With all of Google’s recent updates, there has been a lot of concern and even some hysteria about duplicate content; but what is it exactly? Duplicate content is the recurrence of the same or extremely similar content on various websites, internal and external. However, the term duplicate content doesn’t just pertain to an entire article, but can also refer to a repeat of an article’s title.
While there are no definite penalties for “non-malicious” duplicate content from search engines like Google, it certainly has a negative impact on a website’s performance from an SEO standpoint.
• A search engine’s most basic function is to provide its users with of the most relevant results on any given topic. Duplicate content is penalized by Google. This not only penalizes the content, it can penalize an entire website.
• Duplicate content can lower a website’s crawl-through rate because search engines only find and index a certain number of pages. Every time a bot crawls your page it will take more time to find and index newer and important pages if you have a lot of duplicate content.
• It affects ranking metrics such as authority and popularity as well because search engines have to choose between versions. This stretches important ratings across multiple sites that should be credited to one page, the page published by the original source.
Don’t let something as simple as duplicate titles affect your SEO efforts. Optimum 7 has developed a plugin for WordPress called the Duplicate Post Remover, which allows users to detect duplicate post titles.
This plugin has been developed using pure Ajax and offers a friendly user interface to manage post and pages.
How to Use the Duplicate Post Remover Plugin
1. Go to WordPress – Plugins and search for Duplicate Post Remover.
2. Download and install the Plugin.
3. It will appear in the sidebar of your wp-admin view, click on it.
4. On the new screen, there is a display that will show you how many total articles you have and how many of them have duplicate titles.
5. Click on Duplicate Content (if the number is above zero).
6. A list will appear with the duplicate titles listed. Realize that these titles are not related to one another and that this Plugin only shows you the most recent article posted with that title.
Say you have Article A that was originally posted on March 21st.
This Plugin lists Article B that was uploaded on May 16th with the same title.
7. To momentarily remove the duplicate page or post, highlight it (or all of them, depending) and find the dropdown menu called “Actions” in the left hand corner above the search bar and choose “Move to Trash.” THIS WILL NOT DELETE THE POST PERMANENTLY. It merely removes it from visibility so the necessary changes can be made.
8. To change the title, go back into WordPress, edit, save, and return to the plug in.
9. In the same drop down menu that “Move to Trash” was in, find “Restore from Trash” and click it. This will make the article visible on the website again with the changes that have been made.
10. And that’s it! You have easily and successfully identified and removed your duplicate post and page titles!
Sidenote: If you want to permanently remove the entire page or post, you must do so through WordPress itself.
Finding duplicate content titles doesn’t have to be a time-consuming chore. Use the Duplicate Post Remover Plugin to help you identify any and all instances of duplicate titles to improve your SEO. Future updates of this plugin will include the ability to change the title in line, without having to go back into WordPress, a table sorter, the ability to order pages and posts by title, date, author and comments, the ability to delete the post permanently, and an added URL field with the ability to change the URL in line.
Optimum 7 is a highly consultative internet marketing company that specializes in Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Pay per Click (PPC) Management, eCommerce and Web 2.0 Programming and Design, Social Media and Conversion Optimization, Reputation Management, and Affiliate and Email Marketing. To achieve the visibility your website deserves, contact our dedicated team of marketing professionals for a customized solution to your internet marketing needs!
