If Duplicate Content is a Myth ...

[Marhelper]

If Duplicate Content is a Myth then isn't it possible to just take some EZA articles (with the resource box intact) and use them for the creation of an entire site. For example, you pick 20 competitive keywords that you can rank for and find 20 articles written by EZA authors and instead of coming up with original content just use the article that is already on EZA for your site.

If that is possible, then why bother writing original content? Anyone ever try this? If so, were you able to hold your ranking on the SERPS?

[alcyonemktg]

Even if duplicate content is a myth wouldn't this narrow your odds getting traffic? I mean if I pull up a page of listings and see that 10 of the sites all have the same content, I'm probably not going to visit more than one.

[Zeus66]

People republish articles from EZA all the time on their own properties. That's part of the reason we submit our articles there! Gains us backlinks (as long as the republisher keeps the links intact... some don't, which is a copyright infringement).

And yes, you can actually outrank the original iteration of that article with good backlinks. Depends on how established your own site is. Remember that EZA is an authority site sitting at PR6. That gives any content there a lot of ranking juice.

John

[JMichaelZ]

There are folks who teach site creation with EZA articles as a viable way of getting traffic. My own viewpoint is that many EZA articles are not written particularly well, some are, but many are not. You might be able to use them as a basis for your site and add in your own intro before the article body and conclusion after the resource box.

Originally Posted by Marhelper

If Duplicate Content is a Myth then isn't it possible to just take some EZA articles (with the resource box intact) and use them for the creation of an entire site. For example, you pick 20 competitive keywords that you can rank for and find 20 articles written by EZA authors and instead of coming up with original content just use the article that is already on EZA for your site.

If that is possible, then why bother writing original content? Anyone ever try this? If so, were you able to hold your ranking on the SERPS?

Yes you can do it ... Remember articles are just content and nothing more. Yes they are written in a specific manner, normally speaking directly to the reader. Some things such as news release are in 3rd person but the same applies, it is just content.

The reason why you write original content is because you want to say things in "your" words, put "your" feelings or "your" emotions into the content. There are other reasons but this is one major reason. For example if you do not have an english accent (you are from the U.S. and not the U.K.), then why would you want content that sounds as if it was written by someone from england.

Is it suggested that you take the content and create a site, well.. if it is your content feel free. If you are talking about taking others content then that is illegal as that content does belong to the author that posted it.

James

[Steven Carl Kelly]

Duplicate content is NOT a myth. A specific penalty imposed by Google for duplicate content IS a myth. Duplicate content across sites is not "penalized" but rather often not displayed in search results because it is duplicated.

Here's an example you can see...

Take this EZA article by Lance Winslow:
Variety in Marketing Pays Off

Now, let's take the first line from that article and plug it into Google with quotes around it so we find only that exact phrase on other Web sites:

"Variety in your marketing mix will pay off every time and every smart marketing executive knows this"

When I do this search, I get 6 results and one of those six is the EZ Article link. However, at the bottom of the six results is this link from Google:

"In order to show you the most relevant results, we have omitted some entries very similar to the 6 already displayed. If you like, you can repeat the search with the omitted results included."

Because Google found this same line on a bunch of pages, it's only showing you a few of them. Clicking that link shows that Google has actually indexed that content on 20 pages, but by default only shows 6.

That's the potential problem with setting up a site solely on duplicate content. Not that you will be actively "penalized" for it, but that your relevant pages will be negatively affected (not penalized) by being among that group that falls beyond the results Google will display by default, meaning not only would people have to search Google for your terms, but they'd then have to click another link to see your pages -- and why should they do that when the results they're looking for have already been displayed?

I wrote this as a stream, I hope that I was clear in my explanation.

[Willie Crawford]

People do that all the time, especially when setting up
sites that target AdSense revenue. However, AdSense
revenue for many people setting up these type of content
sites has fallen WAY off over the last 2 years.

It really depends upon what you are trying to do. If you
write & post your own material,then your a positioning
yourself as the expert. If you post other's materials, then
you're presenting them as the subject matter expert, and
sending interested parties to their sites!

