Is having Same Content in 2 Places Bad?

[DoubleDee]

My website is about Small Business and is full of articles on various topics.

Most of the articles are "time independent" (e.g. "Postage Meters Can Save You Money"), however I would like to start writing articles that deal with current events.

Which leads to my question...

Let's say I wrote an article called "New Free-Trade Laws Hurt U.S. Small Businesses".

Would it be a problem if I put that ONE Article under my "Gov't" section as well as under my new "In The News" section?

Now, I wouldn't want to do this a lot, but if I feel an article is important and covers two areas equally - particularly "In The News" - then would it be acceptable to do this?!

Thanks,


Debbie

[colossal]

You can use the CANONICAL tag to handle this problem. As much as possible, use teasers and snippets instead to bring your site's visitors to your content instead of publishing it in two areas.

[Stevie D]

Why would you not just have the article in one section and cross-link to it from the other?

[DoubleDee]

Why would you not just have the article in one section and cross-link to it from the other?

Right now I have an Article Index page which includes a listing of Articles, and for each one has the Article's Title, Short Summary, and Thumbnail.

I am looking to sub-divide this master page into several pages - one for each "Section" (e.g. Local, National, Sports, Lifestyles, etc) - but keep the same layout.

And if I had an Article that would normally appear in a section like "Finance", but which also was a current event, then I was thinking of having the Article's Title, Short Summary, and Thumbnail in 2 places, say in the "In The News" section and in the "Finance" section.

So, to be clear, I wouldn't have the entire Article in two places, just the teaser info, or whatever you'd call what I described above?!

Make sense?


Debbie

[ralph.m]

I'd be more inclined to give each article multiple categories, so that it can be found from anywhere. But I don't see a problem with a teaser appearing in various places.

[DoubleDee]

I'd be more inclined to give each article multiple categories, so that it can be found from anywhere. But I don't see a problem with a teaser appearing in various places.

Well, if I split up my master "Article Listing" into several sections, AND I automate things (e.g. populate the index with code), then I guess I would be doing that, because the Article would appear under "In The News" and "Finance" by virtue of have multiple "categories", and thus being populate in those two places.

The place where I see this most fitting is for my "In The News" Section, because by its very nature, Articles in that section would be short-lived, so I figure having the Article also appear in a more permanent Section would be good. (Of course, I could start out such an Article in the "In The News" Section, and then after a week or two, change the "category" and move it to a permanent Section like "Finance".)


Debbie

[ralph.m]

I could just take a lot of management to change categories like that. I would probably just put it in both "news" and "finance" categories and let it disappear off the news home page as new items appear. It doesn't matter if it's still searchable under news items a lear later, IMO.

Off Topic:

PS, I've move this to Internet Marketing, because it's more of an SEO question.

[Shyflower]

Assuming that your question is focused on "good or bad for visitors" I have moved this thread back to Web Content where I think it is most appropriate. If I am correct, you have one article and are asking if it is okay to link to it from more than one category. I don't see a problem with that. In fact, I think it's an excellent idea. Those who come to your site looking for "Finance" may not find it "In the News" and vice versa. Your plan helps your visitors have a better experience by quickly directing them to where they want to go.

[DoubleDee]

Assuming that your question is focused on "good or bad for visitors" I have moved this thread back to Web Content where I think it is most appropriate.

That would be correct! (This has nothing to do with SEO, Ralph.)

If I am correct, you have one article and are asking if it is okay to link to it from more than one category.

Right now I have an "Article Listing" page. It includes a listing of Articles on my website. For each Article, there is the Article's Title, a Short Summary, and a Thumbnail.

This approach works fine for now, because I have like 6 Articles. But as my site expands it isn't very user-friendly. (Would you want to scroll through 200 Articles??)

So, I am thinking of breaking my website up into "Sections", and each "Section" would have an index page which is similar to my "Article Listing" page now.

If I have an Article that would normally be in the "Finance" section, but which also is related to some current event, then I was wondering if it would be okay to have my "Article Summary (w link)" in the "Finance" section and put it in the "In The News" section as well.

I don't see a problem with that. In fact, I think it's an excellent idea. Those who come to your site looking for "Finance" may not find it "In the News" and vice versa. Your plan helps your visitors have a better experience by quickly directing them to where they want to go.

That was my thinking!

But, I don't know if I see other websites like the NY Times, LA Times, USA Today, CNN, etc doing this. Then again, they have loyal readerships, and probably don't need the cross-referencing as much as I do.

Thanks,


Debbie

[Wayne Liew]

From a pure usability standpoint, you should definitely put the article under both categories if you think the audience for each category is going to like the article.

As for major publications that do this, check out Entrepreneur.com (not the biggest publication but it's one of my favorite ):
http://www.entrepreneur.com/marketing/index.html
http://www.entrepreneur.com/marketin...ing/index.html

Even if you look at things from the SEO standpoint, the issue of duplicate content will not arise if the category key is not included in the article URL:
hxxp://www.entrepreneur.com/marketing/xxxxxx.html (duplicate content issue may arise if placed in multiple categories as the "marketing" part of the URL will be different, creating two duplicated copies when the article is placed under another category simultaneously) as compared to
hxxp://www.entrepreneur.com/xxxxxx.html (no duplicate content issue).

[webmaster3388]

Yes having same content in two places is bad. Google crawlers count it is as a spam issue.

[Shyflower]

Yes having same content in two places is bad. Google crawlers count it is as a spam issue.

You couldn't possibly have read through this thread and come up with that answer. You can't spam your own website. The question here is 'two places in her website, not two places on the www. Please take the time to read through a thread before you offer suggestions. While you're reading, you might also like to take the time to read the Content Announcement at the top of this section and the forum guidelines stickied !IMPORTANT at the top of this forum. Had you done that, you would have known that this section of SitePoint is committed to adding good content for visitors, not for Google... even though it ends up being the same thing.