Duplicate Content Issue - Strange Behaviour of Google.

[gtwlabs]

Hello Webmaster,

By doing research i found something that is outofbox for me...check this links below...

1)http://cnn-cnet.com.com/gps/navigon-...-33384665.html

2)http://reviews.cnet.com/gps/navigon-...-33384665.html

Both links have same identical content on page ..when you search for that specific keyword "Navigon 8100T portable reviews" both link rank 2 and 5 on google.com why google didn't take as duplicate content...

waiting for your feedbacks!

Regards,
Rex

[felisha]

My knowledge in SEO is not that great but I encountered problems like yours gtwlabs. Me too is wondering bout that issue.. I can see your given URLs were both last crawled 17 Dec 2008, still fresh so i doubt google would penalize one of them as quickly as now.. But im hoping i can see ranking changes for these two sites in the coming days.. Can anyone explain to us regarding gtwlabs problem? I hope AussieWebmaster has a better explanation for this one.

[jimbeetle]

That's one of the failings of Google's duplicate content filter. The way it basically works is to examine the titles and snippets of the candidate results on the fly as they are being served. So, if two possible results have the same title and snippet, the lower ranked one will be moved to the next results page.

In this case the titles and snippets are different enough that the duplicate content filter doesn't kick in.

Google also as other stuff going on to suss out dupe content. If you search for a particular phrase from that review...

[""Panorama 3D view doesn't display street names""]

...you get the "similar results" blurb with the repeat the search with the omitted results included link.

Bottom line is that while G's dupe detection is good, it's not great.

[BasicECommerce]

The content is the same, but there are subtle changes. Link #2 has navigation above the search bar while Link #1 does not. Since this is at the top of the page (and pages are crawled top to bottom), it may sneak under the radar for a bit.

Also, Google is more likely to reward fresh new content immediately than it is to punish fresh new duplicate content immediately. First reward, then punish for persistent duplicate content.

Just a thought. Looking forward to other people's opinions.

-BEC

[AussieWebmaster]

I also think the subdomains show them as different and then the algorithm may be tweaked for content reviews and products.... numbers not looked at like words - the different navs throw some off.... the fact they are coming from sites that may have an overall high trust rank may also get them a pass for duplicate content