Willie

Originally Posted by JMichaelZ

There are folks who teach site creation with EZA articles as a viable way of getting traffic. My own viewpoint is that many EZA articles are not written particularly well, some are, but many are not. You might be able to use them as a basis for your site and add in your own intro before the article body and conclusion after the resource box.

I fully agree.. many articles I have seen are junk. What amazes me is this, I did a test just to see, I have tested many many things as many people should.

I paid $50 to a professional writer and I mean someone that is a published author in real life. I had them write me one article that was 725 words long. I made sure for them to write the summary, title, and keywords also. I added one word in the article and the word was "spinner" , I already knew eza thinks the word is evil or something. I added this one word anyways just to see what would happen when you provide a professionally written article.

The article was rejected due to the word "spinner" mentioned one time. Now what is so amazing about this is... EZA has many junk plr and poorly spun articles posted on their site but yet because of 1 word they rejected a professionally written article.

So I said fine.. I took the article and used it myself and I hold the top 7 positions out of 10 on google and noplace around is EZA.. I think they show back on page 4 or 5 ...lol

James

[Paul Hancox]

As Willie said, people set up sites that use other people's content ALL THE TIME. In fact, go to Google Blog Search, and do a search on a particular keyword, then narrow it down to the last 24 hours. You'll probably find that many of the blogs are just recycling content from elsewhere.

As for duplicate content, take a look at the following search:

Google

You'll probably notice that Copyblooger's "Ten Timeless Persuasive Writing Techniques" is at #1, and then a cut-down version at #3, and a virtual copy n' paste of the same article at #6. (Your exact results might vary.)

So the content has been somewhat duplicated and is yet still in at least 3 positions in the Top 10. Google shows duplicate content all the time.

Incidentally, I'd suggest Copyblogger is at #1, not because he was the original author (which he was), but because his site and article simply ranks better than everyone else. Period.

[Marhelper]

Originally Posted by Zeus66

People republish articles from EZA all the time on their own properties. That's part of the reason we submit our articles there! Gains us backlinks (as long as the republisher keeps the links intact... some don't, which is a copyright infringement).

And yes, you can actually outrank the original iteration of that article with good backlinks. Depends on how established your own site is. Remember that EZA is an authority site sitting at PR6. That gives any content there a lot of ranking juice.

John

I hear you on that but it would seem that a site built on duplicate content would not be ale to stand for long as it would eventually get de-indexed ... guess I am wrong.

[JayXtreme]

Re-purposing of EZA content is one of the biggest reasons that people submit to EZA

To have that content re-published elsewhere..

There have been adsense sites doing what you describe, en masse for years now and they still hold ranking.

I do this with all my content..

Publish the content to My site first, then EZA, then everywhere else.. even back on other properties I own.

Peace

Jay

Originally Posted by Marhelper

I hear you on that but it would seem that a site built on duplicate content would not be ale to stand for long as it would eventually get de-indexed ... guess I am wrong.

Why would it get de-indexed ????

duplicate content is a myth ... there is no such penalty for you syndicating articles and as such you would not be de-indexed...

As others have said this same thing has gone on for years and I do mean years... Go see some of the top media websites archives (most news websites have archives) and you will see.

James

[Brandon Tanner]

I think a lot of people simply get confused over the semantics of the term "penalty".

If your content is not displayed in the regular search results because it is duplicate, then whether you want to call it a penalty or not, the fact is it does have the same practical effect as a "penalty", because you won't be getting any real traffic to content in the "omitted" search results.

No traffic = no sales. No sales = penalty. Simple.

IF all SEO factors are equal between 2 articles using the same keywords (quality and amount of backlinks, etc), the original article will almost always outrank the "dupe" content article in the SE's.

So, when you look at it from that perspective, there is somewhat of a "penalty" for having duplicate content (as opposed to original content).

Of course it's not a "penalty" that can't be easily overcome with a few quality backlinks. But that's another topic altogether.

Originally Posted by Brandon Tanner

I think a lot of people simply get confused over the semantics of the term "penalty".

If your content is not displayed in the regular search results because it is duplicate, then whether you want to call it a penalty or not, the fact is it does have the same practical effect as a "penalty", because you won't be getting any real traffic to content in the "omitted" search results.

No traffic = no sales. No sales = penalty. Simple.

