I have 2 duplicate content pages so i need suggestio

Selected answers from the Dumb SEO Questions Facebook & G+ community.

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  Gaur Jai (Rhaul): Truely voice is not clear so i can not understand much. can you please tell me final suggestion from them
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  Gaur Jai (Rhaul): helo friends. now i have done almost all migration of old urls to new and almost now very few duplicate left. i had multiple copy of data by mistake using rewrite url and i remove all or migrate or 301 to new url system and take care of duplicate content now. also i remove all old urls from sitemap and added few new important and notice google crawl all new pages but have few old too. But today i notice my revenue goes too much down. if my revenue was 30$ per day then now today its only 4$. what you think the recovery will take few months and this happen when we work with duplicate content ? or why its still down. google take time to recover? please guide me i am very tense
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  Jim Munro: Hello Gaur Jai (Rhaul). Have you rigorously tested your 301 redirects from the old URL to the replacement URL? Prior to 301 did you use rel=canonical from your old pages to new pages? BTW as much as I would like to see you spend more time on this site, we do not have a system in place for subsequent and followup questions. I recommend asking followups as new questions on the SEO Questions community where they will receive greater visibility. The link to the community is on the right hand menu of this page.
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  Jim Munro: Is it too late to rollback and restart the normalisation of your url structure at a more leisurely pace? Sure you`ll have duplicate content in the interim but you can address that over time.and it won`t reduce your income by 85%.
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  Gaur Jai:  ;Hello
  
  I find that i have 2 pages for same content and one is using query string like site.com/page=delhi and one is site.com/page/delhi/
  
  Now what i am thinking to make my all url structure properly like site.com/page-delhi/
  
  the issue is already have 2 duplicate content page so i need suggestion
  
  if i redirect using 301 permanent redirect
  
  site.com/page=delhi and one is site.com/page/delhi/
  
  to new good url structure page
  
  site.com/page-delhi/
  
  Is it good idea? What you suggest me in this case. i study net alot but facing issue in multiple redirect to same page
  
  Thanks
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  SEMXE: use 301 redirect and canonical tag as well +Gaur Jai ;
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  Dave Elliott: just canonicalise to ;site.com/page/delhi/. i doubt you'll be able to 301 as it is likely to cause a weird loop and not load anything. I could be wrong on the last point though
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  SEMXE: +Dave Elliott ;the reason he requires a 301 redirect is he is creating a new url structure which will create a third type of that same page.
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  Dave Elliott: ahh okay, fair enough then. I missed that. Thought both urls already exited. Your advice was correct then!
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  Gaur Jai: i have 2 questions. please check. i use only 301 redirect for both pages to new page
   ;
  1. i have many multiple pages using query strings so now i am using PHP or ASP 301 to redirect but anyhow i am redirecting using 301 only. but my question was different. i asked if i redirect 2 duplicate pages to 3rd new pages which url strucutre will be good then is it ok? If i redirect 2 pages to new 1 page then how google will distribute the SEO to new 3rd page? My one old page have PR 1 and second have PR 0. also how many days will take to recover my site – ; Arman Malik 37 mins ago  ;
  
  2. how google will calculate the seo juice. my one page have 0 pr and another 1 then which one google will prefer. and also u think if i remove most of duplicate pages and fix url structure then it will make my seo strong and fix my traffic drooping issues
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  Edwin Jonk: Keep in mind that the PR we see comes from Google's Toolbar and this toolbar only gives 0-10 [1]. The PR used internally by Google is 0-1.
  
  Although PR1 and PR0 seems like a big gab it doesn't have to. Namely it can mean that the PR1 page is just over PR1 and that the PR0 is just under PR1. Furthermore the difference between PR0 and PR1 is not that large because PR is algorithmic meaning that the difference between PR1 and PR2 can be like 10 times bigger then the difference between PR0 and PR1. That is the higher the PR the harder it is to go to a higher PR.
  
  [1] I think it was topped at 8, meaning the toolbar will not show a PR9 even if the page is a PR9
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  Gaur Jai: so at the end of day if i change my old querystrig url to new good url structure then its good idea and also if i redirect 2 pages to 1 new page is good idea?
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  Gaur Jai: Hello friends How are you
  
  I am redesigning my complete site url structure and our website is very big. i need some suggestions from you
  
  We have a job site and jobs by categories not much important as keyword job search
  
  So what you suggest i should place all keywords under category structure?
  
