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Saturday, December 6, 2008

How to Fix Duplicate Title Tags in Your New Blogger?

Lately I checked this blog's stats in Google Webmaster Tools account and found out that one comment has duplicate title tag with its original post. This is one of the drawbacks with New Blogger. Meanwhile Blogger has no offer of how to fix the problem. Having duplicate title tag is bad because it is not search engine friendly. Search engine such as Google will penalize your blog/website for having duplicate title tag. So I've been searching an answer for it on the Internet. Here is the solution that I've found for it:

  • Click on Layout/Edit HTML. Before you attempt to make any change, make sure you download your template by clicking on Download Full Template. See the screenshot below: Layout/Edit HTML/Backup Template

  • Tick Expand Widget Templates which is on top of the HTML editor. See below: Expand Widget Template
  • Search for the following codes in your HTML editor. You can hold Ctrl and hit F at the same time to bring up a search box, then copy and paste the codes to find them:
    <span class="comment-timestamp">
    <a href="data:comment.url" title="comment permalink">
    <data:comment.timestamp>
    </data:comment.timestamp></a>
    <b:include data="comment" name="commentDeleteIcon">
    </b:include>
    </span>
  • Replace the above codes with the following codes:

    <span class='comment-timestamp'>
    <script type='text/javascript'>
    document.write("&lt;a title='comment permalink' href='");
    </script>
    <data:comment.url/>'>

    <data:comment.timestamp/>
    <script type='text/javascript'>
    document.write("&lt;/a&gt;");

    </script>
    <b:include data='comment' name='commentDeleteIcon'/>
    </span>
  • Save your template by clicking on Save Template button which is at the bottom of your HTML editor.
The reason this method works is that it uses javascript. Search engines do not like javascript and will not crawl and execute its content. Thus comment will be treated as part of its original post.

I've just implemented this method with this New Blogger blog. I'll report back how it goes.

Update as of 12/15/2008: Good news. Today I log in to my Google Webmaster Tools account and click on Diagnostics/Content analysis, all my duplicate title tags are gone!

It says, "We didn't detect any content issues with your site. As we crawl your site, we check it to detect any potential issues with content on your pages, including duplicate, missing, or problematic title tags or meta descriptions. These issues won't prevent your site from appearing in Google search results, but paying attention to them can provide Google with more information and even help drive traffic to your site. For example, title and meta description text can appear in search results, and useful, descriptive text is more likely to be clicked on by users. More information"

So it's proven that the above method works.

Related article
Duplicate Title Tags/Meta Descriptions

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hey thanks, I did it - but you're missing a: ' on the first line :)

Lana said...

Thanks for visiting.
Just added ' on the first line. Thanks for that too. Glad I can help.

Eletrobuzz said...

hello i can't find the code i dont use original blogger template

Lana said...

Hi, may I ask what template you are using? Let me know. Maybe I can take a look for you.

eddie said...

hey, I changed the code and saved three weeks ago and it still hasn't updated. I dodn't know why?

Lana said...

Hi Eddie,
I don't know why it is not working for you. Maybe you have to double check those quotation marks. Sometimes they are ones that would cause the problem.

mgpelobello said...

Hi! I having trouble also with duplicate title tags.Duplicate title tags appear like this:

-http://godinspiredlyrics.blogspot.com/2012/07/commission-my-soul-lyrics-citipointe.html

-http://godinspiredlyrics.blogspot.com/2012/07/commission-my-soul-lyrics-citipointe.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+blogspot%2FgNTup+(GodInspiredLyrics.blogspot.com)

I can't figure it out what's causing the problem.Please help.Thank you so much

Unknown said...

thanks for sharing.., But I just install the commentluv plugin. Is it still the same

Lana said...

Hi Mark,
Did you follow the above instruction? and is it still not working? Please let me know.

Lana said...

Hi Kimsea,
Commentluv plugin is designed for people to comment and get more traffic. So it is not the same as fixing duplicate title tags with new Blogger.

Rajaditya said...

Hi Lanna,
I am frustrated with blogger, periodically facing the same problem since I started blogging on blogger platform. Now GWT showing following problems 1.Duplicate Meta descriptions 2. Missing title tags 3. Duplicate title tags.
Although I implemented new script and made changes as suggested by pro-bloggers and it worked fine for couple of days and again this problem started.

I read your article but did not find the script you mentioned in my blogger. Please help me to resolve above issues.

Thanks in advance.

Lana said...

It still works fine for this blog. I guess it is no harm of trying the above method. However make sure you download your template to your local PC just in case anything goes wrong.

rajaditya said...

But lanna as i told you, I did not find the above code in my blog template. Would you please favour me resolving the issue

Lana said...

This blog is using Minima Stretch template. What template are you using?

In general, your blog template should have comment section. I don't know why you can't find it.

How about trying to search the first line of the code instead of the whole thing?

Also don't forget to expand your template. The above code only shows after you tick next to Expand Widget Templates. Let me know how you are doing.

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