SEO
How To Handle Duplicate Content At Enterprise Scale
Duplicate content can be a barrier to SEO performance and can prevent your search strategy from reaching specific goals.
It’s also not helpful to searchers, which results in search engines like Google identifying other content as the better answer.
Search engines can filter out pages from top search results and include certain pages that might not be the desired page to be ranked prominently for your site, as well.
Duplicate content doesn’t necessarily mean that someone has stolen or copied your content without permission (although that does happen).
At the enterprise level, you may have dealers, affiliates, or others who sell your products using your content.
Sites that are part of the same corporate model, or feature products or services from the same creator or manufacturer, may have content that is exactly the same as yours.
Even if you aren’t doing anything spammy or malicious, you need a strategy for handling duplicate content inside your site and related to other sites.
With an enterprise site, you don’t have the luxury of just updating a page or two or writing some custom tags to resolve the issues.
Enterprise sites with the complexity of potentially thousands of pages, products, services, locations, or regulated content have several challenges.
The good news is that there are specific ways to handle duplicate content at an enterprise scale.
1. Guidelines For Content Use
If you own or create content and have others that sell, feature, or license your products or services, you need to exert as much control as possible over the use of the content.
You’ll likely allow dealers, vendors, and affiliates to use descriptions and details to maintain brand integrity.
However, for your site to maintain the most authority and rankings, you need policies on what content can be used and what can’t. And, in some circumstances, you’ll need rules or guidelines on attribution.
Doing everything to minimize content that you intended to be part of the parent brand’s unique content from being “borrowed” or used is important.
That doesn’t mean others can’t use it, but be clear in what is free use, what requires attribution, and anything off-limits.
2. Auditing
Know what content on your site is duplicated from page to page and elsewhere on the web. There are several great tools for detecting and reporting duplicate content within SEO tool suites and standalone tools like Copyscape.
Get into a regular process and routine of internal site audits as well as web audits for duplicate content so you can find anything new.
That allows you to determine any uses (per the point above) that aren’t authorized to try to manage or navigate.
3. Dynamic Variable Tags
Enterprise-level sites often have thousands of pages.
They don’t lend themselves to manual title tags, meta descriptions, and heading tags. Even if they did, it would take quite an effort to write, monitor, and document the tags to make sure they don’t contain duplication.
For large ecommerce sites, lead gen sites, and brand sites that have products, blog posts, tech specs, and large sections and databases of user-facing content, it is important to create a dynamic set of tags.
In the old days, this meant an SEO working with a developer to write formulas for tags to build based on database information. Most current sites have content management systems allowing tags to have dynamic variables and syntax.
Use dynamic tagging and the variables to your advantage to scale the content of tags and headings to ensure they are custom and are as relevant and specific as possible for the page content.
4. Evaluate Global Template Content
The more header, footer, and other global page content, including navigation and sub-navigation that you have on every page, the more unique body content you’re going to need.
This is important if you’re working toward a best practice of having no more than 20% plus or minus duplicate content per page.
This is especially important on pages that don’t have a lot of copy or aren’t long-form content pages.
Header copy, text in links, and footer copy that is the same on every page or within specific sections or content types are forgotten.
If you don’t have to spell out every link on every page in a mega menu, don’t.
If you don’t have to have a massive disclaimer on every single page footer, don’t. Look for ways to minimize global content and know that if you have to have a lot of it, you will need to have more body content to offset it.
5. Scalable Copy
This can be the most challenging enterprise duplicate content remedy or prevention method. Scaling copy can be time-intensive and difficult.
Get stakeholders on board, and if you can do it, I strongly recommend it.
I worked with a restaurant chain that had about 100 locations nationwide and it took some time and effort, but we were able to get to a point where every restaurant’s page of the site was at least 80% unique content.
Beyond that, we were able to expand the pages into sections of unique content.
That was a game-changer and helped us achieve top rankings in local and traditional search across markets. We could even compete with several restaurants in the same market, stacking rankings at the top and avoiding Google filtering.
If possible, work with content creators, franchisees, copywriters, UX designers, and developers to creatively find ways to craft unique copy and content for each location.
When it comes to products and ecommerce – start with categories or product lines to prove the value.
Use dynamic content blocks (similar to dynamic tags noted earlier) to factor in more detailed copy per page as products get more specific and technical.
6. User-Generated Content
Going beyond scaling content within internal resources, I recommend looking for ways to incorporate user-generated content as well.
This can include pulling in reviews (if rendered as content on the page), testimonials, FAQs, forums, and other content that helps offset duplicate content from page to page, as well as provide new, unique copy about the subject matter of that specific page topic.
This can create an opportunity for scale with fewer internal resources as long as there isn’t a heavy need for moderation, legal review, and other gatekeeping steps that put a burden on the enterprise-level operations.
7. Canonical Tags
Sometimes the last resort and sometimes the first line of action, canonical tags can be a great solution for enterprise sites handling duplicate content.
However, they require a more advanced understanding of their use and the risks associated with improper logic and implementation.