IF all SEO factors are equal between 2 articles using the same keywords (quality and amount of backlinks, etc), the original article will almost always outrank the "dupe" content article in the SE's.

So, when you look at it from that perspective, there is somewhat of a "penalty" for having duplicate content (as opposed to original content).

Of course it's not a "penalty" that can't be easily overcome with a few quality backlinks. But that's another topic altogether.

Brandon,
I sorry but I must disagree here because the search results that show many of us dominating googles front page with "THE EXACT SAME CONTENT" is not in the omitted results, it is on the regular search.

Also original article or dup article - The one that will outrank is theone that has the most relevent backlinks built to it. I do not care if it is original or not, no backlinks no top listing....

James

[Paul Hancox]

Hi Brandon

But how does Google determine the "original"? I'm pretty sure it doesn't keep a "register" of who the original author is. So the only way it can know this is perhaps by which version it indexes first, and also who is pointing to what, in terms of links.

(For example, if lots of "social bookmarking" sites like Digg are pointing to a page, I imagine Google's bot views the page being pointed at as the SOURCE. At least, I HOPE it's smart enough to figure that out!)

Besides, even if two pages have EXACTLY the same article, it's highly unlikely the two pages will be 100% the same in Google's eyes, because there are other elements on that page that make it different.

Remember, Google's bot doesn't read articles, it reads pages. So unless you've lifted the exact same page (HTML code and all), it's not going to be a duplicate anyway.

The reason I don't think it should be called a "penalty" is because...

(a) This word has the wrong connotation in people's minds. Think sports, where you're issued a penalty because you did something wrong. Or if you park illegally, you get a penalty. Duplicate content is not illegal, nor is it wrong in Google's eyes. In fact, entire article directories are based on the duplicate content model.

(b) Google are not penalizing anyone for what some marketers think of as "duplicate content". Sure, all things being equal, they may give precedent to the page they indexed earliest, but it's extremely rare that all things are going to be equal!

If the original content publisher outranks a duplicate copy, I'd say it's almost certainly because of SEO factors such as the original having better "authority" and backlinks in Google's eyes, rather than anything we should call a "penalty".

So I think the word "penalty" should be dropped, because many people are getting the wrong impression from it.

[InternetMarketingIQ]

Google simply picks what it believes is the most authoritative source and rewards that source. They don't "penalize" you. They simply don't reward you. And why would they?

They have to pick someone.

[JayXtreme]

Originally Posted by Steven Carl Kelly

Duplicate content is NOT a myth. A specific penalty imposed by Google for duplicate content IS a myth. Duplicate content across sites is not "penalized" but rather often not displayed in search results because it is duplicated.

Here's an example you can see...

Take this EZA article by Lance Winslow:
Variety in Marketing Pays Off

Now, let's take the first line from that article and plug it into Google with quotes around it so we find only that exact phrase on other Web sites:

"Variety in your marketing mix will pay off every time and every smart marketing executive knows this"

When I do this search, I get 6 results and one of those six is the EZ Article link. However, at the bottom of the six results is this link from Google:

"In order to show you the most relevant results, we have omitted some entries very similar to the 6 already displayed. If you like, you can repeat the search with the omitted results included."

Because Google found this same line on a bunch of pages, it's only showing you a few of them. Clicking that link shows that Google has actually indexed that content on 20 pages, but by default only shows 6.

That's the potential problem with setting up a site solely on duplicate content. Not that you will be actively "penalized" for it, but that your relevant pages will be negatively affected (not penalized) by being among that group that falls beyond the results Google will display by default, meaning not only would people have to search Google for your terms, but they'd then have to click another link to see your pages -- and why should they do that when the results they're looking for have already been displayed?

I wrote this as a stream, I hope that I was clear in my explanation.

When I do that same search.. I get a different result until page 2 and it kinda proves the point we were saying here..

[Paul Hancox]

Hi Steven

Originally Posted by Steven Carl Kelly

Because Google found this same line on a bunch of pages, it's only showing you a few of them. Clicking that link shows that Google has actually indexed that content on 20 pages, but by default only shows 6.

OK, that's a good example of Google not showing all the results for what it considers to be "similar" content.

I suspect a more interesting question is this... what do you think are the criteria for Google showing a page, instead of hiding it? Does it select them at random, or do you have any insights (or thoughts) as to why THOSE were chosen to be displayed?

