Duplicate content is something that many webmasters agonise over, trying to ensure that you have just one copy of the same content on one URL, rather than having several URLs that point to the same content. The issue is often complicated further when you have an analytics package that parses in specific strings to the end of URLs based on campaigns – you can for example end up with a URL something like this:
http://jamesmorell.com/bristol-seo?cid=rss&attr=news
Which points to exactly the same location as the ‘regular’ URL of
http://jamesmorell.com/bristol-seo
But shows the search engines the same content at two separate locations. This means that the search engines have to try and work out which is the most important or relevant link to show to people browsing for your content – something that is not always easy particularly if, as in the example above, you’re syndicating out your content through RSS and including query strings for analytics purposes.
Continue reading Canonical URLs and duplicate content
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