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Search Marketing > SEO > How to Get Rid of Duplicate Content in WordPress

How to Get Rid of Duplicate Content in WordPress

Duplicate content example with two lattes.

It is often said that two are better than one. But in SEO, two webpages that appear too similar can cause double the trouble. This is what we call duplicate content.

What exactly is duplicate content? Google defines it in the following way:

Duplicate content generally refers to substantive blocks of content within or across domains that either completely match other content or are appreciably similar.

There are things that can cause duplicate content on your website. For example, you could have:

  1. Meta information duplicates
  2. Similar content across pages
  3. Boilerplate content on all pages
  4. Two different site versions
  5. A separate mobile site
  6. Trailing slashes on URLs
  7. CMS problems
  8. Parameterized pages
  9. Product description issues

These are all common issues for websites, and you can fix them. For a deeper dive (especially on what types of duplicate content cause problems for SEO), I recommend you read our guide on duplicate content.

Today, I’m going to dive into how to deal with the issue on a WordPress site specifically. But to start, this video overviews how to get rid of duplicate content on a website:

Now let’s focus on how to avoid duplicate content issues that fall into the category of duplicate meta information. And you’ll be able to do this easily with a WordPress SEO plugin.

A Quick Primer on Meta Info and Duplicate Content Issues

If you’re already well-versed on meta info and duplicate content issues, you can skip to the next section to learn about how you can fix it with a WordPress SEO plugin.

If you’re still here, let’s talk about the duplicate content issue.

Meta tags are on the code side of a webpage. They are meta information (or meta data) about a page, including the title and description. Meta data is one of the first pieces of code that a search engine encounters when it crawls a page.

Meta tags in HTML of the BruceClay.com homepage.
Page source view on a BruceClay.com article

The meta tags tell the search engine what the page is about. That’s why it’s so important that the titles and meta descriptions be accurate and unique within your website.

As smart as Google’s ranking algorithm is at figuring out the topic of a webpage, it still needs help with context. Because it can’t read like you or I can.

So the meta information, especially the meta title, is critical for communicating the topic of the page. This, in turn, helps Google understand that the webpage is a good match for a search query.

It’s a common SEO issue: meta tags on a site having duplicate or similar text. This can be especially true on large websites with hundreds or thousands of webpages.

And it can happen for a variety of reasons. Meta tags may not be a priority, automation software may be used due to too many webpages, and so on.

Regardless of the reason, same or similar meta tags can cause duplicate content issues within a site. Again, this type of duplicate content is especially important to fix because meta tags are the first chance at communicating to the search engine what the page is about.

Will you suffer a Google penalty because of it? No. Google does not have a duplicate content penalty unless the duplicate content is deceptive.

From Google:

Duplicate content on a site is not grounds for action on that site unless it appears that the intent of the duplicate content is to be deceptive and manipulate search engine results.

This usually occurs when sites copy content from other sites and claim it as their own.

For duplicate content within a website, though, you can suffer some consequences. And that consequence is your webpages being filtered from the search results.

When faced with two pages whose contents appear too similar, Google picks the page that it believes to be the best for the query. And it leaves the other page out of the results.

But this may or may not be the page you want to show up in the search results &mdash so you want to avoid filtering.

How to Get Rid of Duplicate Meta Data with a WordPress Plugin

Until now, it has not been easy for WordPress users to identify duplicate content issues right in WordPress. But with our WordPress SEO plugin, it’s simple to get this data.

1. Install the Bruce Clay SEO WP Plugin

If you’re not already a user of our WordPress SEO plugin, here’s how you can get started:

Get a free trial here. We offer an affordable monthly plan at $24.95 thereafter with access to all WordPress SEO functionality plus our SEOToolSet® if you want more analytics and reports.

Installation is quick and easy, and you have two options. One way is to download the Bruce Clay SEO plugin from the WordPress repository here.

Another way is to  install the plugin from within your WordPress site by going to WP admin > Plugins > Add New and searching for “Bruce Clay.”

2. Set Up and Sync the Plugin

This step will sync all published content on your website with the toolset. You’ll synchronize your content when you first set up the plugin, from the Settings tab.

Synchronize content in plugin settings.