I get the feeling there is some important knowledge hidden away in the results that Google chose to display, vs the ones they hid.

[Brandon Tanner]

Originally Posted by TheRichJerksNet

Brandon,
I sorry but I must disagree here because the search results that show many of us dominating googles front page with "THE EXACT SAME CONTENT" is not in the omitted results, it is on the regular search.

Also original article or dup article - The one that will outrank is theone that has the most relevent backlinks built to it. I do not care if it is original or not, no backlinks no top listing....

James

James,

What exactly do you disagree with? I know that many people dominate Google's front page search results with the same exact content (heck, I've done it myself several times). But that does not conflict in the least with what I said.

What I said is that an original article will almost always outrank a dupe content article in the SE's **IF** all SEO factors are the same between the 2 articles (keywords, backlinks, etc).

I agree that the quality and amount of backlinks are more important than how "original" the content is, but that's not the argument here.

Originally Posted by Brandon Tanner

James,

What exactly do you disagree with? I know that many people dominate Google's front page search results with the same exact content (heck, I've done it myself several times). But that does not conflict in the least with what I said.

What I said is that an original article will almost always outrank a dupe content article in the SE's **IF** all SEO factors are the same between the 2 articles (keywords, backlinks, etc).

I agree that the quality and amount of backlinks are more important than how "original" the content is, but that's not the argument here.

Brandon,
I understood your post to say those "dups" as people call them are in omitted results only.. If I mis-understood that, then I am sorry ...lol

James

[Brandon Tanner]

Originally Posted by Paul Hancox

Hi Brandon

But how does Google determine the "original"? I'm pretty sure it doesn't keep a "register" of who the original author is. So the only way it can know this is perhaps by which version it indexes first, and also who is pointing to what, in terms of links.

Hi Paul,

I think we are talking about 2 different meanings of the term "original" here. I'm not talking about the original copy of a duplicated article. I am talking about an article that is completely unique that has not been duplicated anywhere.

Perhaps that's where the confusion was.

[Brandon Tanner]

Originally Posted by TheRichJerksNet

Brandon,
I understood your post to say those "dups" as people call them are in omitted results only.. If I mis-understood that, then I am sorry ...lol

James

No worries, my friend. I've been misunderstood before, lol.

[Marhelper]

Originally Posted by Brandon Tanner

James,

What exactly do you disagree with? I know that many people dominate Google's front page search results with the same exact content (heck, I've done it myself several times). But that does not conflict in the least with what I said.

What I said is that an original article will almost always outrank a dupe content article in the SE's **IF** all SEO factors are the same between the 2 articles (keywords, backlinks, etc).

I agree that the quality and amount of backlinks are more important than how "original" the content is, but that's not the argument here.

So, use a well written EZA article (leave the resource box intact) and backlink the stuffing out of it ... should do well. Of course, an EZA article has the benefit of being a PR6 site.

[Steven Carl Kelly]

Originally Posted by Paul Hancox

Hi Steven

OK, that's a good example of Google not showing all the results for what it considers to be "similar" content.

I suspect a more interesting question is this... what do you think are the criteria for Google showing a page, instead of hiding it? Does it select them at random, or do you have any insights (or thoughts) as to why THOSE were chosen to be displayed?

I get the feeling there is some important knowledge hidden away in the results that Google chose to display, vs the ones they hid.

To know this for certain would be to know Google's highly-guarded algo. However, I think if you took the time to research each of the pages displayed and each the pages NOT displayed, many of the common factors that go into good SEO would more than likely be present on the pages which WERE displayed:

Proper keyword density, H1 tags, meta tags, internal links, good on-page SEO, good off-page SEO, backlinks, domain age, etc.

[Steven Carl Kelly]

Originally Posted by Paul Hancox

But how does Google determine the "original"? I'm pretty sure it doesn't keep a "register" of who the original author is. So the only way it can know this is perhaps by which version it indexes first, and also who is pointing to what, in terms of links.

I think it wouldn't be unreasonable to expect that Google's DB includes data on when a page was first indexed, when it was last updated, and when it was last crawled.

