DUPLICATE CONTENT and Google
A team member asked:
"I have an SEO question for you. How different do the titles and product descriptions have to be? For example, I have my grocery bags and I have a listing for each color I make. How different do they have to be so Google doesn't see my listings as spam?"
Response:
Titles can all be the same without causing duplication problems but it helps to add at least one word that makes each listing title unique, such as a color.
Google does not see your listings as spam if the descriptions are duplicated. Google wants to show variety to the people using the Google search engine to find information or products. If you have 20 listings for shopping bags with identical or very near identical descriptions, Google will display one of your listings in a relatively easy to find place in the search results and place the other listings far away in the search results. Your listings will be there somewhere on Google, just not easy to find.
Google does not give any guidelines to tell us how much duplicated text is acceptable. The amount of duplicated text that is tolerated by Google depends on the amount of competition for the keywords or industry. More duplicated text is tolerated for keywords with little competition from other Web sites and less duplicated text is tolerated for keywords with a lot of competition. The only way to see how Google responds to the duplicated text in your listings is to go to google.com and search for the keywords you are using, such as "iPhone cases", and then look for your listings in the search results.
Keep in mind that it can take Google up to four weeks to find all the changes to your website or Etsy shop.
