Wordpress, How do I Prevent Duplicate Content Penalty?

[wsue]

An advertiser was kind enough to point out an issue with my blog... yet I haven't a clue how to resolve it.

Here is what she shared with me...

"You should edit your website's robots.txt file and put this text:

Disallow: /page/

It will save your site from duplicate content penalty. You can experiment by searching this on google:

"Being sick is never enjoyable; it’s uncomfortable and also expensive to buy a whole list of medicines. Added to that, being sick with the cold or flu,


There are four results:

single post page
tag page
archive page
and page/2 result

Same content is showing again and again and this causes duplication penalty."

Does anyone know if there's a quick fix for this? What would be the least intrusive way to remedy the problem. Keep in mind, I have no idea how to access my robots.txt file nor do I feel comfortable trying to learn! lol My luck I'd make things worse.

Thanks in advance for any help you all may be able to provide!
~Wendy

[Michael Levanduski]

Honestly, I wouldn't worry about it. The so-called duplicate content punishment isn't really what many people make it out to be.

You've got the same content in 4 places, but in 3 of the 4 it is just the beginning of the full post. Google & the other search engines are 'smart' enough to be able to see what is happening here. In addition, having the 'intro text' listed in those other locations is beneficial to the reader, because they will be able to see what the article is about before clicking. Google loves a good user experience, so they aren't going to punish you for it.

If you are still worried about it, i'm sure there are word press plugins which can help to adjust the robots.txt file, but if it were me, I wouldn't do anything.

Michael

[MikeF0421]

The advertiser that told you that is an idiot and has no idea what she is talking about. If you don't believe me, how many times do you think the same product descriptions show up on products for Amazon.com? They seem to be ranking just fine.

Like Michael said above, it's really not something you need to worry about.

Plus, most Wordpress themes these days are using the rel="canonical" tag on content. If you are using that, you will never have to worry about duplicate content. If you are not using that, there are plenty of Wordpress plugins that will do it for you.

If you are not sure if you are using it or not, pull up one of your blog posts. Then check out the source code of that page. Do a search for

rel="canonical"

If you see that tag, your site is using it.

[wsue]

Thanks guys! So appreciate your wisdom on this issue... or perhaps nonissue.