Some Thoughts on Duplicate Content

So for the last week or two I’ve had some conversations with my friend Stace Barrus of SpyderCandy.com about duplicate content and what to worry about and what not to worry about.

You see, a lot of times we worry about having too much duplicate content out there on the web, that it will hurt our ranking in the search engines.  Well, after having some of these discussions I think there is a better way to look at it.

What is Duplicate Content

Here is a quick definition of duplicate content from the Google Webmaster Guidelines:

Duplicate content generally refers to substantive blocks of content within or across domains that either completely match other content or are appreciably similar.  Mostly, this is not deceptive in origin.

So if you have an article that you write and have it submitted to a bunch of different places, that is technically duplicate content on all of those other sites.  But is that necessarily a bad thing?  Wouldn’t it be good to have your article syndicated on multiple sites?

Or what if you take articles from other sites and publish them on your site?   That’s duplicate content too, right?  Well, yes it is.  So which do we really need to worry about the most?  Which one is the evil ‘duplicate content’ that everyone seems to refer to?

What Search Engines Want

Ok, let’s take a look at this from a search engine’s point of view.  What is a search engine trying to do?   Honestly, all they want to do is to give their users a good experience!  They want it to be so that when you go and do a search you get good results, and not the same thing over and over from multiple sites.   That’s the problem with duplicate content.

So what does a search engine do when they come across duplicate content that could show up in the search results?  They show what they think is the original or best result!

So with that in mind, let’s say that your article gets syndicated to a bunch of other sites.  What the search engines will try to do is show what they think is the original or best version of that article and not all the other versions.  That way, they give their users a good experience.

Articles and Syndication

So does syndication hurt you?  Well, again, think of it from a search engine point of view.  If you write good content and it gets syndicated, why should that hurt you?

Stace told me about a conversation he had with Stephen Spencer (founder and CEO of Netconcepts) at Blog World Expo.  He asked him this same question about articles and here is what Stephen Spencer told him (paraphrased of course):

All that happens is that the duplicate articles will be removed from the search results.  But, they still give you link benefit; they still pass ‘link-juice.’  They just don’t show up in the search results, only the original does.

In other words, get your articles syndicated, but don’t expect all of the duplicates out there to show up in the search results.

Article Spam

Now, that doesn’t mean you should go out there and spam your article across a million sites.  You see, there is a point where this type of syndication really can hurt you.  Google and other search engines do watch for malicious activities that are meant to deceive the search engines.  So don’t go crazy with your syndication.

Here’s what I’d recommend you do as a few practical steps when it comes to article submissions:

1. Publish the article on your site first.
2. Wait a few days before syndicating to let it get indexed first
3. Submit the article to a handful of good article directories or other syndication outlets, but be reasonable.

By submitting the article to your site first you can help it be noticed as the original.  Also, it is a good idea to link back to the original when you syndicate, giving the search engines more reason to believe that it is the original.  For more info on that, read the first question and answer from this interview that Stephen Spencer had with Matt Cutts: Natural Search Tactics for Retailers.

Republishing Articles on Your Site

So what about taking articles from other places and putting them on your site?  Well, if you read what I’ve said above you’ll see that it probably isn’t the best idea because you are not the original content.  So don’t expect the articles you take from other sites to show up well in the search results.  I admit that in some cases I have had this type of article show up, but not very often.  You’ll do a lot better by creating your own content!

I’d love to hear anyone else’s thoughts on this! Share your thoughts in the comments section below!

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