[jasonl70]

I have numerous sites that are 100% duplicated content (I built them soley for my own link network). The content is all from press releases and some wp-omatic. Every single one of the sites ranks extremely well in google - with zero original content. They started getting enough traffic that I ended up putting some related offers from Commission Junction on them and make almost 1k a month from them Not bad for sites that I never intended humans to actually see!

Originally Posted by Brandon Tanner

James,

What exactly do you disagree with? I know that many people dominate Google's front page search results with the same exact content (heck, I've done it myself several times). But that does not conflict in the least with what I said.

What I said is that an original article will almost always outrank a dupe content article in the SE's **IF** all SEO factors are the same between the 2 articles (keywords, backlinks, etc).

I agree that the quality and amount of backlinks are more important than how "original" the content is, but that's not the argument here.

That's not really a realistic assumption though. No 2 sites are going to have the exact same on -and- off page attributes.

I've built tons of sites over the years, and here's the ONLY time I've had a 'dup content' issue: when a single site had numerous pages that were pretty much the same, with only a few words changed (such as inventory/spec listings). What happened is google indexed a few pages, then bumped the rest of the pages to the supplemental index. It didn't effect the entire site - google just ignored those particular pages.

[Frank Donovan]

Hi Willie

Originally Posted by Willie Crawford

It really depends upon what you are trying to do. If you
write & post your own material,then your a positioning
yourself as the expert. If you post other's materials, then
you're presenting them as the subject matter expert, and
sending interested parties to their sites!

That's true, but you don't need to be an author or an expert to create an authoritative site.

You can be the editor.

Just select a number of expert articles on a given subject, come up with some well-targetted keywords as your page titles, work those keywords into an introductory sentence or two before each article and you'll have a worthy and credible authority site up and running in next to no time - using legitimately sourced content.

Such a site would be a great service to readers interested in your niche and would tend to attract relevant backlinks.

Mmmm. Other people's content.

After all, it's only what specialty magazines have been doing offline for ages


Frank

[Marhelper]

Originally Posted by jasonl70

I have numerous sites that are 100% duplicated content (I built them soley for my own link network). The content is all from press releases and some wp-omatic. Every single one of the sites ranks extremely well in google - with zero original content. They started getting enough traffic that I ended up putting some related offers from Commission Junction on them and make almost 1k a month from them Not bad for sites that I never intended humans to actually see!



That's not really a realistic assumption though. No 2 sites are going to have the exact same on -and- off page attributes.

I've built tons of sites over the years, and here's the ONLY time I've had a 'dup content' issue: when a single site had numerous pages that were pretty much the same, with only a few words changed (such as inventory/spec listings). What happened is google indexed a few pages, then bumped the rest of the pages to the supplemental index. It didn't effect the entire site - google just ignored those particular pages.

Thanks for clarifying. There seems to be too much evidence against a site being penalized for dupe content.

[Matt Gannon]

When I dup my articles out to lots of other directories I just make sure all the dup articles link back to the original one at my website. Seems to workout fine!

[Steven Wagenheim]

I'll keep this to facts and not opinion so there is no question of what I'm
saying.

Fact - I have written thousands of articles. They're easy enough to find.

Fact - If you search through enough of my articles, you will find many that
turn up in the SERPs higher on other sites (not including EZA) than on either
EZA's or my own by people who took those articles from the directory and
published them on their own site.

So even though, in those cases, I was the original author and either put
the article on my site or EZA's first, somebody else outranked me because
they had more backlinks and a stronger authority site on the subject.

That is proof that a duplicate content pentalty is a myth. If it wasn't a myth, this
couldn't happen.

It doesn't matter who wrote the article first or where it was put first.

What matters is who does the most work in getting the page with that
article ranked higher.

[futuremills]

this is a ground breaking thread

[clarissa25]

yes this thread is excellent. now I was just wondering are u allowed to alter the articles you repost from the ezine directories in anyway? Can u change the title? Can u add in affliate links? Can you put in a paragraph or 2? Is that legal?

Originally Posted by clarissa25

yes this thread is excellent. now I was just wondering are u allowed to alter the articles you repost from the ezine directories in anyway? Can u change the title? Can u add in affliate links? Can you put in a paragraph or 2? Is that legal?

