Duplicate Content: It's Not What You Think!

[djbaxter]

Yes, Google will penalize you for duplicate content. They will furthermore penalize you for having some domains redirecting to another.

I'm sorry, Terry, but that's simply incorrect.

First, there is no duplicate content penalty. That's a myth.

Second, redirecting URLs is a legitimate technique for reporting moved or renamed content, or for channeling two or more domains to the same site. There is no penalty for that either.

 

[tonykoay2002]

Someone said if you want to maintain a good seo, your content at least need between 70% unique.

 

[pengerik]

unique quality content is what SE want - and us too i suppose

 

[sylviad]

The way I understand duplicate content is:

If you post the exact article to 10 directories, only one of those listings will appear in Google's search results - because it's looking for unique content to offer it's surfers. Imagine if Google were to display the same article from different sites. Some prolific marketers who distribute their articles to hundreds of sites could take over the whole first 10 pages of listings.

It never made sense to me that you couldn't post an article in multiple places until I learned this. As you say, Google would be delisting people left, right and center if they penalized people for publishing the same article all over the Web.

It also doesn't make sense because the whole theory behind sites like EzineArticles is that site owners can go there and grab content for their sites. Obviously, this guarantees that the articles will be duplicated. If Google delists such sites, it would negate EzineArticles' reason for being.

New marketers are constantly commenting on the duplicate content rule and its clear they have no idea how it works. In brief: one listing per article which is why it's important to rework articles using different keywords.

Good thread.

Sylvia

 

[djbaxter]

That's pretty much it in a nutshell, Sylvia. The whole issue of duplicate content has been grossly overstated. Indeed, you can find many examples of duplicated content in Google's index - not all of them are going to rank on the first page of course but they're there.

 

[sylviad]

Yes, right. My error. I meant to say that only one instance of the same article will appear at the top of listings. The rest will be so deep they're basically worthless.

Sylvia

 

[Linda Buquet]

If you post the exact article to 10 directories, only one of those listings will appear in Google's search results - because it's looking for unique content to offer it's surfers. Imagine if Google were to display the same article from different sites. Some prolific marketers who distribute their articles to hundreds of sites could take over the whole first 10 pages of listings.

You said "only one of those listings will appear in Google's search results"

Actually as minstrel said, Google does not allow just one copy of an article. She allows multiple copies.
Here's an example: One of Ewen Chia's affiliate marketing articles from EzineArticles.com

Listed 25,400 times on Google.
<a href="http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&amp;rlz=1B3GGIC_en___US345&amp;q=%22How+to+Earn+at+Home+With+the+Internet+Marketing+Affiliate+Program%22&amp;btnG=Search&amp;aq=f&amp;aqi=&amp;oq=">How to Earn at Home With the Internet Marketing Affiliate Program</a>

Edited to add: Oops Sylvia, sorry I guess we were posting at the same time.

 

[sylviad]

Hi Linda,

I already corrected myself... it's just above yours.

Sylvia



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[jeffhyde]

I hate it when people say "google will punish you".... Google will not punish you for duplicate content or inbound links. They may not hold a higer value to it.

 

[portus]

I recently set up an auto-blog (a service that search the web and detects content relevant to your niche and then post it on your blog). My website wasn't indexed for quite a few time and I started suspecting that it is from the duplicate content that is being posted on my blog. Then I removed all the entries and set up the blog from the beginning. The next day my website was indexed.

 

[djbaxter]

My website wasn't indexed for quite a few time and I started suspecting that it is from the duplicate content that is being posted on my blog.

In this case, it's not even so much the inclusion of duplicate content as the absence of any original content. If ALL your content is from elsewhere, no search engine is going to see your site as worthy of indexing. The definitive question is: What can people get from your site that they can't find somewhere else? If the answer is "nothing", there's no reason for the site to be indexed.

 

[portus]

In this case, it's not even so much the inclusion of duplicate content as the absence of any original content. If ALL your content is from elsewhere, no search engine is going to see your site as worthy of indexing. The definitive question is: What can people get from your site that they can't find somewhere else? If the answer is "nothing", there's no reason for the site to be indexed.

Actually the blog was only one part of my website. I had a landing page that it's content was exclusively mine.

 

[JumpNJack]

I never run into the issue of duplicate content with my marketing.

Jack

 

[flammableeye]

Very in depth and informative, thanks. It certainly does clear up a lot of confusion for me too.

 

[Sweetestmiracle]

No Way!!!! This is way to cool!! I am totally stunned right now.

Duplicate content is when you have an exact copy of a site. Page for page, file name for file name, image for image, code for code. And exact replica of a page or site. This was put in place for dynamic page spawners, duplicate websites, and doorway pages that were designed by blackhat seo?s and spammers that are trying to control the natural search results.

Just to make sure I am understanding this right, so if I have 1 original article and submitted it to 2 different submissions sites but my links are to a blog and a website, this is not considered duplicate content?

 

[djbaxter]

Just to make sure I am understanding this right, so if I have 1 original article and submitted it to 2 different submissions sites but my links are to a blog and a website, this is not considered duplicate content?

No, that's not correct. If it's the same article, it's duplicate content.

 

[Sweetestmiracle]

Thank you for your quick reply! I will then just continue doing what I have always been doing.

This is a great topic and I really appreciate all the information

 

[Toucan-marketing]

Thanks, I was worried, too, I usually post my articles to my site's blog and my wordpress blog, too, was just thinking about the dragging task of rewriting... You saved my life!
Thanks for sharing.
Laura

 

[jaco24]

When I write articles for my websites/blog, I normally do research on the internet and write a 400-600 word article. I sometimes copy sections of text (if I feel I cannot put it better in my own words) and reference to the source/author. Can this be seen as duplicate content.

Also, if I make use of and article, with author permission, how will this influence the article ranking. Even if the title differ, will the article be poorly ranked.

 

[djbaxter]

When I write articles for my websites/blog, I normally do research on the internet and write a 400-600 word article. I sometimes copy sections of text (if I feel I cannot put it better in my own words) and reference to the source/author. Can this be seen as duplicate content.

If you're only using a short quote from another page or post, mixed in with original content, you should be fine,

Also, if I make use of and article, with author permission, how will this influence the article ranking. Even if the title differ, will the article be poorly ranked.

Theoretically, that is clearly duplicate content. If duplicate content filters were perfect, your copy would not show up at all. But they're not perfect, so you may find that you can rank for that article.

Or you may not. Experiment. But don't bet the house on ranking well for a non-original article.