URLs with duplicate page titles
This means that the URL in question has the exact same page title as at least one other indexable URL.
Why is this important?
The title tag is considered one of the most important on-page SEO factors, and can help both users and search engines to quickly understand what content they can expect to find on the page.
If multiple pages have the same title, this can make it difficult for search engines to differentiate the 'best' page for a given search query, which can result in keyword cannibalization (multiple pages on your own site competing for the same search terms, and hurting each others' rankings).
Furthermore, if there are large scale duplicate content issues on the site, you could trip quality algorithms like Google's Panda, which can depress organic search traffic to the site as a whole.
What does the Hint check?
This Hint will trigger for any internal, indexable URL which has the exact same page title as at least one other internal, indexable URL.
Note: since the duplicate content check is only for indexable URLs, URLs which are canonicalized are not included in the analysis - as the canonical tag 'handles' the duplicate issue.
How do you resolve this issue?
Typically, duplicate titles are the result of either human error or a script error. The seriousness of the issue largely depends on the scale - in general, if only a few pages are affected, it is probably not affecting the site to any meaningful degree. If there are thousands of duplicates, however, the scale might be large enough to trigger a quality algorithm like Panda.
Depending on how page titles are configured, you may be able to easily fix them manually, or you may need the help of a developer in order to set unique page titles.
For example, you may have duplicate page titles on the product pages of a site that sells headphones. Instead of pulling through the product name into the page title (e.g. Apple AirPods), the script instead pulls through the subcategory name (e.g. Wireless Headphones) - so all the products end up with the exact same page title: 'Wireless Headphones.'
How do you get more data from Sitebulb?
Within Sitebulb you can either dig in to a specific URL and look at the duplicate content that way, or you can export all the duplicate content and sort in Excel.
To find details of the URLs with duplicate page titles for a specific URL, click on the blue URL Details button from the URL List.
The URL Details tab will slide across, and you then need to navigate to Duplicate Content -> Titles, and you'll see all the duplicate titles underneath.
To export ALL the duplicate title data, click on the green Export Hint Data button in the top right hand corner.
This will give you a nicely formatted Excel sheet showing you all the URLs with duplicate titles, allowing you to easily sort and pick through the data.
