Duplication is often a no-no

In general, duplicating content on the Web is a no-no, but sometimes intentional duplication is desirable.  Examples include

  • Inserting legal or policy-mandated statements at the bottom of several pages
  • Inserting footer and/or contact information
  • Navigation

Even this desirable duplication should be kept to a minimum.  So instead of inserting a paragraph+ of legal notices, insert a brief link to a page that tells the full story.

For example, insert a link to information, such as
"Privacy Statement"
instead of the information itself.

You may also find Google's document about duplicate content of interest.

Reuse content

If you MUST duplicate content, reuse content instead of copy-and-pasting content.

CMS enables you to reuse content so that you update once and see everywhere.

How-to

  1. Insert a new content element.  Any kind will do, even regular text
  2. Change the Type: pull-down menu to Insert records
  3. Click OK in the "Would you like to save now ... ?" dialog window
  4. Under the Records heading, click the Browse for records button to select item(s) to include
  5. Select item(s) to include in the element browser window
  6. Save and close the content element
  7. Send to review or publish as usual

Note: when you update the original content element, you may need to Clear Branch Cache after publish in order to see the changes in the site.

Examples of inserted records

  1. One of the footer content elements on CMS Web site (look at the left footer of this page to compare!)
  2. Online buttons (Btn: WM:BB:CC:OWA:BC) from the HTML objects page at the bottom of the Pagetree

FOOTER1

Content Management System
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