3. Review the Activity Tab for Duplicate Titles and Descriptions

See which pages on your site pose duplicate content issues at the meta data level. Our WordPress SEO plugin runs a check when pages are published or synched.

(A sync happens when the page is published, the “analyze content” button is pressed or when a sync is manually run from the Settings screen.)

It then reports on any potential duplicate content issues from the same meta information.

Activity tab in Bruce Clay SEO plugin.

4. Click on the Page or Post

Select a page or post and automatically bring it up in the WordPress editor so you can adjust the title or description.

Click the post title to edit content.

5. Make Changes to the Meta Info

If you are using Yoast SEO, you would adjust the title and description there. If you are using our title and description feature, you can adjust it there. (Note: If Yoast is active on your site, the Bruce Clay SEO plugin automatically hides these fields to prevent any confusion.)

Title and meta description editable in plugin.
Bruce Clay SEO WP plugin’s title and description editor

Yoast SEO title and description fields.
Yoast SEO plugin’s title and description editor

6. Mark as Done

Mark the alert as “done” in the Activity tab. The alert will go away immediately.

Alert marked as done in Activity tab.

You can read more on how the Bruce Clay SEO plugin helps you with:

Get rid of the duplicate content in your WordPress site starting today. Get your free trial of our WordPress SEO plugin now.

Bruce Clay is founder and president of Bruce Clay Inc., a global digital marketing firm providing search engine optimization, pay-per-click, social media marketing, SEO-friendly web architecture, and SEO tools and education. Connect with him on LinkedIn or through the BruceClay.com website.

See Bruce's author page for links to connect on social media.

Posted by Bruce Clay on May 3rd, 2022 at 5:03 pm
Comments (58)
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58 Replies to “How to Get Rid of Duplicate Content in WordPress”

Jack Gill

The awesome tips shared by you will definitely help a lot.

Todd Cambell

Thanks for this amazing list. I prefer Squarespace now its less complicated than WordPress. You have done a great job once more thanks a lot! It is very useful and informative.

varun kumar

This is truly awesome, I would apply this tactics. I am very sure I would start reaping from these tactics very soon. Thanks a lot

IFTIKHAR

That’s an excellent blog! This will be really helpful in verifying my website twice. I appreciate you sharing this with us.

Charanreddy

Amazing article thank you for sharing this information

Rohit

Go to editor area of the specific page and remove the text duplicated?

shruti

Very useful post for me as i’m beginner in WordPress. Thank you for sharing.

Oriana

Most of the SEO individuals remain using Copyscape tools and now such accessories. Thanks a lot for sharing this content, keep posting.

Baba

Hey, its good when your plugin alerts you for duplicate content, we can fix easily. Felt its really helpful. Thanks for sharing

Emma Miller

That is a great blog! this will be a big help in double checking my website. Thank you for sharing this to us

Bhumika

Very informative for those students who are beginner’s in WordPress, Thank you for sharing.

Sachin

Checking manually for plagiarism is very hard but installing your plugin makes work faster. Thanks for providing the plugin with the detailed guide.

Michael Streilein

Interesting, ever since May 25th, unique content seems to be what Google wants most. I’ll be giving your plug-in a try to see if it helps me deal with fixing some issues I’ve been working on.

SEO Raleigh NC

Certainly, metadata duplication or content duplication should be FIXED ASAP to improve your website performance and overall, your SEO metrics. I don’t think Yoast or other plugin gives this warning, so it’s a good option to have this plugin installed. Thanks for explaining how it works.

radha

Good information. Duplicate content is a big issue in SEO. Plug-in is helpful for that. Keep sharing articles like this.

Hashtag Academy

very helpful and informative article.

Soi cau 247

Useful and quite interesting content. Thank you for providing this information.

santhathi

That’s really wonderful plugin- bruce clay to identify duplicate content in website and thank you for guide to most helpful plugin installation.

Vivek Tank

Duplicate Meta descriptions or titles should be fixed for better user experience and performance of your website.

Mold Technician

Very nice article. I like how this article is short and direct and lists what to do step by step with pictures included in each step. What a great post. Thank you!

Robert Miler

thank you for sharing this valuable and informative content. this content really helps me a lot on how to get rid of duplicate content on WordPress . and provides the information about how we can change meta title and meta descriptions.

soi cau XSMB

Cool plug-in, surely give this one a try

Jack Gill

The content should be well written and not duplicate your points are really helpful. Thank you for sharing the wonderful article Bruce.

