SEO
Preventing duplicate content in WordPress
13 December 2024 · 4 min read
Duplicate content is content that appears on multiple URLs within or outside your website. This confuses search engines and can lead to lower rankings. WordPress has some characteristics that can cause duplicate content, but fortunately there are solutions.
At WP Maintainer we install measures against duplicate content as standard for all our clients. In this article we explain the causes and solutions.
Causes of duplicate content in WordPress
**1. Category and tag archives** WordPress shows posts both on the post page itself and in category and tag archives. This creates overlapping content.
**2. Author pages** Author pages often show the same posts as category pages.
**3. Pagination** /page/2/, /page/3/ etc. show the same structure as the main page.
**4. Print versions** Some plugins create separate URLs for print-friendly versions.
**5. WWW vs non-WWW** www.example.com and example.com show the same content.
**6. HTTP vs HTTPS** http:// and https:// versions are technically different URLs.
**7. Parameters in URLs** ?utm_source=newsletter, ?fbclid= etc. create duplicate content.
Solutions
Check for duplicate content
WP Maintainer solution
We configure canonical tags, noindex rules and redirects as part of our SEO maintenance. We ensure search engines index each page only once and that the correct version is displayed.