How To Check For Duplicate Content During An SEO Audit

Checking for replicated material during an SEO evaluation is critical for those looking to establish a solid digital presence, including local businesses, entrepreneurs, and marketing experts.

Duplicate content can negatively impact your search rankings and result in penalties from search engines. This comprehensive guide will explore the various aspects of identifying and resolving duplicate content issues.

Here are some tips for checking duplicate content during an SEO audit:

#1. Identifying Duplicate Content Issues Quickly

To quickly identify duplicate content issues on your site, it’s essential to use reliable tools that can efficiently scan and analyze your website. Two popular options are Siteliner.com and Screaming Frog SEO Spider. These tools help you find URL-based content problems and physical duplicates within your site by checking for exact duplicates using the MD5 algorithm and near-duplicates based on a similarity threshold.

Using Siteliner to Check for Duplicate Content

Siteliner is an easy-to-use online tool that scans your entire website, identifying potential duplicate content issues. It provides a detailed report highlighting pages with high percentages of duplicated material while offering insights into other aspects like broken links or page load times. To get started:

Navigate to Siteliner’s homepage.
Input the web address of the website you wish to examine into Siteliner’s search bar, then click “Go” and await the results.
Select “Go” and wait for the results.
Analyze the provided data, focusing primarily on areas with high duplication rates.

Employing Screaming Frog SEO Spider for In-Depth Analysis

If you’re looking for more advanced features or need a comprehensive analysis during an SEO audit, consider using Screaming Frog’s SEO Spider software. This powerful tool detects duplicate content and uncovers other technical errors, such as missing meta tags or incorrect canonical URLs. Here’s how to use it:

Download and install Screaming Frog SEO Spider from their official website.
Input your website’s URL in the search bar and press “Start” to crawl.
Select “Start” to initiate the crawl process.
Once completed, navigate to the “Duplicate Content” tab for a list of potential issues.

Using these tools during an SEO audit lets you quickly identify duplicate content on your site and take appropriate action. This will help ensure that search engines like Google do not penalize your site due to duplicated material, ultimately improving your online presence and boosting SEO rankings.

By using Siteliner.com and Screaming Frog SEO Spider, you can quickly identify any duplicate content issues affecting your website’s performance. It is essential to investigate if any of your content has been replicated on other websites so that the necessary measures can be taken against copied material.

#2. Finding Duplicated Pages Across the Web

Knowing which pages of your site have been duplicated across the web is essential. Tools such as Copyscape can assist in finding external instances of identical or similar content, allowing you to take necessary actions against plagiarism or request the removal of unauthorized copies.

Utilizing Copyscape to Discover Copied Content Online

Copyscape is a powerful tool that helps you identify instances where your website’s content has been copied and published elsewhere on the internet without permission. To use this service, simply enter your website URL into their search bar and let it scan for duplicate content online. The results will show any websites containing text that matches yours closely enough to be considered duplicate content.

If you find cases where someone else has republished your original material without authorization, it may negatively impact both parties’ SEO rankings due to duplicate content penalties. In these situations, contacting the offending party and requesting they remove or properly attribute the source material is appropriate.

Taking Action Against Plagiarized Material

Contacting Offending Websites: Reach out directly via email or through their contact form explaining that they are using plagiarized materials from your site. Kindly ask them to remove it or give proper credit with a link to your original page.
Sending DMCA Takedown Notices: If initial contact attempts fail, consider sending a formal Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) takedown notice to the website owner and their hosting provider. This legal action can lead to the removal of infringing content.
Monitoring Your Content: Continuously monitor your site for instances of plagiarism using tools like Copyscape or PlagSpotter. Regularly checking will help you identify new cases quickly and take appropriate action before they negatively impact your search rankings.
Checking URLs for Duplicate Content

Examining individual URLs is crucial during an SEO audit when looking for duplicate content. Tools like Moz Pro Site Crawl allow you to analyze each URL, identifying potential issues related to canonicalization elements, unique page titles, and meta descriptions that could lead search engines into considering them duplicates.

Analyzing URLs with Moz Pro Site Crawl

Moz Pro Site Crawl is a powerful tool to help digital marketing professionals and local businesses identify various on-page SEO issues, including duplicate content. By running a comprehensive site crawl using this platform, you can quickly spot any pages with identical or similar titles and meta descriptions that search engines might consider duplicate content. Additionally, the tool provides actionable insights on how to resolve these problems effectively.

Steps to use Moz Pro Site Crawl

Create an account on the Moz website.
Add your domain as a new campaign in Moz Pro.
Select “Site Crawl” from the left-hand menu.
Analyze the results provided under “Content Issues,” focusing specifically on duplicate title tags and meta descriptions.
Take note of any problematic pages identified by the tool and make necessary changes accordingly.

