Imagine that the same page is available at three different URLs:

  1. domain.com/page/
  2. domain.com/page/?utm_content=buffer&utm_medium=social
  3. domain.com/category/page/”.

Duplicate Content: The Complete Guide for Beginners

Ahrefs

Content is one of the most important elements in your Internet marketing efforts. What makes your content unique, likable and popular is its originality and usefulness.

On the other side, duplicate content can spoil your efforts faster than you can think.

Ahrefs’ Joshua Hardwick has published a guide for beginners titled ‘Duplicate Content: The Complete Guide for Beginners’.

Hardwick says, “Google states that most duplicate content is not deceptive in origin.

Why is duplicate content bad for SEO?

Duplicate content may harm your SEO performance for a few reasons.

  1. Undesirable or unfriendly URLs in search results;
  2. Backlink dilution;
  3. Burns crawl budget;
  4. Scraped or syndicated content outranking you.

Let’s explore these in more depth.

1. Undesirable or unfriendly URLs in search results

Imagine that the same page is available at three different URLs:

  1. domain.com/page/
  2. domain.com/page/?utm_content=buffer&utm_medium=social
  3. domain.com/category/page/”.

Duplicate Content: The Complete Guide for Beginners

Ahrefs

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