Mirroring and duplicate content

Avoid duplicate content

Please try to avoid duplicating content throughout your web pages. Do not copy and paste large amounts of content from one webpage to another. This goes for webpages you own (on our website), but also for external webpages. Copying and pasting from external websites is not only bad for SEO (Search Engine Optimisation), but also has many legal implications with regards to copyright and intellectual property.

Why is duplicate content so bad?

Duplicate content is discouraged because it can be seen as spam by Google and other search engines - a "black hat" Search Engine Optimisation tactic to reach the top of the search engine rankings. If our content is detected as spam, our website will suffer in terms of search engine rankings. Our goal is to rank highly (be at the top of the search engine results pages) when a user conducts a university-related search using university-related criteria (keywords). See our Search Engine Optimisation section for a more detailed explanation.

How can I avoid the need for duplicate content?

Sometimes, you can avoid the need for duplicate content simply by re-writing the text for your audience. For example, you may want to provide some information to undergraduates and the same information to postgraduates. It would be impractical to put the information in the undergraduate section and simply link to it from the postgraduate section. This is bad for usability, as it would take the user completely out of the section they are in and they would not be able to follow the breadcrumb trail to find their way back. Needless to say, it would also be quite confusing for the user. In this case, it would be better to re-write the content completely for each audience. Or at the very least, place the content in a neutral section such as "Current students" and signpost to it from both the Undergraduate and Postgraduate sections.

When mirroring is acceptable...

There may be occasions where you will have a genuine need to duplicate content on the website. For example, there may be a university news story that would be very relevant to have on your area of the website. You would not want to take the user away from your section, so signposting is out of the question. In this case, mirroring would be acceptable. We are currently in the process of revamping the main university news area to bypass the need for mirroring/ duplicate content.

Mirroring vs. duplicating

There are two options within T4 for duplicating content. There is an option to mirror and an option to duplicate. Please do not use "duplicate". Duplicating will simply make an exact copy of the content. Mirroring on the other hand, replicates the content and if the content is updated, all versions of the content will be automatically updated to reflect these changes. Basically, a change to one version of the mirrored content will mean that all versions are changed. We are also able to keep track of mirrored content more easily. 

How to mirror news stories...

In order to mirror content from the main university news area, you will need T4 access to this section. If you are unable to see a "News" section under "The University of Huddersfield" in Site Structure view, please email hudsweb@hud.ac.uk to request access to the news section.

Once you have access, navigate to the correct sub-section (Featured news, University news, Research news, Careers News, International news) and click on it.

Navigate to the "content" tab and locate the news story that you would like to mirror.

Hover over the yellow arrow for the selected news story and click "Mirror".

You will immediately be taken to Site Structure view - do not click on anything yet. Take note of the change in text at the very top of the screen - "Mirror content. Choose detination". Clicking any folder at this point will immediately place the mirrored version of the news story in that section.

Have a think about where you need the news story to go. Carefully navigate to it using the "+" and "-" icons to expand and collapse the sections. Click on the section where you would like the story to go. You will now be taken back to the news area where the original story is located.

If you have accidentally clicked on the wrong section, don't panic! Try to remember which section you have accidentally mirrored the story into and email hudsweb@hud.ac.uk. We should be able to find out where the news story is mirrored to and remove it where it is not required. There is no approval stage to mirroring a live news story - as it has already been approved. Therefore if you do not let us know, the news story will appear on the wrong webpage (likely to be completely out of context) after the next render cycle.

Click on "Content" at the very top of the screen (grey navigation bar) and select Site Structure to return to Site Structure view.

Navigate to where you have just mirrored the news story to, to check that it has worked. You should be able to see the mirrored news story on your list of content for your section (under the content tab).

The content will have a small red snowflake icon next to it, indicating that it is mirrored. If you hover over this icon, a tooltip will appear showing where else the story is mirrored on the site.

You may wish to shuffle the order of the content items on the page. Use the arrows under "Move" in the content tab to re-order the content items if need be and don't forget to click "Save changes".

You won't need to approve the mirrored content, because it will already be live. Check the status of the mirrored news story - it should already be approved. Your webpage will be updated after the next hourly render cycle to reflect these changes.

I want to mirror a content item that is not a news story...

If you feel that you need to use mirroring on your webpages for content other than for a news story, please email hudsweb@hud.ac.uk before you mirror the content. There may be a way to avoid mirroring in this case - so please speak to a member of the web/ e-marketing team before you do this. We need to avoid mirroring and duplicate content as much as we can. As mentioned above, our news story area is currently being revamped - so will eliminate the need for mirroring.

Please also see our mirroring and duplicate content policy.