#3. Keyword Prominence

Understanding the role of keyword prominence in your website’s content is crucial for detecting duplicate content issues. By analyzing how keywords are distributed throughout your site, you can identify areas where similar phrases might be used excessively across multiple pages without adding value to the user experience.

Assessing Keyword Distribution on Your Website

Consider using tools like Ahrefs, Moz Keyword Explorer, or SEMrush Organic Research Tool to assess keyword distribution effectively. These platforms provide valuable insights into which keywords drive traffic to your site and their respective rankings within search engine results pages (SERPs). They also help you uncover instances where specific terms may be overused or underutilized across different web pages.

Analyze top-performing pages for common themes and variations in targeted keywords.
Determine if certain sections or topics have more repetitive phrases that could signal duplication concerns.
Evaluate whether long-tail keywords are appropriately incorporated into the content strategy to diversify targeting efforts and minimize redundancy risks.

#5. Auditing Outbound Links During an SEO Audit

Outbound links significantly affect your website’s overall search engine optimization (SEO) strategy. By auditing outbound links during an SEO audit, you can ensure that these connections are relevant and valuable and contribute positively to your site’s online reputation. This section will discuss the importance of examining outbound links and how to analyze them effectively for potential issues. High-quality outbound links help establish your website as a reliable source of information by connecting users with additional resources related to their interests. To evaluate the quality of your site’s external connections:

Ensure all linked content is authoritative and trustworthy.
Avoid linking to spammy or low-quality websites that may harm your site’s credibility.
Regularly check for broken or outdated links that could negatively impact user experience.

#6. Number of Internal Links

When optimizing your website for search engine rankings, one of the most important factors is the number of internal links pointing to a page. Internal links link from one page on your site to another and can help boost visibility in search engines. The Inlinks tab in Screaming Frog allows you to quickly identify how many internal links point to a particular page. This information can be invaluable when determining which pages should receive more attention or if there are any issues with duplicate content on your site.

For example, if you have two pages with identical content but different URLs, this could lead to duplicate content issues and hurt your SEO efforts. By checking the Inlinks tab, you can easily see which URL has more internal links pointing towards it and ensure that only one version of the page exists on your website.

#7. Broken Links

It’s also important to keep an eye out for broken or outdated internal links, as these can negatively affect user experience and SEO rankings. If too many broken or outdated links are pointing toward a particular page, it may be time for some spring cleaning!

How to Check

To verify your website’s crawl, navigate to the Internal tab in Screaming Frog, filter by HTML, and sort pages by status code in descending order. This allows you to locate error pages before the live 200 OK pages.
During this verification process, it is essential to identify all 400 errors, 500 errors, and other page errors. Some links may be safe to disregard 400 errors, especially if they haven’t been found in the Google index for a while and based on their context.
However, if they are already indexed and have been for an extended period, you should redirect them to their intended destination.

#8. URL Length

To find any pages on your site with links over 115 characters, go to the “URL” section in “Screaming Frog,” then filter by “Over 115”. This will show you all the pages with links with more than 115 characters.

Frequently Asked Questions

To check for duplicate content in SEO, use tools like Siteliner, Screaming Frog SEO Spider, and Moz Pro Site Crawl. These tools help identify duplicated pages on your website, analyze URLs for duplication issues, and resolve canonicalization discrepancies.

Deal with duplicate content by implementing 301 redirects to the preferred page version, using rel=canonical tags to indicate the source, consolidating similar pages into one comprehensive resource, and ensuring unique meta titles and descriptions. Additionally, avoid excessive repetition of key phrases throughout your site.

Check if your content is copied online using plagiarism detection tools like Copyscape. This tool scans the web for identical or closely matching text passages that may have been plagiarized from your website. If necessary, take action against websites hosting stolen material.

Google identifies duplicate content through its crawling process by comparing multiple factors such as URL structures, title tags, meta descriptions, and on-page text. It then uses algorithms to detect similarities between pages across different domains or within a single domain. Duplicate pages may be filtered out during indexing or ranking processes.

Conclusion

Examining copy content during an SEO assessment is indispensable to ensure your website’s exposure in web search tool rankings isn’t adversely affected. Using the right tools and strategies can help you quickly identify any issues and resolve them before they become a problem.

Keeping up with best practices such as avoiding creating duplicate content, using canonical tags where appropriate, monitoring outbound links regularly, and optimizing keyword prominence are all great ways to prevent future problems from arising. With OptiLocal’s expertise in local marketing services like website optimization and online reputation management, you can rest assured that your site will remain free of duplication issues while maximizing its potential reach.

Let OptiLocal help you optimize your website and ensure all your content is original. With our expertise in local SEO, we can guarantee the best results for your business.

SEO & lead generation

Digital Marketing

Web Design and Development

Plans

Essentials

How to Check for Duplicate Content During an SEO Audit