  For example (Note we have all jobs for fresher only so fresher is most imp keyword for us)
  
  We have a job for Java fresher professional then i am doing following structure
  
  by keyword only
  
  site.com/java-fresher-jobs/
  
  by keyword and city (Delhi is city)
  
  site.com/java-fresher-jobs-delhi/
  
  likewise every keyword will have multiple cities and so all will follow this structure
  
  Do you think this is good structure?
  
  i am not cincidring category jobs as priority
  
  Also i was most considered about no-follow to pages which not exists and low quality content so what i did
  
  I place nofollow if job not exists and also if a keyword have less than 2 jobs then will also not indexd
  
  Do you think this is good idea to keep quality less pages? as my site will have less pages but will have quality pages
  
  I need your suggestion for best url structure
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  Edwin Jonk: okay... Is your question about PageRank or about moving to a new CMS?
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  Edwin Jonk: From the expert panel in this weeks SEO Questions hangout on air on 00:52:31 into the YouTube video: https://dumbseoquestions.com/q/i_have_2_duplicate_content_pages_so_i_need_suggestion +Gaur Jai
  
  The cuetimes listed on this page are functional while the live broadcast continues and also once Youtube has finished processing the public broadcast. Processing time varies between 6-24 hours. During this period the clip is viewable in full but the cuetimes cannot be relied on.
  
  If our assistance with this issue was useful to you, please consider sharing your success story so that others might benefit.
  
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  Unipro Education Pvt. Ltd - Digital Marketing Agency: If this issue is coming by category options or tag option you can use canonical tag.If you later updated the URL structure there may be chance the previous version of that URL is indexed. You can use 301 permanent redirect if the page is old or ranking well otherwise use URL removal option from webmaster tool.
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  Gaur Jai: hello edwin
  
  thanks to put my question in video. i feel the answer in video is suggested to keep 1 old url. correct
  
  but now i have already redirect 2 old to 1 new :) and its already done many 3 days back
  
  What you suggest me now
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  Gaur Jai: helo friends. now i have done almost all migration of old urls to new and almost now very few duplicate left. i had multiple copy of data by mistake using rewrite url and i remove all or migrate or 301 to new url system and take care of duplicate content now. ; also i remove all old urls from sitemap and added few new important and notice google crawl all new pages but have few old too. But today i notice my revenue goes too much down. if my revenue was 30$ per day then now today its only 4$. what you think the recovery will take few months ; and this happen when we work with duplicate content ? or why its still down. google take time to recover? please guide me i am very tense
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  Jim Munro: Hello Gaur Jai (Rhaul). I don't think it's too late to roll back and restart the normalisation of your url structure at a more leisurely pace. Sure you`ll have duplicate content in the interim but you can address that over time and it won`t reduce your revenue by 85%.
  
  I think that prior to 301, you should use rel=canonical from your old pages to new pages until googlebot is less interested in the old pages, and after implementing 301, ;rigorously test your 301 redirects from the old URL to the replacement URL until you are certain that all are working. ;
  
  I know these guys are busy so I'm not sure if any one of them will have time to assist you at all but I will tag them just in case. Good luck, mate. ;+Dave Elliott ;+Alistair Lattimore ;+Eric Wu ;
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  Gaur Jai: the problem is JIm i have already done 301 for most of old pages as i construct new url structure. so what you think is it a mistake to do multiple but same content pages 301 to new 1 url structure page?
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  Jim Munro: I'll be guided by others, I am not an expert, +Gaur Jai ;but the plan should work to improve your income, not remove it.
  
  Subject to what others say, if you made these redirects three days ago and today your income is significantly down, I think you could safely drop the 301 redirects and revert back to the way you were. I am assuming that the  ;original pages will not 404 and guessing that there have been mistakes made in the 301 implementation.
  
  You could leave the new urls you have just created in place and put rel=canonical on the old pages pointing to their new page then implement 301 slowly, one step at a time.
  
  I don't think it is "a mistake to do multiple but same content pages 301 to new 1 url structure page". I think that's a good idea but it sounds like something has gone wrong somewhere.
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  Eric Wu: Ok, I just skimmed the issues but here's my take.
  