Canonical tags should be a standard for any situations where pagination occurs (as opposed to lazy-loading, AJAX, and infinite scrolling situations – which can still include canonical use and have their own risks with indexing).
In any situation where you intentionally have duplicate content within your site, use canonical tags to point to the page you care the most about getting ranked prominently.
This is your way to aggregate link value and visibility for one page by being clear about your duplicate content situation.
Having one page prominently ranked versus the wrong one (that you don’t want) or none is definitely an advantage.
When it comes to pages on other sites – you can also link back to the original across domains to ensure the proper credit and attribution are given.
Even if you can’t get the canonical implementation, at least try to get a link back to the source as attribution.
Conclusion
Content management and strategy on an enterprise site have unique challenges with the scale, size, and scope of related companies or entities allowed to use the same copy or have relationships that aren’t always possible to manage.
Using dynamic, technical, and copy-based scaling strategies, you can minimize the amount of duplicate content or manage it in ways that give you control of the situation and pages that receive value.
More resources:
Featured Image: Evgeny Zimin/Shutterstock
SEO
brightonSEO Live Blog
Hello everyone. It’s April again, so I’m back in Brighton for another two days of Being the introvert I am, my idea of fun isn’t hanging around our booth all day explaining we’ve run out of t-shirts (seriously, you need to be fast if you want swag!). So I decided to do something useful and live-blog the event instead.
Follow below for talk takeaways and (very) mildly humorous commentary. sun, sea, and SEO!
SEO
Google Further Postpones Third-Party Cookie Deprecation In Chrome
Google has again delayed its plan to phase out third-party cookies in the Chrome web browser. The latest postponement comes after ongoing challenges in reconciling feedback from industry stakeholders and regulators.
The announcement was made in Google and the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) joint quarterly report on the Privacy Sandbox initiative, scheduled for release on April 26.
Chrome’s Third-Party Cookie Phaseout Pushed To 2025
Google states it “will not complete third-party cookie deprecation during the second half of Q4” this year as planned.
Instead, the tech giant aims to begin deprecating third-party cookies in Chrome “starting early next year,” assuming an agreement can be reached with the CMA and the UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).
The statement reads:
“We recognize that there are ongoing challenges related to reconciling divergent feedback from the industry, regulators and developers, and will continue to engage closely with the entire ecosystem. It’s also critical that the CMA has sufficient time to review all evidence, including results from industry tests, which the CMA has asked market participants to provide by the end of June.”
Continued Engagement With Regulators
Google reiterated its commitment to “engaging closely with the CMA and ICO” throughout the process and hopes to conclude discussions this year.
This marks the third delay to Google’s plan to deprecate third-party cookies, initially aiming for a Q3 2023 phaseout before pushing it back to late 2024.
The postponements reflect the challenges in transitioning away from cross-site user tracking while balancing privacy and advertiser interests.
Transition Period & Impact
In January, Chrome began restricting third-party cookie access for 1% of users globally. This percentage was expected to gradually increase until 100% of users were covered by Q3 2024.
However, the latest delay gives websites and services more time to migrate away from third-party cookie dependencies through Google’s limited “deprecation trials” program.
The trials offer temporary cookie access extensions until December 27, 2024, for non-advertising use cases that can demonstrate direct user impact and functional breakage.
While easing the transition, the trials have strict eligibility rules. Advertising-related services are ineligible, and origins matching known ad-related domains are rejected.
Google states the program aims to address functional issues rather than relieve general data collection inconveniences.
Publisher & Advertiser Implications
The repeated delays highlight the potential disruption for digital publishers and advertisers relying on third-party cookie tracking.
Industry groups have raised concerns that restricting cross-site tracking could push websites toward more opaque privacy-invasive practices.
However, privacy advocates view the phaseout as crucial in preventing covert user profiling across the web.
With the latest postponement, all parties have more time to prepare for the eventual loss of third-party cookies and adopt Google’s proposed Privacy Sandbox APIs as replacements.
Featured Image: Novikov Aleksey/Shutterstock
SEO
How To Write ChatGPT Prompts To Get The Best Results
ChatGPT is a game changer in the field of SEO. This powerful language model can generate human-like content, making it an invaluable tool for SEO professionals.
However, the prompts you provide largely determine the quality of the output.
To unlock the full potential of ChatGPT and create content that resonates with your audience and search engines, writing effective prompts is crucial.
In this comprehensive guide, we’ll explore the art of writing prompts for ChatGPT, covering everything from basic techniques to advanced strategies for layering prompts and generating high-quality, SEO-friendly content.
Writing Prompts For ChatGPT
What Is A ChatGPT Prompt?
A ChatGPT prompt is an instruction or discussion topic a user provides for the ChatGPT AI model to respond to.
The prompt can be a question, statement, or any other stimulus to spark creativity, reflection, or engagement.
Users can use the prompt to generate ideas, share their thoughts, or start a conversation.
ChatGPT prompts are designed to be open-ended and can be customized based on the user’s preferences and interests.
How To Write Prompts For ChatGPT
Start by giving ChatGPT a writing prompt, such as, “Write a short story about a person who discovers they have a superpower.”
