Duplicate and near-duplicate or similar content is one of the most common concerns raised by e-commerce teams when they consider scaling category pages. In simple terms, duplicate content occurs when multiple URLs serve the same or very similar purpose.
Search engines and LLMs then struggle to understand which page should rank, often resulting in weaker performance across all of them. Pages end up competing with each other rather than helping customers find products more easily.
What Is Duplicate Content and Why Is It Bad for Search Engines?
Duplicate content refers to pages that are identical or so similar that they add little or no additional value for users.
From a search engine's perspective, this creates three problems:
- •It dilutes relevance signals across multiple URLs
- •It wastes crawl and indexing resources
- •It forces algorithms to choose between pages that appear interchangeable
The outcome is usually lower rankings, inconsistent visibility and internal competition, rather than growth.
Why Similar Category Pages Can Hurt E-commerce SEO
Many e-commerce sites accidentally create similar pages when they try to target every variation of a keyword.
Examples include pages such as:
- •“Black dining chairs”
- •“Wooden black dining chairs”
- •“Black wood dining chairs”
If these pages list the same products, use near-identical filters and differ only slightly in wording, they do not represent distinct user needs. They fragment authority instead of consolidating it.
This is where the perception of “thin” or low-quality category pages often comes from. The problem is not automation itself, but pages that exist without a clear, differentiated purpose.
Why Creating One Page per Keyword No Longer Works
Search behavior no longer fits neatly into keyword lists.
Customers search using combinations of attributes, use cases, styles, categories, constraints and intent. Creating a separate page for each keyword variation is not only impractical, it ignores how people actually browse and decide.
A keyword-first approach tends to produce pages that technically match queries but fail to improve navigation, discovery or conversion. Over time, this leads to a bloated site structure that is harder to maintain and harder for search engines to interpret.
Why Publishing the Right Missing Pages Scales Traffic and Revenue
Publishing new pages only creates risk when those pages repeat what already exists.
The opposite is true when a page is genuinely missing.
When an e-commerce site publishes a page it does not currently have, but customers are actively searching for, it unlocks entirely new entry points into the catalog. These pages capture demand that previously had nowhere to land, bringing in users who would never have reached the site through existing categories.
Crucially, these pages do not redistribute traffic from other URLs. They create incremental traffic by matching supply to demand more precisely.
Because they are designed around how users actually search and browse, these pages also tend to convert well. They reduce friction, surface relevant products faster and make the site easier to navigate, particularly for new customers who are unfamiliar with the brand's structure.
Over time, this compounds. Each new page adds a durable source of qualified traffic and revenue, without increasing dependence on paid channels or seasonal campaigns.
This is why scaling the right category pages works. It is not about publishing more pages. It is about publishing the pages your site should have had all along.
The Difference Between Duplicate Pages and Missing Category Pages
Not all new pages are a duplication risk.
Some pages do not exist at all, despite clear demand. These are often the most valuable opportunities for growth.
A missing category page is one that:
- Matches a real, specific search intent
- Helps users find relevant products faster
- Organises existing products in a new but meaningful way
For example, a lighting retailer may already have pages for “pendant lights” and “kitchen lighting”, but lack a dedicated page for “pendant lights over kitchen islands”. That page is not a duplicate. It serves a distinct purpose and reflects how customers actually search.
This distinction is what allowed Visual Comfort & Co. to expand their category coverage without creating internal competition. In their case study on using automated SEO agents, new pages were introduced only where clear demand existed and existing pages could not fulfil that need.
Why AI Is Useful for Understanding Similar Pages, Not Just Duplicate Ones
Traditional SEO software is very good at identifying pages that are the same.
It can detect identical URLs, matching titles, duplicated blocks of copy or repeated templates. That works well for obvious duplication, but it breaks down as soon as pages are only similar, not identical.
Near-duplicate pages are harder to spot because they differ in small but meaningful ways. They may target slightly different attributes, rearrange products, or use varied language while still serving the same underlying intent. To a rules-based system, these pages look distinct. To a search engine and a user, they often are not.
This is where AI is useful.
AI is able to understand semantic similarity, not just surface-level matching. It can assess whether two pages are effectively trying to answer the same need, even if the keywords, structure or copy are not an exact match. This makes it possible to distinguish between pages that are genuinely additive and pages that would simply compete with each other.
This distinction between same and similar is critical at scale.
Without it, teams either avoid creating new pages altogether for fear of duplication, or they publish too many overlapping pages because the differences appear meaningful on paper. With AI, it becomes possible to create new category pages confidently, knowing they serve a distinct purpose within the site.
In practice, this is how Similar.ai avoids near-duplicate category pages. The system evaluates whether a proposed page would meaningfully expand how users discover products, rather than just rephrase what already exists. That is the difference between automation that creates noise and automation that creates growth.
How Similar.ai Avoids Duplicate and Similar Pages
Avoiding duplicate content is built into how Similar.ai identifies and creates new pages.
Does the site already rank for this topic?
If the site already ranks for the same topic using the same or very similar keywords, a new page is not created. Instead, the existing page can be improved, consolidated or enriched.
Does a page exist but fail to rank?
If a page exists but performs poorly, the focus shifts to fixing that page rather than introducing another competing URL.
Does this new page overlap with other new pages?
Similar.ai also checks new pages against other planned but unpublished pages, preventing near-duplicates from being created in parallel.
These checks ensure every page has a clear role within the site and contributes incremental value.
Quality at Scale, Not “Spray and Pray” Page Creation
Some automation platforms in the past earned a poor reputation by generating large volumes of pages without validating whether users actually needed them.
Similar.ai takes a different approach. Page creation is driven by unmet demand and user usefulness, not by keyword volume alone.
You can see how this plays out in practice in the Visual Comfort & Co. case study, where category pages were expanded to reflect how people actually search for lighting by room, style and use case, without compromising site quality or brand control.
For teams considering this approach, the Similar.ai Growth Calculator helps estimate the incremental traffic and revenue that can be unlocked by filling genuine category gaps, rather than redistributing performance across similar pages.
Similar Pages vs Duplicate Content: The Key Takeaway
Duplicate content is not caused by scale. It is caused by creating pages that do not deserve to exist.
When new category pages are clearly differentiated, mapped to real customer intent and checked against what already exists, they strengthen a site rather than weaken it.
The real risk for e-commerce SEO is not publishing too many pages, it's publishing pages that fail to help users find the products they are already looking for.