Should I Use Product Descriptions From My Suppliers Website?

This is a problem we encounter a lot with our clients here at Cozy Digital. When a client comes to populate their website with products, to save time they will just use the manufactures product description.

Now there are several reasons that this is not advisable both for SEO and usability. Google has a duplicate content filter in its algorithm that may stop webpage’s with the same content appearing in their search results. So if you have a product on your website with the exact same description as the manufacturer’s website then you can be assured that many other suppliers are doing the same.

Google does not want to return a list of pages to the user with the same content as this is not very helpful to the searcher. So what Google does is ignore pages that it deems as duplicates of an already existing page. So by copying your manufactures description this can make your pages invisible to the searcher.

The best thing to do in this instance is write original content for each of your products. This can put you ahead of the competition in the search engines as your pages won’t be the same as all the rest that just use the manufactures description.

If you would like to know more on duplicate content then please read What Is Duplicate Content, And What Does It Mean For My Website?.

How aware are you of the pitfalls of duplicate content? We would love to hear your comments, don’t be shy.

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About Graham Lyons

Graham is the SEO and Social Media Marketing Manager at Cozy Digital and the editor of the Cozy Digital Blog as well as contributing content for most of our social outlets like Facebook, Twitter and G+. Graham has been working in, and writing for the SEO / SMM industry since 2001 and is still as dedicated and passionate today as he was when he opened his first Website Design, Ecommerce and SEO company in 2004. You can connect with Graham and Cozy Digital via the social media links below:

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