Content causes search engines to consider two or more pages to be relevant to the same search term

  • Article

These rules identify content or markup that may cause search engines to report that more than one page is relevant to a search term.

Duplicate content overview

Duplicate content is content or code that is relevant to search-engine analysis but that occurs in one or more pages. This may cause all affected pages to be displayed in search-engine results, instead of only the most appropriate page for the search term. Additionally, search engines may analyze the affected pages as having content so similar that the search engines omit them from results altogether.

The Microsoft Expression Web SEO Checker evaluates your site using a subset of known search-engine behavior patterns.

Duplicate-content problems

The Expression Web SEO Checker detects and reports the following conditions.

The title is not unique

The <title> tag is the most important tag that the site developer controls that can influence the relevance and ranking of a site in search-engine results. The <title> tags help differentiate sites in search-engine results. A unique, accurate, and descriptive title can improve the click-through volume to the site.

For more information, see WEB1052 - The <title> tag contents are not unique within the site.

The description for this page is not unique

Because search engines typically display the content of the <meta name="description"> tag in search results, each page should have a single, unique description that accurately reflects the contents of the page.

For more information, see WEB1028 - The <meta name="description"> tag contents are not unique within the site.

All hyperlink URLs should be both lowercase and formatted identically.

For more information, see WEB1053 - The URL in the hyperlink is not lowercase.

A URL that points to a directory should end with a slash mark (/)

Each URL that points to a directory in a site should end with a slash mark (/).

For more information, see WEB1018 - Hyperlinks that point to a directory should end in a slash (/).

A hyperlink should not include an ASP.NET, PHP, or JSession session ID.

For more information, see WEB1015 - The hyperlink contains a session ID.

A hyperlink should not end in an ampersand character (&) for a page that doesn't have a query string parameter.

For more information, see WEB1016 - The hyperlink ends in an ampersand.

The anchor is not formatted consistently

All anchors should be formatted consistently.

For more information, see WEB1054 - The anchor is not formatted consistently.

See also

Concepts

SEO rules
SEO concepts
Content is not where search engines expect to find it
Content or markup follows patterns that may be associated with deceptive practices
Content or markup interferes with the ability of search engines to analyze a page
Content or markup reduces the appeal of a page in search-engine results
Content or markup blocks search engines from analyzing your site

Send feedback about this topic to Microsoft. © 2011 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.