ChatGPT will then generate a response based on your prompt. Depending on the prompt’s complexity and the level of detail you requested, the answer may be a few sentences or several paragraphs long.
Use the ChatGPT-generated response as a starting point for your writing. You can take the ideas and concepts presented in the answer and expand upon them, adding your own unique spin to the story.
If you want to generate additional ideas, try asking ChatGPT follow-up questions related to your original prompt.
For example, you could ask, “What challenges might the person face in exploring their newfound superpower?” Or, “How might the person’s relationships with others be affected by their superpower?”
Remember that ChatGPT’s answers are generated by artificial intelligence and may not always be perfect or exactly what you want.
However, they can still be a great source of inspiration and help you start writing.
Must-Have GPTs Assistant
I recommend installing the WebBrowser Assistant created by the OpenAI Team. This tool allows you to add relevant Bing results to your ChatGPT prompts.
This assistant adds the first web results to your ChatGPT prompts for more accurate and up-to-date conversations.
It is very easy to install in only two clicks. (Click on Start Chat.)
For example, if I ask, “Who is Vincent Terrasi?,” ChatGPT has no answer.
With WebBrower Assistant, the assistant creates a new prompt with the first Bing results, and now ChatGPT knows who Vincent Terrasi is.
Screenshot from ChatGPT, March 2023You can test other GPT assistants available in the GPTs search engine if you want to use Google results.
Master Reverse Prompt Engineering
ChatGPT can be an excellent tool for reverse engineering prompts because it generates natural and engaging responses to any given input.
By analyzing the prompts generated by ChatGPT, it is possible to gain insight into the model’s underlying thought processes and decision-making strategies.
One key benefit of using ChatGPT to reverse engineer prompts is that the model is highly transparent in its decision-making.
This means that the reasoning and logic behind each response can be traced, making it easier to understand how the model arrives at its conclusions.
Once you’ve done this a few times for different types of content, you’ll gain insight into crafting more effective prompts.
Prepare Your ChatGPT For Generating Prompts
First, activate the reverse prompt engineering.
- Type the following prompt: “Enable Reverse Prompt Engineering? By Reverse Prompt Engineering I mean creating a prompt from a given text.”
Screenshot from ChatGPT, March 2023ChatGPT is now ready to generate your prompt. You can test the product description in a new chatbot session and evaluate the generated prompt.
- Type: “Create a very technical reverse prompt engineering template for a product description about iPhone 11.”
Screenshot from ChatGPT, March 2023The result is amazing. You can test with a full text that you want to reproduce. Here is an example of a prompt for selling a Kindle on Amazon.
- Type: “Reverse Prompt engineer the following {product), capture the writing style and the length of the text :
product =”
Screenshot from ChatGPT, March 2023I tested it on an SEJ blog post. Enjoy the analysis – it is excellent.
- Type: “Reverse Prompt engineer the following {text}, capture the tone and writing style of the {text} to include in the prompt :
text = all text coming from https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-bard-training-data/478941/”
Screenshot from ChatGPT, March 2023But be careful not to use ChatGPT to generate your texts. It is just a personal assistant.
Go Deeper
Prompts and examples for SEO:
- Keyword research and content ideas prompt: “Provide a list of 20 long-tail keyword ideas related to ‘local SEO strategies’ along with brief content topic descriptions for each keyword.”
- Optimizing content for featured snippets prompt: “Write a 40-50 word paragraph optimized for the query ‘what is the featured snippet in Google search’ that could potentially earn the featured snippet.”
- Creating meta descriptions prompt: “Draft a compelling meta description for the following blog post title: ’10 Technical SEO Factors You Can’t Ignore in 2024′.”
Important Considerations:
- Always Fact-Check: While ChatGPT can be a helpful tool, it’s crucial to remember that it may generate inaccurate or fabricated information. Always verify any facts, statistics, or quotes generated by ChatGPT before incorporating them into your content.
- Maintain Control and Creativity: Use ChatGPT as a tool to assist your writing, not replace it. Don’t rely on it to do your thinking or create content from scratch. Your unique perspective and creativity are essential for producing high-quality, engaging content.
- Iteration is Key: Refine and revise the outputs generated by ChatGPT to ensure they align with your voice, style, and intended message.
Additional Prompts for Rewording and SEO:
– Rewrite this sentence to be more concise and impactful.
– Suggest alternative phrasing for this section to improve clarity.
– Identify opportunities to incorporate relevant internal and external links.
– Analyze the keyword density and suggest improvements for better SEO.
Remember, while ChatGPT can be a valuable tool, it’s essential to use it responsibly and maintain control over your content creation process.
Experiment And Refine Your Prompting Techniques
Writing effective prompts for ChatGPT is an essential skill for any SEO professional who wants to harness the power of AI-generated content.
Hopefully, the insights and examples shared in this article can inspire you and help guide you to crafting stronger prompts that yield high-quality content.
Remember to experiment with layering prompts, iterating on the output, and continually refining your prompting techniques.
This will help you stay ahead of the curve in the ever-changing world of SEO.
More resources:
Featured Image: Tapati Rinchumrus/Shutterstock
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