PDA

View Full Version : Duplicate content penalties



phanio
06-02-2009, 01:48 PM
Has anyone heard of duplicate content penalties from google? What are they - why are they - how do they work and how can they be avoided?

Business Attorney
06-02-2009, 04:56 PM
I should leave this to the experts but I'll take a shot to see if I have gotten it right from reading about it in various forums. Basically, it is not so much a "penalty" as an attempt by Google to limit the search results to one version of a particular article. If Google views a page as a duplicate of other content, then the page won't appear in the search results. Only the "original" content will appear. Of course, web pages don't carry labels that say "I was first" so sometimes the duplicate content is the one that shows up in the results.

Although it is the subject of much debate, if your website consists largely of duplicate content and very little original content, some people believe that the presence of duplicate content will weigh down the trustworthiness of even your original content. Many newspapers have massive amounts of duplicate content, picking up stories verbatim from wire services and press releases, but it does not appear that the duplicate content prevents the newspapers' original content from being properly indexed and displayed in Google's search results, so I would not put too great of emphasis on the carryover argument.

If you are going to put the same content on more than one page, or if you are going to put something on your website and submit it verbatim to an article repository like ezine, it is recommended that you put it only on the site you want indexed until it has been spidered by Google and is indexed. Only then should you allow the duplicate content to be posted.

How did I do?

vangogh
06-02-2009, 05:54 PM
You done good.

I'm sure some sites do get penalized because all of their content is clearly lifted from another site, but in general don't think of it as a penalty. Think of it more as a filter.

Search engines don't want to display the same content over and over in search results. Imagine you search for something and the top 10 results are all the same content, except on 10 different sites. Not very useful is it? So naturally search engines would prefer to display one page amongst all the pages of content that are duplicates. All of us would likely agree that the original version is the one that should rank, but search engines have their own way of determining which page ranks. They can't always tell which is the original copy, though they seem to be pretty good about it.

What I believe used to happen at Google and likely still does is the duplicate versions were place in a supplemental index instead of the general index we all know and love. While pages in the supplemental index technically could still rank, for all practical purposes they wouldn't. Being placed in the supplemental index was like the kiss of death for that page. Pages in the supplemental index also wouldn't pass PageRank (or link juice or whatever you want to call it) to other pages.

Consider another idea, that of signal vs noise. One way to measure the importance of something is to look at its signal vs noise ratio. Even the worst sites might throw out an occasional great article. However the best sites are usually filled with quality content. If much of your content is duplicated across your site, most of your pages are then filtered out of the main indexed and the noise on your site increases.

Think of it as a user of a site. Say you visit a site and the first page you read is great. You'll likely want to click another page of that site for more good content. What happens if the next page you click is a duplicate of the first? What happens if the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th pages are also duplicate pages of the first. How many times are you willing to click on that site to find something new. If you clicked to 20 pages and all of them were duplicates of the first page are you ever coming back to the site?

One other thing to consider. Imagine you have two pages on your site that are duplicates of each other. Let's say you run an online store and your products come in different colors, red and blue. For each product you have two pages, one red and one blue. Those pages are going to end up competing with each other for the same keywords. Instead of one page pulling all the links you have two pages pulling some of the links. Instead of one great page, you have two so-so pages. My slightly better than so-so page probably outranks both of your so-so pages, even if it wouldn't outrank your one great page.

One last thought for now. Often (especially CMSs and shopping carts) will point to the same page with different URLs. You might think you have one page with no duplicate content. Search engines will see each URL as a new page so you in their eyes you really do have many pages of duplicate content.

phanio
06-02-2009, 06:13 PM
Thanks for the info. Couple of more questions:

Is it better to post an article on your site - then after a week or so put it out in directories? Also along those lines - is it ok to link back to your own site in articles that you place in directories (I usually only link back in the resource box)?

Should you not have duplicate keywords amoung pages of your own site? Or, are duplicate keywords OK as long as the content of the pages is different?

