Use noindex for Categories
> Use noindex for Archives
> Autogenerate Descriptions
> Max Number of Words in Auto-Generated Descriptions ( Default 25)
Well, I don't use that plugin, myself. But I say that if you no index your categories, you will lose traffic. I get search traffic to category pages all the time. I use the_excerpt(); on my category pages, and each post goes in only one category, so between the category and single post pages, there is zero duplication through the entire blog. That means that I have more indexable pages with unique content on them for the price of typing a 1 1/2 minute blurb for each post as an excerpt.
Then on the tag pages I use a custom field to display a one sentence blurb. So this blurb is repeated on 4-5 pages, but it is mixed with other blurbs as I post more and assign different groups of tags to different posts.
If you go to blogstrokes you will see that the top post has the full text on the front page. This is for Technorati's benefit, and some others who use the front page to validate the feed. But notice that the rest of the posts listed on this page are short excerpt versions. This is all original text that does not appear on any of their single pages.
Now click through to the category link for the top post. There you will see it's excerpt. Then if you click through to one of the tag pages for the post you will see a third, completely different text for this post.
I may hire a college kid to write five or ten one sentence descriptions for me soon, and then randomly rotate those on the tag pages, but not yet. I want to see if it even matters first, as this on aspect is a new test.
Ultimately, though the key things are,
1. I am also no indexing date archive pages, because I see them as useless
2. I don't allow the software to generate the descriptions or keywords or excerpts. I choose them myself.
3. Following my plan I will see my category pages indexed in the regular index, but with yours, they won't be indexed anywhere. That is better than having a category page push a single page into the supplemental, but even better than that is to have both pages in the main index, which this will do.
4. I expect that I may see some tag pages go into the supplemental on Blog Strokes, but I'm actually looking forward to that so I can see **which** ones go. As I said before, I honestly believe Google is right that many of the pages I have in the supplemental for danemorgan.com belong there, as most of them are old (before I used dynamic metas - dynamically defined, not generated), or they are error pages, and a cfew tag pages from when I sued to assign nearly the same 40 tags to every post, lol. But if I used any noindexing to remove them, I would also remove some that are in the main index, and that get traffic right now.
5. My home stuff is hard coded in, and I use 100% template code using is_PAGETYPE() checks to serve the titles, keywords and descriptions based on the page being viewed. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
| DaneMorgan |
| Posted: Sun Jul 22, 2007 5:34 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Banned
Joined: Jul 15, 2007
Posts: 13
|
| P.S. If you are actually working on an SEO type plugin, I'd love to shoot you some things to consider. So far all of them approach the issue from the standpoint of eliminating pages with duplicate content, and automating meta data, I think there is a need for onw that focuses on maximizing differentiated content and supplying easy access to user created meta data. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
|
  |
Goto page 1, 2 Next |
Page 1 of 2 |
|
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum
|
|
|