  You have 2 options:
  
  1. Remove the 301s, add a canonical to the new clean URL that you desire. Since it's the same "physical" page, even if it's accessible by 100 different URLs, it'll still have the same canonical. ;
  
  Then follow Jim's instructions of letting the page sit, and monitor your analytics. Once the organic traffic has migrated from old URLs to new clean URL, then implement the 301 redirect. ;
  
  2. Leave everything as is, and over the next 1-6 months (depending on your crawl rate) you'll eventually recover most of your lost organic search traffic.
  
  Option 1 is probably what I'd go with since I'd rather retain current revenue then wait. However, if your crawl rate is rather high, then you might not have to wait long so the additional dev work to "undo" might not be worth it. That's a business decision at that point.
  
  side note: Keyword phrases and "depth" of directory structures doesn't have any bearing on an significant SEO value. You shouldn't be overly obsessed with changing your URLs or reducing the query parameters unless you've actually identified a problem with how Googlebot is crawling your site.
  
  If you haven't data mined your access logs (or this idea sounds foreign to you), then you're spending your time "optimizing" when you really might not need to.
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  Jim Munro: Thank you, +Eric Wu ;, I appreciate your interest. :)
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  Gaur Jai: Thanks for advice but its little bit confusion in your 1 line
  
  "Remove the 301s, add a canonical to the new clean URL that you desire"
  
  You mean i remove 301 from old pages and add canonical of new page? Correct?
  
  301 can harm my seo ranking? What you think as i read both 301 and canonical passes the link seo juice then what basically is difference between if we put 301 from multiple old new page to 1 new page?
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  Jim Munro: You are best advised to pay close attention to every word that Eric wrote for you. He has skills and experience in this area. His method is generally acknowledged by the SEO community to be the most reliable path.
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  Eric Wu: +Jim Munro lol thx. I'm humbled. 
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  Gaur Jai: Eric sir i already read your valuable suggestion. actually i already did 301 to all old multiple pages to new one 4 days back. so you think its good idea to now rollback and add canonical? Just advice me as i redirect 3 multiple same content pages to new 1 page 4 days ago so what finally i should do. U give a final suggestion to me
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  Jim Munro: Eric's already given a final answer, +Gaur Jai ;. It's here: "Option 1 is probably what I'd go with since I'd rather retain current revenue then wait. However, if your crawl rate is rather high, then you might not have to wait long so the additional dev work to "undo" might not be worth it. That's a business decision at that point."
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  Gaur Jai: one more note in my above reply : What you think how many months will take to recover my site from this bad effect?
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  Gaur Jai: jim i just want to know should i roll back and add canonical after 4 days of 301 redirection of multiple pages to 1 or now let ie be like this
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  Jim Munro: Depending on googlebot's rate of visiting your site, maybe googlebot isn't even aware of most of the 301's implemented yet, but given that your income has tanked since you did it, it's clear that something sub-optimal has occurred.
  
  Do whatever you think is best, my conscience is clear now. :)
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  Gaur Jai: hello jim and eric. thanks and i 100% understand your concern and i also agree.
  
  Now read my this reply carefuly please as i find something interesting in my site.
  
   ;I did a research in my stats. revenue and traffic. i find one interesting thing. my revenue and traffic both was starting going down after 24th of Sept. 2014 and i started 301 after 2nd of Oct.
  
  I find after i did 301 my revenue was down but constant after 24th of oct. . that means my site was hit by panda duplicate content issue after 24th of Sept. so i am sure its hit by panda content algo. now in india now a days festivals are going on and most of colleges students are not in college and our site traffic revenue depend on students most of. and also on Saturday Sunday mostly revenue and traffic decrease to 50% always so this is natural today. so now i have to wait till 1 more week as i feel panda recovery is not easy. Now after research i find following issues with my site traffic down
  
  1. My site was hit by google panda duplicate content algo . It was also hit to me in 2011 to 2013 but then i did lot of duplicate content remove and i recovered by now again i hit but this time i found duplicate url issues so its natural to hit to me
  
  2. I also did one wrong thing which i personal feel was really wrong . I have a job site so mostly job is search by keyword. When no keyword found then i put noindex on that search result page . But that page was already crawled by google. I think when google check that page of no result then it check for page not found but that page was not returning 404 error. google also notify me this issue too. so i think this can be an issue too.
  
  3. I feel google need atleast 3 months to crawl all new urls and remove all old pages
  
  4. I have removed old pages from sitemap to avoid duplicate issue again
  
  Now what is your suggestion.