Duplicate Suppression Overview | Yext Hitchhikers Platform

What You’ll Learn

In this section, you will learn:

• What duplicates are
• What causes duplicates
• Why duplicates are bad for your brand

What are duplicates

In a perfect world, each publisher only has one single listing per business entity. However, this is not usually the case as additional listings on a publisher, for the same entity, can appear. These are called duplicate listings. These duplicates can be the exact same copy of the correct, main listing, or their data can vary slightly.

What causes duplicates

Duplicates can appear on publishers for many reasons. They can appear from user contributions, conflicting data sources, or changes in company branding. While each publisher may have unique sources of duplicate content, no publisher has a perfect solution for combatting it.

Why duplicates aren’t good for your brand

Duplicate listings negatively impact your brand in many ways: they cause consumer confusion, brand frustration, and reduce the reach for the correct, main listing.

Imagine performing a search for a business and finding two or more entries for that business on a publisher, but each had a slightly different phone number and business hours. What time do you plan your visit for? Which number do you call to confirm? You may lose interest and move on to a competitor.

If you did end up visiting the business, which listing do you post your review or photo on? Which listing gets credit for your click for directions? Duplicate listings throw a wrench into important content collection and success measures for your brand.