As presented by Nick Roshon, SEO Strategist, iCrossing, at SMX West on on Tuesday, Feb 28, 2012. About the presentation: We’ll sort through the bewildering world of near duplication due to issues such as manufacturer feeds into your site, syndication to other sites, international sites, aggregation of data sources, boilerplate content, and pagination. How can a well-planned information architecture minimize the search obstacles and how can you best handle unavoidable duplication to avoid PageRank dilution, being classified as “thin affiliate”, “thin content” or low quality site by search engines? What’s the best way to implement complex, paginated sites for effective indexing and ranking? We’ll talk through all the options, including rel=canonical, rel=next/prev, noindex, nofollow, faceted navigation, and URL parameters.

1. Duplication, Aggregation,
Syndication, Affiliates, Scraping And
Information Architecture
It’s more fun than it sounds, I promise…

2. About iCrossing
• We are a unit of Hearst Corporation
• Full-service digital agency
• 750 professionals world-wide
• 40+ Fortune 500 clients
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3. MANAGING THOUSANDS OF
PRODUCT PAGES IS TOUGH;
MAKING THEM UNIQUE ISN’T
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4. First: Why Bother?
Query Deserves Freshness (QDF):
stale product descriptions won’t cut it
Query Deserves Diversity (QDD): be
different or be invisible
Beating the Competition: You can’t
beat the competition by publishing the
exact same content
The Fresh Prince of the SERPs
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5. Ideal Solution: Write Your OWN Content
• Using boilerplate language is lazy
• Your website is one of, if not the most important piece of
written content you own
• Writing your own content can pay huge dividends in rankings &
traffic
• It’s also an opportunity to express your brand (think of
Groupon, Woot.com, etc)
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6. If that’s not possible, then drown out boilerplate
text with unique content
SOME
BOILERPLATE
BOILERPLATE
NOT NOT
BOILERPLATE BOILERPLATE
NOT
BOILERPLATE
** Example Pictured: http://www.amazon.com/Plex-Google-Thinks-Works-Shapes/dp/1416596585
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7. Reviews
• Reviews are a no-brainer to expand upon boilerplate content
• Make sure they are displayed on the product page itself, and
not in an iFrame or on a subdomain (especially if you use
Bazaarvoice)
• Highlight select ones in static text boxes (particularly if from
notable users/internet celebrities) as testimonials
** Example Pictured: http://www.zagg.com/audio/smart-buds.php
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8. Go Social
• Recent Tweets (Twitter search)
• RSS of blog posts with related Category/Tag
• Facebook Comments plug-in
• Social sharing buttons
• Forum or Q&A discussion
** Example Pictured: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/17/avalanche-danger-in-color_n_1285495.html
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9. Related Products
• Customers Also Bought…
• Accessories That Fit This Device Include…
• Things You Might Also Be Interested In…
• Other Products from This Brand…
• Most Popular…
** Example Pictured: http://www.walmart.com/ip/Acer-Mesh-Gray-15.6-Aspire-AS5349-2635-Laptop-PC-with-
Intel-Celeron-B815-Processor-and-Windows-7-Home-Premium/19714381
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10. Trust Builders
• Return policies
• Why you should buy from us
• About this brand
• Coupons, discounts & bundles
• Pricing policy (price-matching, etc.)
• Nearest stores (if in-store pickup is available)
• Email notifications (for discounts, in stock, etc.)
** Example Pictured: http://www.zappos.com/sperry-top-sider-authentic-original-ice?zlfid=111&recoName=zap_alp_pt_g
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11. Photos, Videos & Other Assets
• Images – high quality & unique
– Crowd-source or out-source them if you
can’t take your own…
• Videos – huge potential for
incremental traffic
– Crowd-source or out-source them if you
can’t shoot your own…
• PDFs – owners manuals & other
related documents
– Technical documents – safety
information, ingredients, performance
stats, CAD drawings, etc.
** Example Pictured: http://www.goapr.com/products/stage3_b7_rs4.html
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12. Template (Dynamic) Optimization
• Unique(!) page titles:
– Product Name |
Category |
YourName.com
• H1, H2, H3 headers
with product name in
headings
– iPhone Earbuds Product
Details
• Descriptive URLs
• Images with file name
& alt text = product
name
** Example Pictured: http://electronics.hsn.com/beats-solo-hd-product-red-special-edition-headphones_p-
6594459_xp.aspx
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13. AVOIDING DUPLICATE URLS
FOR PRODUCT PAGES
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14. Advice #1: Don’t Do It
• One product = One URL
– Different colors, sizes, etc. displayed on same URL
– Dynamically refresh content to display different pricing info and images
– Use drop downs & buttons to customize on page by size, color, etc.
** Example Pictured: http://shop.nordstrom.com/s/hart-schaffner-marx-madras-plaid-
trousers/3271739?origin=category&resultback=1800
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15. Advice #2: But If You Have To Do It…
http://www.tirerack.com/brakes/brakes.jsp?make=StopTech&model=Street+Perfor
mance+Pads&group=Street+Performance+Pads&autoMake=Audi&autoModel=
S4+Sedan&autoYear=2006&autoModClar=With+TPMS
• Use consistent parameters (or better yet, subfolders) so you can
block via robots.txt & Webmaster Tools if desired
– Example: Disallow &autoMake=*
• Use the canonical tag
• Add an HTML link to the canonical version of the page from the
duplicate page
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16. Advice #3: Watch for Pagination
• If you have too many products to
list on one page, use rel=“next”
and rel=“previous”
• Also offer option “View All on
One Page” if reasonable. Make
this the default view for search
Hey Girl, engines.
• Can be used in conjunction with
I could look at your rel=canonical
pages forever.
** More Info: http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2011/09/pagination-with-relnext-and-relprev.html
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17. GOING GLOBAL…
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18. Don’t Do This
“Site Selector” splash pages are
a waste of homepage link equity
and create a poor user
experience…especially on
mobile.
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19. Global Best Practices For Search Engines
• Use a ccTLD, sub-folder, or sub-domain per country/language
• Set Geo-targeting in Bing & Google Webmaster Tools
• Do localized link building
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20. Global SEO - Continued
Use the “hreflang” tag to specify
alternate versions of content
Example:
Hey Girl,
<link rel=“alternate” hreflang=“es”
href=“canonicalversion.com” />
Can be used in tandom with
Your website rel=canonical but be careful &
speaks all the follow Google guidelines
right languages.
** More Info: http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=189077
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21. Global SEO & UX
• Put the country name in your Page Title
– Example: Product Name | Category Name | iCrossing Spain
• Include the country name in the header or footer of your site’s
template
– Bonus Points: country-specific phone number & address in site template
• Spell things “incorrectly” for the Brits and Canucks (e.g.
product catalogue)
** Example Pictured: http://www.coca-cola.co.uk/
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22. Nick Roshon
thank SEO Strategist, iCrossing
Nicholas.Roshon@icrossing.com
you. @nickroshon
+Nick Roshon
NickRoshon.com
iCrossing.com
Special thanks to @dananotman for the Ryan Gosling infographics
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