Hi, I could use some advice on this. I’m writing content for two pages on the same site. About 95% of the content is unique between them, but there’s one paragraph (55 words or 338 characters) that’s identical because it’s relevant to both. From what I understand, if it serves the user and is essential on both pages, it should be okay to keep, right? Removing it would reduce the quality of the content.
Is this enough for Google to see it as duplicate content? How much similarity is considered too much?
Duplicate content doesn’t directly impact SEO ranking negatively. Google doesn’t specify an exact limit, but industry advice says keeping similarity under 10% is typically safe. If you have two pages with a lot of overlap, using canonical tags can clarify the preferred page for ranking.
@Cassian
Thanks! Any sources you can share on this? And I agree on using canonicals when there are larger overlaps, especially for pages at different levels, but these are for separate products with unique pages.
If both pages are on the same site, you shouldn’t worry about it. Google doesn’t penalize minor duplicate content, especially if it’s relevant. Best of luck!
Ron said:
If both pages are on the same site, you shouldn’t worry about it. Google doesn’t penalize minor duplicate content, especially if it’s relevant. Best of luck!
Actually, Google doesn’t penalize duplicate content. It just tries to show the version it deems most relevant.
Cayson said:
Experts say around 15-20% difference should be fine. In meta descriptions, having more than 12 identical words might be seen as duplicate content.
Interesting, thank you! Any sources on this? My team would appreciate the confirmation.
Think about franchises that use identical content across locations. If you have good off-site SEO, a small amount of duplicate content isn’t going to hurt.