How
to Avoid Duplicate Content Penalties
By: ©Gareth Black
We've all heard of duplicate content and most webmasters
know that it’s a negative step to use it on a web site.
But
what exactly is it and why is it bad?
Duplicate
content is exactly as its name implies - it's content that's
the same as content already on the net - an article or a
passage of text that exactly matches an article or passage
of text on another web site. The same words, in the same
order, with almost the same punctuation.
Basically
it's stolen, thieved material. Material written by another
person and used on a thief's web site. Stolen by a web master
who hasn't got the skill to write a unique article, or more
than likely, stolen by a lazy webmaster.
Duplicate
content is severely frowned upon by the search engines and
punished accordingly. A web site with a page deemed by the
search engines to be comprised basically of pirated content
will be accorded a lower SERPS positioning or worse still,
will be banned altogether, at the discretion of the search
engine. Anyone using SEO to achieve a high SERPS position
with stolen content is deceiving himself. A high SERPS position
is impossible with duplicate content on the web site. It
just won't happen.
However
there is a way for an article originally shown on another
web site to be legitimately displayed on another site without
incurring search engine penalties. This is a method I use
to add a degree of professionalism to one of my own web
sites.
This
site promotes an obesity-prevention product and includes
pages devoted to obesity news from throughout the world.
I keep the pages up to date with the latest news and usually
include between 4 to 6 news items on each page.
I
regularly trawl the internet looking for the latest news
on anything to do with obesity, whether it be government
initiatives, research from medical institutions, or personal
stories. The content is copied as is - it's not doctored
or changed around. I try to include the whole content where
possible, but if the article is unduly long, I may copy
only the first few paragraphs but ensuring I retain the
general theme of the item.
So
how do I get around the search engines' duplicate content
rules?
I
include in the article the full title, the location where
I found the news item, and the date. So if I found an item
about a speech made by the Canadian Health Minister on the
subject of obesity and Canadian school children, I would
copy the article intact without a single amendment, with
the original title, and date, and the name of the news source,
such as the Toronto Mail and Globe or Reuters. All this
would appear on my web page.
What
I am in fact doing is telling the search engines that in
the public interest I'm informing them of the latest developments
to combat obesity. The search engines must feel that this
information reinforces my site as an authoritative source
of obesity news. And how do I know the search engines view
my copied content kindly? Because from time to time my pages
with this content get a good position on the SERPS.
Similarly,
those webmasters who obtain content from article submission
sites are doing themselves a disservice if they don't follow
the publisher rules laid down: the article must be copied
in its entirety without any changes; all links must remain
intact; the authors' information must be displayed without
change; and the article submission sites' link must remain.
If these guidelines are adhered to, then the person copying
the original content will not experience any search engine
duplicate content penalties.
However
if the publisher guidelines are ignored and, for example,
the authors' information or the article submission sites'
links are omitted, then the search engines will penalize
not only the respective page but the whole site. This is
because the search engines will conclude that the whole
of the site is engaged in using duplicate content.
This
basic rule to avoid duplicate content penalties, however,
does not apply to content taken directly from a web site.
If someone copied the text from one of my web sites and
put it on their own site, then that is stolen duplicate
content. Attributing the article to my site will not allow
the thief to avoid penalties in the way that an attributed
article from Reuters or AAP will.
Summing
up then, copying an article from a recognized news source
or from an article submission site will not incur the wrath
of search engines providing the article is attributed to
its original source. Failure to do so could result in a
site being banned by the search engines, with Google being
particularly harsh.
Many
lazy and unskilled webmasters get the text content for their
websites by stealing articles from other web sites. Most
do not know that the search engines savagely penalize such
actions.
