A client of mine sells clothing online as well as from a bricks & mortar shop. It's a small family business that's been running seventeen years in a niche market; dancewear & gymnastics. Currently one of their sites is going through a long overdue upgrade & makeover. What I'd like to know is where search engines stand on this. Using the following as an example, would the SE's treat it as duplicated content or would they treat as individual items?

A garment is available with 5 colour flashing's, multiple sizes, all the same price of £29.95 and the manufacturer uses the same SKU regardless of colour or size. The garment name is Sonic Sleeveless Gymnastics Leotard. The product description is going to be exactly the same for all except to mention the colour. The same garment is also available, with different SKU's, in 3/4 length sleeve as well as long sleeve. There's only so much creative BS one can come up with!

My thought is that search engines will see it as duplicated content and ideally the item should be one item with colour & size options, ideally using the alt prod ID to show the various colours. (I'll ask questions later about alt prod ID's).

Your opinions are appreciated.

Steve
Manchester England

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While in general the descriptions will be the same, I suggest starting them with the size and color to distinguish them right up front.
"Blue, medium size sonic sleeveless gymnastics leotard blah, blah blah."
"Red, medium size sonic sleeveless gymnastics leotard blah, blah blah."
and so on. Just my personal opinion, but that is the way I usually do it when I have similar products and it has worked for me. Too bad the SKU is the same or I would suggest putting that in as well.
"Blue, medium size sonic sleeveless gymnastics leotard SKU blah, blah blah."
If you are using a different product ID for each one, you may want to use that in place of/in addition to the SKU in the description.

Marshall
CENLYT Productions - ms designs
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I would have to agree with the guy above. Just put the color at the beginning of your description. To be honest, I`m not sure whether the search engine would see the two items as duplicated content, if you mention the color at least somewhere, but it`s for sure frustrating as hell for me as a user when you have to search for the differences and find that little color difference at the end of the damn description.