A few months ago, I noticed that the BBC website is now labelling content that they no longer update with ‘just to let you know, we’re no longer updating this page’.

As the BBC Internet Blog explains, this is so they can keep old web pages live and available online without the need to keep them updated.

This works especially well for pages about TV programmes so fans can still view the page long after the programme was broadcast.

Duplicate content and SEO

However, they are also using the ‘just to let you know’ banner on content that has moved to other sections on the website. As well as being confusing for users, this is also bad for their search engine optimisation (SEO) because it creates duplicate content (the same or similar content on two or more pages on your site).

For example, the BBC has duplicate content at the following URLs:

• http://www.bbc.co.uk/health/sexual_health/contr_index.shtml – new content
• http://www.bbc.co.uk/relationships/sex_and_sexual_health/contr_index.shtml – old content with ‘just to let you know’ banner

And a search for ‘contraception bbc’ in Google still lists the old content in the top ranking. This means that Google doesn’t know the page has moved. And, if it does index the new content, it still considers the old content as the most important.

More importantly, its users aren’t getting up-to-date information.

Sorting out duplicate content

Sometimes, duplicate content can be a real pain to sort out, especially if you have content repeated in places like ‘printer friendly’ pages or on multiple domains (for example, co.uk and .com).

And if you’re having a site redesign and moving pages as in this example on the BBC website, you or your SEO company will need to set up 301 redirects. This will ensure that search engines find your new pages. It also tells them to the content has permanently moved so they know to update their databases with the new URL.

Your users will also seamlessly get redirected to your new pages and won’t have to update their bookmarks.