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I've always thought that having duplicate content within a site is a bad thing for SEO. However, after doing some research I found that Google doesn't have a penalty for having duplicate content and the only downside is how links are shown in the search engines.

So my question is, If i have the product page under www.example.com/products/walls/product-page.html and www.example.com/products/floors/product-page.html will this have a negative effect on my rankings?

As the product page is relevant to both walls and floors, it makes sense to have them under separate URLs.

Shaun
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Duplicate content does carry penalties. Even if you manage to have two pages that are indexed, which search engines are likely to consolidate and only show 1 page for, you're still competing against yourself for the same search term.

It's better to have a single page with multiple ways to get there. It depends on your platform/CMS, but some platforms allow you to create a single product detail page and list it in multiple product categories. In this way you have a single URL but it can be drilled down to multiple ways - I think the benefit you're really referencing is it makes sense for customers to be able to get to the one page through multiple paths, not necessarily that two separate URLs are helpful.

Yes, having two completely separate product pages - two unique URLs - will hurt you in the long run, because eventually search engines will see they're duplicate and only return one for search results. You also have an internal management problem that when you update one product (price, etc.) you'll have to remember to also update the second product.

WebElaine
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