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Posts Tagged ‘duplicate content’
Saturday, February 4th, 2012
Having an online presence is very different to an offline one. Offline, you can publish a catalog and no one really cares if some descriptions are very similar if not identical (apart from name or color references). Online, the opposite is true. If you have products that have identical or near identical descriptions, then you could find that some of that content never appears in search results. The reason? Google won’t even index it let alone have it appear in search results.
Duplicate content on the web has been a big problem over the years. Search engines, in particular Google, do everything possible to filter out the duplicates. If you have product descriptions that are the same, then the search engines will consider some of them to be duplicates and filter them out. It’s not just on your main website either. If you are a little lazy and copy those descriptions to your blog, or if you have affiliates that publish your content, you could have similar problems.
Google has become fairly adept at determining which content should be classified as the original, however, it does get it wrong on occasions, so your blog, or worse yet, an affiliate’s content, could be indexed as the original. If you have a number of similar products, you have a couple of choices. You can write original content for each product or group them together under the one description. The latter generally makes the better option.
If you have a blog, be sure the content is original and that you’re not just duplicating what’s on your main website. If you have affiliates that sell on your behalf, be sure their terms include a denial of the right to copy content from your web pages. They too should be creating unique content to promote your products or services.
Finally, when creating articles for guest posts or article marketing, ensure that each article is only published in the one place. So-called ‘spinners’ rarely do a good job of rewriting content, and content produced is generally poor quality and hard to read. Avoid duplicating your content and you’ll have more pages indexed for search, and that means more opportunities to be found.
Tags: content, duplicate content, search results
Posted in Business Writing | 3 Comments »
Monday, April 26th, 2010
It has become popular in recent years to discuss what has come to be called Google’s “duplicate content penalty.” But the truth is, and most serious SEOs – the ones who are actually good at it – will tell you the same the thing. The idea of Google having a duplicate content penalty is a myth. It doesn’t exist.
How The Myth Of Duplicate Content Got Started
Google came out with a policy awhile back (forgive me if I don’t look for the exact web page and link to it) that effectively said that they would not index multiple copies of the same document. The issue came up because searchers would conduct a search and get a first page full of results containing the same article on different web pages. It happened because article marketing was reaching its apex and many article marketers had figured out that they could have their articles indexed multiple times and receive tons of traffic from a few searches. It was good for article marketers but bad for searchers.
News for the uninformed: Google’s first concern is the needs of searchers!
A few savvy, if not seedy, marketers began calling this the duplicate content “penalty” because, it was argued, that if Google was denying you a ranking for content that you deserved based on a particular search query then you were being penalized. In actuality, its a misnomer.
What Really Happens To Duplicate Content
Shortly after the myth saw its beginning some marketers started teaching that Google ranked the first instance of an article and none of the others, but this isn’t true either. The fact is Google reserves the right to show in the search results any web page that best answers (according to Google) a searcher’s query. In other words, what is most relevant to a searcher’s need based on Google’s interpretation of their search query.
This determination is based on a number of factors. Age of a content page is one factor. But the number and quality of back links could influence the outcome as well. In fact, any of the normal algorithmic factors that determine how Google returns results for a search query are the same factors used to determine which page among many with the same content will appear in the search results (and in what order). The difference is, if there are multiple pages with the same exact content then some of those pages will not be indexed, or may not be shown for a particular search query.
Here are some qualifiers:
- A page of content could appear for a search result ahead of other similar pages but fall behind those same pages for another search query.
- Other content on a web page could be a factor in determining where your page falls in the line up for a search query.
- If your page appears spammy in any way then that will count against it.
- Age, domain name and back links are still factors you should pay attention to.
In essence, there is no such thing as a duplicate content penalty. Every web page will be considered for search results based on the same algorithmic factors as every other page. Be original – in content, design and presentation – and you’ll always have an edge.
Tags: duplicate content, google
Posted in Small Business Internet Marketing | 3 Comments »
Saturday, September 19th, 2009
If you are concerned about duplicate content on your site, checkout both Yahoo! and Google. Yahoo! Site Explorer and Google Webmaster Tools have both got options where you can tell which parameters in URLS you wish to have ignored.
Google have quietly added the feature with little in the way of explanation. To access the feature, simply login to your account, go to Site Configuration then Settings – it is the last option on the page.
You can specify whether you want Google to ignore up to 15 specific parameters in your URL. This can result in more efficient crawling and fewer duplicate URLs, while helping to ensure that the information you need is preserved.
If your URLs include session IDs or source code then you may well have several URLs pointing to the same page. You can tell both Google and Yahoo! which of these codes to ignore.
Duplicate content may affect your search rankings, not through search engine penalties, but through diluted link juice. If your pages are only accessible through the one URL then, in theory, that URL will receive all the benefits of inbound links. If you have more than one URL, then each URL could be sharing those inbound links. If it’s an issue – fix it!
