Dynamic URLs and "Duplicate" Content

A client I work for is changing their site layout and structure. I learned about this today (Friday) and they are going live with it on Monday. I guess I wasn't part of the "Web Team" that had meetings on this earlier in the month.

What it is Now: Currently they pull pages from a database that I've been helping be optimized page by page, and their
URLs look like this domain.com/products/?pid=325 ...
Google seems to index these just fine and each page has a unique URL while getting a PageRank of the domain.com/products/ URL. Which makes every URL a notch under the domain.com URL PageRank. OK that's all fine.

What they are changing to:
Their new structure is going to list three different sections, and the appropriate products will be under their correct section.
But some products overlap sections (aka could fit into multiple sections).

So this makes their new URLs look like this ... domain.com/products/?sec=1&pid=325

So the overlapping products can have a URL of
domain.com/products/?sec=1&pid=325
AND
domain.com/products/?sec=3&pid=325

The same product can be in up to 4 different sections, that's 4 URLs!
These show the same main content, but the sidebars and some graphics are different to show that you are in a different section.

What I'm Worried About:
1) Will this split up the "relevance" of the page? ... Say if domain.com/products/?pid=325 is number one for it's search phrase and only barely squeeks ahead of the #2 spot will this new URL structure split the "relevance" of this one URL/Page into 2 because there are 2 URLs/Pages within the domain that have the same "guts" of what was one URL/Page before? Thus making this product page drop in ranking?

2) Duplicate content?? ... Google can understand these are dynamic pages and not duplicate content right? It seems like this would be fairly common to do within a domain right? I mean some content is relevant to the user within different sections of a domain.
AND/OR am I completely wrong and Google only cares about different domain names with duplicate content?

3) If #1 is correct and Google will split the relevancy is there a way to fix/get rid of the sec=1 variable? Mod Rewrite?
Have the server recognize where the user is coming from (what section) and display that sections content? Or is that way too much of a server load?

4) Of course I am worried and find it inevitable, about Google dropping our rankings because those old URLs that are in GG's index now wont be there anymore. Should they redirect to their appropriate new pages? Or let Google find it on it's own?

Am I worried for no reason?
Is there anything I can do to help smooth this out?
Please advise.

I hope this all made sense and didn't detour you from reading because its so long. I also wasn't sure if this should have been in a different forum section or not. If Shawn deems it should please move for me. Thanks!

Thanks in Advance to everyone.

 

Hi SGH,

Firstly, the more important aspect - replacing old content with new.
Redirects are a good idea. These tell G that your content has moved to the new URL's. Unless you have PR 6 or more, you should always tell G where your changes are if you want reindexing in a timely manner.

Secondly the number of args in a url. It's popular belief that G will index with up to 2 args, however I believe this is a function of how popular the site is. ie - there are PR3 sites that will *eventually* be fully indexed with 2 or more args, while there are pr7 sites that are reindexed daily (with args) - SO, the best way to get around this is with mod_rewrite. It's freely available to use so I see it as pointless *not* using it.

Content - Google doesn't care how the content comes about - if it's duplicate, it's duplicate. The trick to duplicate content (ie scenarios such as directories where a degree of duplication becomes inevitable) is to keep code to content ratios low, (ie css can help there) and of course to use content combinations. Sometimes, less is more. For example, a page with three lines of text on it requires only 1 line to change, and reordering of the other 2. This makes for original content as far as G is concerned (at least in my experience). Of course, just a few lines is not practical, so a balance is required.

At the very least, if you're going to have the same content in different areas/paths, ensure the titles, and on page SEO reflect the section along with the title.

Hope it's helped.

Cheers,

JL.

 

Hi john_loch and thanks for replying.

The more I think about it I realize redirects don't seem like a bad idea at all. Does anybody know what Google says officially about redirects and their proper use?

The site has a PR of 7 and the product pages are PR6. So Google visits quote often. Thankfully. New products seem to be searchable in about 3 days.

The site is PR7 so I have a good feeling Google will index them fine. After a nice long deep crawl.

So this is a trick? I guess code to content sounds reasonable, but it doesn't seem to make sense in my head. Why would this make it OK to Google?

Duplicate content isn't so much my worry as much as the splitting of the weight for the same content/page that is located in different sections of the site. ie, different URLs.

Say we have a popular product in section 1 & 3 and the URLs are ...
URL 1 = domain.com/products/?sec=1&pid=325
AND
URL 2 = domain.com/products/?sec=3&pid=325
respectively.

On the old site the URL would be domain.com/products/?pid=325

Now what happens when 30% of the other domains link to URL 1 and 70% link to URL 2?
Will Google see URL 2 as more relevant then URL 1 (eventhough they have the same content?) but only 70% as much compared to the old URL?

That's what I'm worried about.

Do I have to do this?
The product is the same for both sections. It still has the same name and the same functions. It's just being displayed in a different section of the site.

Say one section is for General Consumers and another is for Broadband Consumers. If I was to change the on page SEO and titles what would that accomplish?
Oh and besides the content is the same, ie. they (both sections) pull the main centent from the same database entry (ie. pid=325) but the surrounding content (left nav and right ads) are different in each section. So if I changed the main content it would change on both sections, and if I was to change the surrounding content to optimize for that product it would change that sections for ALL products in that section.

Make sense?

Thanks for your help.

- Sean

 

Hi again,

OK Redirects. G is fine with redirects. Reason being they play a legitimate role in website management, and are standards based etc. If you look at the specification for a 301 redirect, you'll find the server responds with the term '301 Moved Permanently'.

So you really have nothing to worry about, it's a standard site management practice as defined here.

Next up the duplicate content.. i used the term 'trick' as a manner of speech. There's nothing untoward about it. It's just that sometimes duplicate content IS appropriate, but G tries to prevent it happening regardless. I understand what you're saying now though regarding the content, and I suspect you'll be fine (combined section/product content).

The reason I suggested adjusting titles etc was because it clearly declares the variation on content when on a % basis it may appear similar. But it's up to you.. it may not prove necessary as your site is popular anyway, and there may be enough section based content to ensure it doesn't look duplicated.

You also mention the differing IBL% to different pages (URLs) and how peacemeal, the best of the two may be less relevant than the original (which we'll call 100%), hence a fall in SERPS.

It's impossible to tell how you'll fare here, because each page now has additional content. Moreover, internal linkage will play a significant role as well.

I wish i could give you an answer, but it sounds like you're neck & neck with your competitors - it may only take a minor change..

I think most will tell you the same thing - it's going to come down to trial and error. The good thing is - you're frequently indexed. If it doesn't work, your wait is only days, not months, before you can see it and make changes.

Cheers,

JL

 

I guess this is a pretty specific and special occurance that not many people talk about in the forums. Maybe some of these aspects in one thread or another, but not so many variables.

It will be hard to understand what happens when it does happen, so maybe if I report here about what I see it will help others.

Thanks for your help and I can only wait and see what happens so we can react if needed.