How to handle duplicate listings
July 21st, 2008When your consumer review website grows beyond a certain size you may find that your users inadvertently add duplicate listings. This could be because folks are having a hard time searching through all your listings or it could just be that they didn’t even bother to search to see if a listing already exists before posting. In either case, it’s important to deal with duplicate content quickly and properly, particularly if your site is set up for user reviews.
When a site contains duplicate listings it gives users the impression that the site is not being actively managed and this makes them less inclined to add a review. Duplicate listings also make it tough to determine which one is the “right” listing where new reviews should be posted. Once reviews have been posted to both listings, neither is “complete” and the confusion grows.
It’s important to make it easy for your site manager to find and deal with duplicate listings quickly. Review App, for example, gives administrators the option to be notified whenever new listings are posted so they can double-check the uniqueness of the listing. Administrators can choose to either delete a listing or temporarily remove it from the public site for further review.
In some cases managers may wish to “convert” duplicate listings into a review of the original listing. For singletracks.com we created a custom tool that takes all the content associated with a duplicate listing (photos, reviews, wishlist entries, etc.) and reassigns that content to the original listing. Using this function singletracks is able to keep categories clean while avoiding potential duplicate content issues.
Consumer review website managers should create a duplicate content plan early on to ensure a clean and useful web experience for every visitor. Web based tools make dealing with duplicate listings quick and easy - be prepared!