Tags: duplicate content, Site Explorer, Webmaster Tools
Posted in SEO for Small Business | 2 Comments »
Wednesday, September 16th, 2009
Duplicate content has a bad rep online. I’m not sure how it started, but there’s a myth that is still perpetuated today about a duplicate content penalty. The myth stems from the fact that the search engines – primarily Google – limit a result of a search query to only so many pages with the same content. In other words, if 100 websites feature the exact same article and the that article is optimized for the key phrase “banana butter” then Google doesn’t want to show all 100 pages with that one article because it doesn’t really add value to the searcher who has to filter through all the articles to find original content. Therefore, Google omits some of those pages from the search result for the search query to prevent searcher frustration.
So how does Google decide which ones to omit? That’s a good question. I’m not sure I have all the answers, but one thing that is considered is originality. Google makes a very good attempt to include on the search results page at least the site that originally published that content. Whether Google succeeds at this perfectly is up for debate, but I believe they are making good efforts.
So what does this have to do with article marketing? Well, if you are submitting articles for mass distribution, it helps to be aware of how the search engines are receiving those articles. After an article has been published in so many directories and picked up by so many publishers, it really isn’t going to help you much in the search engines. You’ll still get the link credit every time someone uses the article, but don’t expect all of those thousands of articles to appear in the SERPs when someone searches for a key phrase that is important to them.
This isn’t to say you should ditch article marketing. Far from it. But I would add that another type of article marketing – one that doesn’t rely on mass distribution – can be useful in your efforts as well. If you’ll write an original article and submit it to one blog or website owner for review then you can build a reputation as someone who writes great articles and delivers quality while giving yourself quality back links and someone else quality, original content. No duplication.
As I said, I wouldn’t ditch mass distribution, but I would add the single distribution model of article marketing to your efforts. Just a suggestion.
Tags: article marketing, duplicate content, links, mass distribution
Posted in link building | 4 Comments »
Sunday, August 3rd, 2008
The Google Webmaster Central Blog wrote a post on duplicate content in June. They covered the topic pretty well, but there is one aspect of duplicate content that wasn’t covered as in-depthly as it could be. What should you do if your article content is scraped and a website fails to give you attribution.
Understand that duplicate content and scraped content are two different things. Duplicate content doesn’t necessarily have to be scraped. If you have the same content on two different sites and attribution is given to the proper source on both sites, it is still duplicate content. Articles, for instance, constitute this type of content. But if you do article marketing then the articles that are picked up at article directories by webmasters is not considered duplicate content by the search engines – at least in terms of content that they would prevent from being indexed. What that means is this: If you submit an article to a directory and that article is subsequently published by 3 other websites then all 3 of those websites could potentially have your article indexed for the same key phrases. That actually serves the purpose of article marketing and helps both the publisher of the article as well as the author.
What is frowned upon by the search engines – as it should be – is when a publisher picks up an article and doesn’t give attribution in the proper way. That is scraped content and goes against Google’s guidelines. So if that article published at an article directory and which was published by 3 other legitimate publishers is then published on a fourth website, but it is not noted that you are the author and your author resource box is not included then that is article scraping and a type of duplicate content that you should concern yourself with. If you notice that such a web page is listed in the search engines results for your key phrases, what should you do?
First, try contacting the website owner and sending a friendly letter, asking for attribution or removal from the site. If contact information is not available (oftentimes it isn’t) then you’ll want to send a spam report to Google. To do that, log into Google Webmaster Tools. If you have sitemaps on file with Google then you’ll see those listed. On the rights side of those websites you’ll see a list of links. One of those links is “Report spam in our index”. Fill out the spam report and wait.
It could take some time before you see anything come of that. If you really want to push it, try looking up the Whois information on the domain name and finding the ISP. Report the scraper to their ISP. Reputable ISP ban websites that conduct themselves in a dishonest manner.
Tags: article marketing, duplicate content, scraped content, search engines
Posted in SEO for Small Business, search engines | No Comments »
Saturday, December 22nd, 2007
John Chow is a successful Internet entrepreneur. So is Michael Kwan, author of this review on John Chow’s website.
The review highlights an affiliate program for a product called HerbalBiz. But you have to pay to join the program – $1.95. If you pay more then you can have your own website. One of the commentators on John’s blog asked the question, “Who controls the content? Is it proprietary or does my $49 investment give me the right to write my own content?” That’s a good question considering the $49 includes the cost of your own domain name.
Why is that a good question? Because if you and someone else both pay the $49 for your own domain names, but you have to agree to use content provided by the company then you’re both using duplicate content. That won’t help you in the search engines. In fact, it will hurt you. And the person who gets to use the content first – HerbalBiz – is the one that will benefit. In essence, you’ll be paying $49 for nothing but an 800 toll free number. That’s fine if you plan to spend your time on the phone taking orders after you pay the bid prices on your PPC campaigns.
Plus, I know that John Chow charges to write reviews on his website. Is Michael Kwan’s review a paid review? I don’t know. There’s nothing there that says it is or isn’t. My conjecture is that it is either a paid review or Michael gets a paycheck for every new affiliate he sends to HerbalBiz. Nothing wrong with that, but if you don’t get to write your own original content then the only winners in this deal are Michael and HerbalBiz. Sounds fishy to me.
Caroline Melberg
Small Business Mavericks
Small Business Mavericks Blog
Tags: duplicate content, herbalbiz, john chow, michael kwan, review
Posted in SEO for Small Business | 3 Comments »
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