Let's Discuss Thin sites and Duplicate Content - My Theory

[SEOBS]

Let's agree with this first, Google hates eCommerce sites. If you don't agree then you have probably never tried to rank an eCommerce site.

Some reasons why Google hates eCommerce sites:

1) They often deal with a ton of duplicate content created by search paramaters (dynamic pages) we all know those /?search= pages in the index right? Unless your eBay or something you probably get away with it, although that seem to have changed after Panda4.0 as eBay had some huge drops for these pages according to some SEO'er who researched it.

2) The products are so similar that unique descriptions are often impossible, think of jeans for example where only the size / type / color differs

3) The product pages are so extreme thin cause there's not much to say about the products besides again the size / type / color / price differences

4) The category pages are also extreme thin in most cases with only an image and the title of the product, those titles are the same on product pages so that could be seen as duplicate content.

Alright enough about eCommerce sites, this was just to proof my point that sites with a ton of thin pages mostly perform poor and are damn nasty to rank, sure there are ways around this but for the example we stick to the ecommerce site in a box concept.

Blablabla

Now my point about duplicate content, and why Google doesn't like THIN pages.

In my other thread I just stated that I rank EMPTY EMD's like there's no tomorrow and once I add content they experience a slight drop in rankings. ONE page sites that are.

My theory why a site with 100's of thin pages ranks real poor vs a 1 page site with NO content ranks GREAT:

"DUPLICATE CONTENT CREATED BY NAVIGATION / SIDEBAR / FOOTER"

Simply cause if you have 100 pages with only 30 words of unique content on each page, then those pages probably contain 100+ words of navigational content like:

Navigation bar:

- Home
- Category name 1
- Category name 2
- Category name 3
- About Us
- Contact
- TOS
- Privacy Policy

Sidebar:

- Recent post 1
- Recent post 2
- Recent post 3
- Advertisement 1
- Advertisement 2
- Category 1
- Category 2
- Category 3

Footer:

- Address perhaps in Footer
- Custom menu in Footer
- Sitename (c) Copyright 2014 in Footer

Header:

- Site name
- Site description

It's all HTML when Google reads it and when you add this all up it's a ton of the same content that appears on every single page.

I think that you can get away with a certain % of duplicate content per page, that Google build that in automatically to prevent people being penalized due to their header/footer/sidebar/navigation bar content. But if your page only has 30 words of unique written content that could easily result in a 20/80 ratio of unqiue vs duplicate and thus stop you from ranking well.

What you think?

This would actually mean that Google doesn't hate thin pages but that it's just a natural result of how their algorithm functions, as otherwise Google would also hate my 1 page empty WP installation wouldn't it?

ps: Just for the record, duplicate content is only duplicate when it exists on the same site, this for the smart asses who start to tell me that an emtpy WP installation would be duplicate cause there are 10.000's of empty WP installations on the web. If that was the case it wouldn't even get indexed.

 

[bartosimpsonio]

eCommerce sites are perfect customers for Adwords. They want you to buy ads, so the they'll make SEO 100 times as difficult to make you buy ads. They give no fucks about content quality, in fact eBay ranked entire SERP pages of crap up until the moment they stopped buying Adwords.

 

[SEOBS]

Like someone else said in the other thread: Content isn't KING.

No content is a necessairy EVIL.

 

[SEOBS]

eCommerce sites are perfect customers for Adwords. They want you to buy ads, so the they'll make SEO 100 times as difficult to make you buy ads. They give no fucks about content quality, in fact eBay ranked entire SERP pages of crap up until the moment they stopped buying Adwords.

When did they stop buying Adwords?

Moments before Panda4.0 was launched? In that case we have to thank eBay for that update lol

 

[Kralj187]

When did they stop buying Adwords?

Moments before Panda4.0 was launched? In that case we have to thank eBay for that update lol

I think that update was just a warning for the other companies not to do the same.

 

[SEOBS]

I think that update was just a warning for the other companies not to do the same.

Those people talking about eBay quitting Adwords seem to be out of their mind, they all base it on some discussion page where everyone can leave their opinion, and then it refers to some article from Harvard Business School from March 2013, more then 1 year ago. And now some people try to bring it as news like they ditched Adwords days prior to Panda 4.0.

Wow shouldn't get more crazy then that.

 

[ScoopMaster]

Duplicate content within a site is easily address with the canonical tag. As for ranking eCommerce, I have had similar challenges, like my limited product line doesn't change. It's been the same for 8 years with the exception of a couple of price increases. I can only change the product description so many times. Ah, it makes it fun!

 

[webwhizz]

maybe duplicate content only effects blogs? because i see many static 4-5 page sites ranking well with with duplicated content and hardly any text on site, mostly all pics. TBH these days its all guess work, no one really knows how to rank well on google.

 

[partymarty4870]

Duplicate content within a site is easily address with the canonical tag. As for ranking eCommerce, I have had similar challenges, like my limited product line doesn't change. It's been the same for 8 years with the exception of a couple of price increases. I can only change the product description so many times. Ah, it makes it fun!

you can change your content easily with customer reviews - fake or earned