Ask Yoast: how to handle duplicate content

Question: How do you handle duplicate content if you sell products on multiple channels (Etsy, Ebay, etc.) do descriptions vary greatly?"

Answer: “The honest answer, and you’re not going to like this, is: yes. You cannot simply copy those descriptions to 3 or 4 different platforms and expect those to do anything in the search results for you. If you’re optimizing your Etsy pages, your eBay pages etc, then you really should write unique descriptions for each and every platform that you sell this product on. Even if the product is the same product. So if you want all of these pages to rank in the search results, you’ll actually have to write specific descriptions for each platform, even though it’s the same product. It’s a lot of work, but that’s what it takes. Good luck!”

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