Duplicate Content Explained
Ok, ok... Nearly everyone (including many "experts") are getting way
off track with "duplicate content", and many are missing the point
entirely. The term "duplicate content" is probably not even an accurate
phrase for what Google is really penalizing, because they are NOT
penalizing for identical articles on different sites! Experts who say
they are, have no evidence on which to base their speculation, and they
did not even pay attention to what Google has said on the subject.
Google's intent is to penalize duplicate SITES. They state that their
intent is to reduce the value of sites that do not add "value to the
informational content of the web".
Apply that rule, and you quickly understand that the same article on two
different sites is a normal thing. First publisher of it may get higher
indexing of that page, but ONLY if that site has a high enough pagerank
to get to the top. Case and point, some of my articles, published on my
own sites months before being released anywhere else, will still show up
higher in the listings on a site that has higher pagerank.
Article directories have almost nothing BUT duplicate content, and they
rank just fine. Google understands that there are legitimate reasons for
duplicate content, and penalizes only when the site ads nothing new to
the informational substance of the web.
Google specifically set out to penalize the following types of sites:
1. Duplicate sites that the owner has replicated and put under different
domain names in an attempt to create a shutout in the listings (to
dominate the search engine results).
2. Replicated sites that are sold over and over on "hot topics" (often
sold as "AdSense sites"). Replicated sites must be changed before they
are uploaded.
3. Company issued websites that are either just an affiliate redirect,
or a replicated site that is identical to the parent site or the other
distributor's sites. These are best marketed through a separate website,
not through the company URL.
4. "Scraped" sites - entire sites that are copied from the web and
duplicated. This is an illegal practice that violates copyright laws
almost everywhere.
5. Replicated "auto-pilot" sites, which trawl the web for new content
and place it automatically, or which generate automatic content in other
ways (see "Dave's Cool Little Website"). No website can be successful
when it trusts computers to do all the work.
6. Any site that has nothing except the same content that another site
has. It adds nothing to the information on the web. A blog which offers
nothing but identical content to the company website, a “copycat” site
that has a different design but identical content to another site, etc.
Remember the days when a search would show the first 20 listings, and
they all went to the same website, or to identical sites under different
names? They are trying to eliminate that, along with unethical practices
which steal the work of others, or which attempt to pass off shoddy
sites as good ones.
If you have a directory, you are providing an organizational service. If
you add commentary or ratings, that is also considered to be "value
added" (Google's term, not mine). If you publish your article in
multiple places, that is normal, and expected.
As for who gets credit for what, and who gets what ranking, that has to
do with more than just who posted it first. Other items on the page,
overall site ranking, overall topical relevancy of the site (determined
in part by site links on the page), all have to do with where it lands,
not just whether it is identical to what someone else has or not.
"Original ownership" is something Google can't even begin to accurately
touch. They don't attempt to do so, and there is no reason why they
should - If I write something, and post it in three places (on my own
site and on two others), and I get something in return for listings not
on my own site, then I don't really care if my own site comes out #1
between the three - I benefit no matter which one gets indexed highest.
Google is NOT throwing out listings that are posted later, that is
perfectly clear if you do article marketing, and you do a net search on
the title of any article you posted (some of mine show up in 6-30 sites
at any given time).
I have several sites which have shared articles - the topics overlap,
and one or two articles will be on both sites. All the rest of the
content is different. Those sites, and those pages, both show up in the
rankings, and the one that comes out on top is usually the oldest SITE,
not the oldest PAGE.
Most of the people writing on this topic are speculating, and the
speculation often does not even involve common sense, or take Google's
intent into consideration. Test it out, and see what happens. I own and
operate over 30 websites, and have the opportunity to do comparisons on
this that most of the speculation masses out there cannot do.
I personally feel that there is no reason to be obsessing about it, if
you are conducting your site building honorably! Duplicate SITES are a
major problem. Duplicate articles on a page, or parts of an article on a
page, are not the issue at all!
Duplicated content and replicated sites:
Search engines DO penalize for duplicate sites, but some unscrupulous marketers are out there telling you that they do not.
They quote a Google official who stated that “honest” website owners did not need to be concerned about duplicate content.
Here's the problem – YOU are honest. The person who sold you the replicated website without warning you about the duplicate content issue, or who told you it did not matter is NOT honest. And their dishonesty is going to get YOU into trouble!
Google and other search engines penalize duplicate content precisely to prevent people from using replicated sites and the other items we listed above. You see, a replicated site does not just have identical content, it has identical EVERYTHING. Filenames, page tags, colors, layout, content, everything! Top to bottom the page code is identical. And when Google talks about not having to worry too much about duplicate content, this is NOT what they are telling you not to worry about. This is EXACTLY what they are trying to prevent! This is a shortcut, it provides nothing new to the information archives online, and they will penalize you and ban the site, if they even index it in the first place. Anyone who has used one will confirm this (except those who are selling them, who insist on touting them as a shortcut that will take all the work out of it). I actually sell some of these, but they have FULL instructions for customizing them, and I NEVER tell a client that they are not work.
So, what are the legitimate uses of duplicate content that Google IS telling you not to worry about?
- Printer friendly and standard site pages for the same item.
- Similar product listings on two different sites that you own that overlap in content.
- Reprinting items that you have the rights to reprint with author credits.
- The odd duplicated page in your site that happens for unusual reasons.
- A replicated site that has been customized, so that it has “value added” features on each page. This DOES add something new to the information online.
- Honest reasons for duplicate content, or honest mistakes in having duplicate content. This is not the same as deliberate use of duplicate content, which replicate sites are classed as.
So, when they tell you to go ahead and buy their site and upload it and don't worry about duplicate content, they are lying. And yes, there is no other conclusion but that they are doing so knowingly, because they have heard the complaints, and seen it first hand.
It is NOT dishonest to sell a replicated site, but to do so while telling you that it will work without problems IS dishonest. Replicated Sites require a systematic and consistent step-by-step process to take them from duplicate, to completely original. It CAN be done, and in less time that it would take you to build the site from scratch, BUT, you really need instructions to do it, and you need to know which things matter. Full instructions for that are in our Website Shortcuts eBook, available in the Downloads section of this site.
So if your intent is to upload a site that will work to earn you money over the long term, then you'll want to avoid the duplicate content trap, and get started right.
