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Duplicate content is one of the most persistent myths in SEO. Google wrote back in 2008 that there is no penalty for duplicate text unless it is meant to deceive. What does happen is subtler, and still costs rankings. Google picks one of the identical versions to show, and it is not always yours or the right one. Links and signals spread across the variants. And pages aimed at the same question get in each other's way.
Most duplication is not copying. It comes from technology and from growth without a plan: a site reachable with and without www, a shop with an address for every colour and size, a blog post and a service page chasing the same term.
One English site per country
Companies selling across borders often create the biggest duplicates without noticing: a UK site, an Irish site and an Australian site with the same English text and different prices. To Google they are three near-identical pages competing for the same queries, and it may show the UK page to a buyer in Dublin. The fix is not rewriting everything three times. Mark each version with hreflang so Google knows which page belongs to which country, make sure each one is canonical for itself, and localise what differs: prices, VAT, delivery, phone numbers, spelling. How we build sites that work that way is on our multilingual websites page.
Two location pages: how much text they share
same intro, same services, another city name
shared with other city pagesabout this city only
towns nearby, local sectors, work there, own questions
shared with other city pagesabout this city only
Illustration. A shared menu and footer do not count; what matters is the text that answers the question.
Location pages: the doorway trap
For local businesses it is tempting: a page for Leeds, one for Bradford, one for Wakefield, each with the same text and a different town name. Google's spam policies call those doorway pages, and since March 2024 they also name the mass production of low-value pages. A location page is only a page when it says something true of that place alone: the areas you cover there, the industries that are strong, work you did there, the questions people there ask. If you cannot, do not make the page. Local visibility also comes from your Google Business Profile and reviews; see local SEO.
For Business Centrum we built thirteen town pages, each with its own content about the town and its employers. Alongside them sits a term map of 182 search terms, each assigned to exactly one target page, with 771 internal links pointing each term to the right page. That is what stops pages competing.
Six causes and their fixes
| Cause | How it happens | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| Address variants | http and https, www, trailing slash, parameters | 301 redirect or canonical |
| Shop filters | A URL for every colour and size | Canonical to the category |
| Manufacturer descriptions | A hundred shops, one sentence | Your own copy for your top sellers |
| Template location pages | Same text, another town | Real local content, or no page |
| Blog and service page on one term | Growth without a plan | Merge, one term per page |
| Your text copied elsewhere | Someone lifts your copy | Usually nothing; a removal request if it hurts |
The first two are technical: a canonical tag or a 301 redirect. Keeping shop filters tidy is covered in ecommerce SEO. The rest are decisions about content.
Questions about duplicate text
Is a translation duplicate content?
No. A translated page is a different page. Use hreflang to say which language version belongs to which visitor.
Someone copied my text. Is that a problem?
Usually not: Google tends to recognise the original. If the copy outranks you, you can ask Google to remove it on copyright grounds.
How do I find duplicates on my own site?
Search Google for site:yourdomain.com plus a sentence in quotes, check Search Console's pages report for duplicates without a chosen canonical, and filter queries that send impressions to more than one page.