How different must two location/service pages be to avoid duplication?
- Published November 6, 2026
- Linked from 3 answers
- In a cluster of 9
Different enough that a reader in one place would learn something they could not get from the other page. There is no percentage that makes two pages distinct. The useful test is to delete the place names from both and compare what is left: if the two pages now say the same thing, they are one page published twice, whatever share of words differs. A shared layout and shared sections are fine; shared substance with a new name on top is not.
What has to differ, and what can be shared
| Can be shared across location pages | Has to be specific to each one |
|---|---|
| The page layout and section order | The real service area for that place, and an address only if a staffed branch exists there; a business serving several cities from one office should not invent local addresses or numbers |
| The description of how the service works | What is different about the service there: local rules, permits, conditions, prices |
| Company history, guarantees and policies | Where a branch exists: staff, opening hours, parking or access |
| A short block about the company | Work done in that area: projects, examples, photos |
| Navigation and the footer | Answers to questions people in that place ask |
A page made of the left column with a city name inserted is a template. A page that shares the left column and fills the right column with real detail is a location page.
Why “how different” is the wrong question
Google picks one page to show from a group of near-duplicates, so two pages that say the same thing compete for one place. But the larger concern is what the pages are for. Google’s spam policies describe doorway pages by their purpose, ranking for similar searches with pages that lead the visitor to the same place, not by a similarity score. A rewrite that changes every sentence but adds no local information leaves the pages different in wording and identical in what they offer.
Checking a set of pages
- Pick two location pages and remove the place names.
- Highlight every sentence that would be true on both.
- Count what remains on each page that is true only there.
- If that remainder is a line or two, decide whether the place deserves a page at all.
Before writing a set of city pages at all, ask whether one service page would serve better; when a single service page is better than separate city pages answers that. At larger scale the same problem becomes whether one template spun across many pages can ever index well. Make each page differ in what it tells the reader, not in how it is worded.
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