SEO Tips Day 11 – How to deal with duplicate content issues
| Tweet | Share |
Not sure if I should call it an issue, however, duplicate content is feared lot by SEOs and webmasters – mostly unnecessarily. There’s the fear that a site could be banned from Google due to the presence of duplicate content, and even though we have no document to prove this, I’d call it more speculative than real.
Having said that, duplicate content is definitely not “ignorable” as it could lead to possible screw ups on the site if left un-dealt with.
But first, what is duplicate content ?
1 – Order one – Inter site duplicate content.
The first order duplicate content occurs due to the repetition on content across web sites. This is mostly as a result of scraping or the very obvious cut-copy-paste syndrome !
2 – Order two – Intra site duplicate content.
The second order duplicate content occurs due to the repetition of content within a site at various locations. This occurs mostly due to technical errors or a bad site structure.
How to reduce duplicate content and avoid possible problems ?
Solution 1 – Do not publish content on your website, without checking for possible duplicates already on the web.
Sometimes websites employ third party content writers and this can prove risky sometimes, as the writers themselves may unknowingly copy content from the web.
Solution 2 – Do not publish the same content at various places on the website.
For instance on WordPress the same content gets repeated at more than one place and if not dealt with properly, this could probably leave you with more risk than otherwise.
Solution 3 – Opt for foolproof website structures.
Sometimes, the website structure gets so dynamic and complex that webmasters don’t have a clue as to where the pages are and how the content is getting re-published. To avoid this, rule off all the possibilities of duplicate publishing by using nofollow meta and canonical tags.
Essentially, duplicate content is either accidental or deliberate, and you’re lucky if its accidental, because you have all the methods to fix it now than ever. So its just a matter of re-arranging and using the tools. But if its deliberately crafted duplicate content (like scraping) the risk is too much and the effects fatal. So refrain from it.
This brings up the question how can sites such as news feeds that get hundreds of duplicate content spread around the net and not be penalized. Why couldn’t blog content also make it to a dozen or so ezine sites. As long as the source is specified what’s the harm. How do I get news status then?
Chris Kilber
http://www.ChrisKilber.com
Home of 101 FREE Traffic Generating Strategies
I don’t think news sites merely replicates content from other sites. If at all they do, they attribute the original source, which is in many ways acceptable. Ultimately, if theres a website that merely publishes duplicate content from around the web, and if it gets loads of backlinks, then google might as well assume that its a good trustworthy site. But naturally it wont happen, people wont link back to duplicate content but to the original sources.
Blog content too sometimes is replicated on ezines, but again the attribution link remains and the blog gets the credit (assuming the ezine was published to push the blog with backlinks).
Scraping on the other hand is a completely different concept where a webmaster merely copies content from various sources and publishes without any attribution. For any blogger/website owner who publishes content on their own knows the effort behind it and wouldnt want to get copied without attribution. its as close to as stealing.
What scrapers dont understand is that they dont stand a chance to win the Google SERPs and ultimately will perish. its only a matter of time.
Nice but i do not agree with you on this point:
Solution 1 – Do not publish content on your website, without checking for possible duplicates already on the web.
No one can make sure everything you are writing about is not similar to the others’. The important thing is that the ways of writing on the same issue. Readers can like this and dislike that sometimes because of its writing style not because of its uniqueness.
Tinh
Well written.
But I am with Tinh. As she said, we cannot make sure that our article has not written by anyone before. People are reading blogs to learn our experience or a Special Tips from the blogger. Thus repeating the topic doesn’t matter (In my experience)
To make sure your content is not “copied”, check with Google with an exact search for any text phrase randomly in the content. If there is a perfect match elsewhere, its a strike. And of course you have the other tools like copyscape to check for scraping. And when I say “copying” I mean the technically correct copying and not the “inspirations” which I agree that cannot be found, but in that case it needn’t be found right ?
100% copying and majority copied is easy to find but my ideas is to write on the other aspect of one topic, so it is not duplicate at all
Jijo Sunny, you changed my sex! I am not agirl, a boy
Oh! sorry
I thought You where a Girl…
its one of the bigger issues if we have to check for duplicate contents and second, its really tough job for google to deindex pages due to duplicate contents.
there are millions of pages being copied every single day and how google can encounter this?
Regards,
David
In Google’s eyes, what it indexes first is the original content. Whenever Google indexes content with an exact copy of the text (or unnaturally similar)already in the index, its likely to reduce its authority/value. And when there are repeatedly the same content from various or a single source on a blog/site, its easily discounted of search listings. So there isnt much you need to do here other than getting cautious when publishing content.
This is a very important topic. My person opinioin on this one is that as long as you are not taking content from other sources or posting your own content in multiple places you should have no reason to worry.
I feel canonical tag is the best way to easily avoid this issue, And with wordpress plugins like All In One SEO pack easily solves the problem.
That is one of many ways
It’s a very useful tips. I am a new Blogger. I am always looking for same kinda information. It will helps me lot. Thanks for sharing information with me.
Thanks for sharing useful information .
Now m thinking if their are chances that i may be having any duplicate content in my blog-which BTW is a month old.
excellent tips on duplicate content
Thanks for sharing. As most of us know that Content is King for Google so we need to take care for it.
I deal with similar problem, I get latest press releases from Ford Racing and everytime there is a new press release, the same copy gets published online at least 20x on other racing websites. Not sure what to do about this, because I still want to have the content on my website as well, although its out there already.
At least being a wordpress user, there are tools to easily remove duplicate contents, like for example the Canonical tag plugin.
When I first opened my web store, I used product descriptions that my vendors use (with their permission of course). I figured why rewrite the book? I am now in the process of rewriting every product description to keep from having duplicate content!
does there any site similar to http://www.copyscape.com that can be useful to identify duplicate content issues.
Your blog is filled with great information, Mani! Sadly I use a wordpress blog, so I guess I’m more susceptible to this than I would normally be? Time to read your article about reducing duplicate content on WordPress lol.
nice post and very impotent information.
Actually Google Have some rules and according to Google we should avoid duplicate.It is not very easy but we should check our content that it is duplicate or not.we should use our own content it will take some time but best.before submite Knowledge is mandatory so firstly search and then do it.