Is a print version of a page considered as duplicate content

Question

On my websites, I have not put a print button. However, right-clicking and Print gives the user a print version of any page.

This is identical to the normal page except

• it's missing menus from the top and bottom of the pages.
• it's missing shadows on boxes.
• the canonical points to the original page.

Since I do not have a menu, button or link for Printing, would this be considered as a duplicate page? There are two considerations

• To avoid penalties
• To ensure the original page gets indexed, not the print version.

EDIT:

To clarify, I don't have a different page for printing. I have deliberately not provided a link to a printed version. Instead, I am using @media print {} in the CSS to handle it.

I guess the first question then, is Will GSE activate the right-click print menu for indexing? If it won't, then the other questions/concerns are moot.

Answer 1

Your concerns are moot. Google will recognise that there is a single page and won't see a duplicate version of it - indeed the "@media print" means its not a separate page, its a formatting of the canonical page for printing. (Conceptually this would be little different to having a mobile vs desktop version of a site - Google recognises its the same page, formatted differently)

(Also, last I looked - although it was a while ago - the "duplicate content" penalty is a myth. Google will try and work out one that is preferred and stick with it - it won't penalize the site for having the same content on 2 pages).