Issue: Pages with very similar content (85% or more) are seen as duplicates, which can hurt your SEO. Google will typically only index one version, which may not be the page you want, and may penalize sites with duplicate content by lowering rankings or even banning them. Duplicate pages can also weaken your link authority.
Fix: Address duplicate content with one of these methods:
- Add a
rel="canonical"tag to one version to show Google which page to prioritize. - Use a 301 redirect from duplicates to the main page.
- For paginated content, add
rel="next"andrel="prev"tags. - In Google Search Console, set URL parameters to guide Google on how to treat similar pages.
- Add some unique content to each page to make them distinct.
Tip: Reducing duplicate content improves SEO by helping search engines focus on your preferred pages.