How to Avoid Duplicate Content Issues in CMS?

It very easy to manage content with CMS, such as WordPress. However, the powerful platform can be abused, if handle content improperly. WordPress is also has a nasty habit of making internal duplicates internally in Tag, Archive, Author and Category. In order to prevent this problem, we could use SEO plugin, such as Yoast’s WordPress SEO or All in One SEO Pack. With these plugins, we could specify the no-index option for Author, Archive, Date and Tag sections. So, only the primary post is indexed by Google. Also, we can tell WordPress to use only snippets for the category pages and not to repeat the entire page. There are other ways we can do to avoid duplicate content problems.

There should be consistent internal linking on our website. As an example, if we link to http://www.yoursite.com/page in one occasion, we shouldn’t link to http://yoursite.com/page, in another occasion. In this case, we should make sure that the whole linking structure should be identical across our website. This will reduce the incidence of duplicate content. It is also a good idea to use Google Webmaster Tools to specify which of our page that should be indexed. It means that if WordPress creates an identical page at another location, it won’t be indexed. It is important to prevent any unnecessary repetition. As an example, it is not important to put identical block of text for disclaimer or copyright information on all pages.

We should make a list of text that people should know. This may include contact or price information. Instead of putting the text on all locations across the website, we should determine the most appropriate location for each. We could create link in every page should people can access the information easily. The link can be placed in easy to see location, such as top navigation or header. If the text is rather mundane and not everyone is interested to read it, such as Privacy Policy, we can put it in the footer. When using CMS, we should familiarize ourselves with the content system. We should know how to handle content and we need to prevent Google from indexing identical instances of a similar content.

We could also learn the canonical tag and this will allow us to help Google to determine which content on our website are duplicated ones. The tag will allow Google to give more preferences to the original and correct version. SEO plugins should allow WordPress to take care of content automatically for us. Duplicate content issue can happen in WordPress and other CMS platforms, but it isn’t something to lose our sleep over. If we perform the right thing, we won’t be penalized. Also, Google won’t see it as a deliberately spammy or deceptive practice. We should learn how to manage content in WordPress and this should be an easy thing to do. Keep in mind that WordPress is a SEO-friendly platform and this should be a great blessing for us.