Again, thanks for the info. I ran across an article about article spinning (which I am trying to find out more about) and saw the term 'dupilcate contect penalities' and just wanted to make sure I was not doing something wrong. My site just went from PR3 to PR 4 (thanks to Vangogh helping me improve my design) and I did not want to lose it as I just got it.

vangogh
06-02-2009, 08:38 PM
I wouldn't take any article on my site and post it to an article directory. Personally I don't think article directories are worth all that much anymore, but if you are going to use them submit unique content to them. As far as linking back to your own site I think it depends on the directory. You'd probably want to check with each or at least look through some of their recent articles to see what others are doing.

Ideally each page of your site would be optimized for a specific keyword phrase or several similar phrases and no other page would be targeting those phrases. That's not realistic as you're going to use similar words throughout your site. You could target an entire section of your site around one main keyword theme. Then each deeper page goes after a variation of that theme. For example you could have a section of your site where you sell the proverbial widgets. You might then have a page structure like:

widgets - main section page

blue widgets
quality blue widgets

red widgets
inexpensive red widgets

green widgets
custom green widgets
custom green widget services

Each page in the section gets optimized for it's own specific page while at the same time reinforcing the pages above it in the site architecture through navigational links and cross linking between pages.

I hope that makes sense.


I ran across an article about article spinning

Be careful about articles with seo tactics. Some may have worked when they were written, but don't any longer. Maybe are just pure garbage to begin with. Search engines and thus seo changes very fast. A tactic that worked six months ago may not work now. Usually once tactics are written about they stop working since part of what made them successful was that few people were doing them and once search engines see them they tend to make changes to their algorithms.

phanio
06-02-2009, 09:28 PM
Thank you - that was very helpful. I am going to re-look at my key words and phrases.

Thanks again.

vangogh
06-02-2009, 09:32 PM
Glad I could help.

bizcard
06-11-2009, 05:38 PM
It was a long read but let me encapsulate it:

Google does not penalize you for duplicate content. Google will determine the best article, index it and duplicate articles are ignored.

Google thought on Linking:
You

Harold Mansfield
06-14-2009, 05:29 PM
I also would never put an article from my blog in an article directory or article submission site. If I were to use them for SEO purposes, it would be with a completely new article.

As far as article spinner go. I am not a big fan of rehashing the same article multiple times.

jazzdrive3
06-20-2009, 02:43 PM
Only ever have unique content on your main site. Preferably, your best content. Don't waste it at article directories.

Still do submissions, but better to outsource that.

dwiads
07-12-2009, 04:30 AM
Has anyone heard of duplicate content penalties from google? What are they - why are they - how do they work and how can they be avoided?

Duplicate content is not penalties but search engine will delete duplicate page and put only one page that have more authority.


I wouldn't take any article on my site and post it to an article directory. Personally I don't think article directories are worth all that much anymore, but if you are going to use them submit unique content to them. As far as linking back to your own site I think it depends on the directory. You'd probably want to check with each or at least look through some of their recent articles to see what others are doing.

Well, you have to understand the meaning of content first. Currently my Article directory have thousands of similar articles. but I already know how to avoid it . This strategy I use after seeing Yahoo that always grab contents from other website but why their page still index by search engine?

After use this strategy I can seen that my site start being indexed by search engine. So the key is knowing what contents. if you check on google for example using "site:" commend after using this strategy my site being indexed by search engine from about 400 pages to about 3000 pages and still increase.

vangogh
07-12-2009, 12:50 PM
To me the question isn't whether or not your site is indexed since it is the article directory, but rather will someone submitting an article to your directory gain any benefit to their site. I think any benefit the submitter would see would be minimal. The idea behind article directories used to be that you get the free links from the directory itself, but most of the benefit came by all the other people who would download your article and republish it on their own site.

Given the issue of duplicate content you aren't gaining the benefit from all the downloads. Your benefit is now the links from the article directory. Links from many article directories aren't worth much since there's little to no editorial decision on which article gets in. Some article directories will still provide a decent link and yours may be one of them. I just think there are better ways to use content to market yourself than by submitting it to a directory.

I'm not saying submitting an article to a directory is bad. What I am saying is there are better ways to purpose your article and I think you should try those other ways first. Submitting to an article directory should be further down the list, though it can still be on the list of potential uses for your article.