Go1Mr

Thanks for sharing really helpful.

Ava Garcia

Yoast SEO is awesome and pleasant article, there’s another method for disposing of copy content in WordPress Go to the Permalinks page, eliminate Page Slug, and snap OK. Erase any pages that have copied content or alter the URLs assuming the substance and the format of the copied URL is something similar.

Pixel SEO

Thank you so much for sharing about this plugin. I’ll check.

Make me a logo

I will be guided by the fact that the information may be useful for beginners and professional “dummies” trying to understand the topic “How to Get Rid of Duplicate Content in WordPress”.

Farhad Malegam

Duplicate content is a significant issue these days!! Thank you for sharing.

Kind regards,
Farhad Malegam

Assignment Writing Services UK

Google does not like duplicate content in SEO.

Todd Cambell

I definitely enjoying every little bit of it Mr Bruce ,
I am an SEO myself although a beginner and this is helpful.
Thank you

Lucas James

Thanks for sharing this. Would this still be up to date? Are there other options you may suggest?

Robert Stefanski

Hi Lucas,

Thanks for your comment! The information in this post is up to date. In addition to using our WordPress SEO Plugin, you can dive deeper into avoiding duplicate content with this article: https://www.bruceclay.com/seo/duplicate-content/

Hope this helps!

Tina syed

Thanku so much for sharing this amazing plugin with us.

Access control system supplier in Qatar

Great, this post is quite awesome and I have bookmarked this page for my future reference. Keep posting like this with the latest info.

Captain Tractor

Hey, This content is useful for SEO users. Thanks, for sharing this blog.

Prem

This post is actually very valuable for me. I learned a lot from this post about how to check duplicate content in WordPress and remove it properly. Thanks for sharing such a wonderful article. Keep it up! Thanks

Even John

To be honest, I was not aware of those plug-ins you have mentioned above.

I was dealing with duplicates through some other.

Thank You so much for sharing this.

AResourcepool

Nice Blog, will surely try this plugin.

Niral Networks

Thanks for sharing, its a really useful plugin…..

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Doesn’t Yoast SEO do this for free?

bilal shah

Just Amazing, I’ll Definitely use this plugin :)

Santhosh Muralidhar

Great content about deleting duplicate content in wordpress. I would surely want to give a try and use your plugin once.

BigCric

this article really helps me a lot also now I changed the meta description with the unique word but the only issue I am facing is basically I manage a cricket blogging website and I try to write unique content with my best efforts but still, my pages are not ranked on google.

Velocity Consultancy

Great article, will surely try this plugin.

Priya Sharma

I will surely recommend this blog to my brother who is a food blogger. It will help him. keep posting such great content.

Rohit

Thank you for sharing this valuable information. Need to try this plugin once.

Richa

Didn’t know that you guys offer SEO plugin too, If this plugin has the same features like Yoast and rank math then why you guys not offering a free version,

Paula Allen

Richa: Our plugin is powered by a live connection to the SEOToolSet, running real-time analyses of Google results as you use it. You can try it for free with the 7-day trial to see how it works.

Pratik Varma

I have just started blogging and its a really helpful blog for me thank you for sharing this informative article.

Saayed

Great Informative post. Most of SEO person are using Copyscape tools and now this plugins. Thank you so much for sharing this content, Keep posting.

Amogue

Yoast SEO is the best and nice article, there’s one more way to get rid of duplicate content in WordPress Go to the Permalinks page, remove Page Slug, and click OK. Delete any pages that have duplicated content or edit the URLs if the content and the layout of the duplicated URL is the same.

Digital Marketing

Nice Article, But We use copyscape SEO tools to check duplicate content for a website.

Marcus

I use all in one seo to good effect.

Should I consider migrating away from all in one to your plugin?

James Catanich

Question Is both must be installed or one or the other?

Andy Kuiper

Good to see the plug-in works along with Yoast (if someone already has their meta tags in Yoast) :-)

Steve

Doesn’t Yoast SEO do this for free?

Paula Allen

Hi Steve – No, Yoast doesn’t have a system to alert you of duplicated content. This is one of the many ways that our plugin works like an enhancement, not a replacement, of Yoast.

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