I think this was answered the other day for you ... If that article is not yours then you must republish it "EXACTLY" how it is posted on the article directory you are getting it from...

James

[clarissa25]

Originally Posted by TheRichJerksNet

I think this was answered the other day for you ... If that article is not yours then you must republish it "EXACTLY" how it is posted on the article directory you are getting it from...

James

oh i was just asking because other posts in this thread say that you can tweak titles to make them keyword titles and add paragraphs

Originally Posted by clarissa25

oh i was just asking because other posts in this thread say that you can tweak titles to make them keyword titles and add paragraphs

If it is your article, then yes... If it was written by another author and posted and you are just republishing it then you must republish it exactly like it is without changing it..

James

[Jon Alexander]

Originally Posted by Marhelper

If Duplicate Content is a Myth then isn't it possible to just take some EZA articles (with the resource box intact) and use them for the creation of an entire site. For example, you pick 20 competitive keywords that you can rank for and find 20 articles written by EZA authors and instead of coming up with original content just use the article that is already on EZA for your site.

If that is possible, then why bother writing original content? Anyone ever try this? If so, were you able to hold your ranking on the SERPS?

this is the crux of the problem that a LOT of people don't "get".

Yes, you can create a site stuffed with nothing but duplicate content, and in fact, itrs what we used to do back in 2004 - ish, with great success.

It's worthless now (or pretty much, you'll still find people promoting it, and saying "but my acne site ranks really high" and maybe one or 2 sites DO rank high - that's the nature of SERPS!) because such a site doesn't generally give a good user experience and search engines nowadays are all about good user experience

The reason it USED to work was because 5 years back, search engines assumed such sites were 'nexuses of excellence' on a specific topic.

They are, of course, no longer under that misconception.

[clarissa25]

I did try to maybe set up a site with some ezine articles last night. I didnt get the point. I mean. other peoples affiliate links and website links were on my site. So the only use I saw was maybe for adsense. Otherwise I don't see why someone would wnat to do this. Please explain what the benefit would be

[Kurt]

Originally Posted by clarissa25

yes this thread is excellent. now I was just wondering are u allowed to alter the articles you repost from the ezine directories in anyway? Can u change the title? Can u add in affliate links? Can you put in a paragraph or 2? Is that legal?

As said above, you must publish the article as is...

However, you are in control of every other aspect of the page. You can change the page title to exploit any keywords you wish. You can add content and html elements before and after the article.

For example, you can write an intro paragraph before and/or comments after the article.

You can also control the anchor text of links pointing to the page.

So there's still a number of elements of the entire page you can use to influence SEO as well as make the page "more unique".

[Mohammad Afaq]

This is what article marketing is all about. People submit their articles on EZA and GoArticles etc in hopes that other people will publish the articles on their sites and they will get backlinks. That's how it all works.

[vivagogo]

I remember i read a report saying that over 50% blogs are made of duplicated contents for the time being...

[timpears]

I will give you a simple proof that duplicate content has no penalty.

DRUDGE REPORT 2009®

On my browser it shows as a PR7. This site is nothing but duplicate content, as best as I can tell. All Matt Drudge does is link to news sites for the stuff he is interested in. I will not say that Matt never does any original stuff, but I don't think he does, at least not often. I know that I would be fairly happy to know that my site was ranked PR7 and as popular as his is.

[timpears]

Originally Posted by clarissa25

I did try to maybe set up a site with some ezine articles last night. I didnt get the point. I mean. other peoples affiliate links and website links were on my site. So the only use I saw was maybe for adsense. Otherwise I don't see why someone would wnat to do this. Please explain what the benefit would be

I wondered if it would be worth doing this to see what happened. But as I see it, and I could very well be wrong, if you build a ten page site using ten articles, then you have a link or two in each resource box. You can have your Adsense ads, an affiliate link on each page, so your opportunity far out weighs the article author(s). I can see that it might be a viable money maker. Obviously not as much as if you wrote your own content, but a lot easier.

Would it be worth doing? I will be damned if I know. I might just try it to find out.

[Kurt]

Originally Posted by timpears

I will give you a simple proof that duplicate content has no penalty.

DRUDGE REPORT 2009®

On my browser it shows as a PR7. This site is nothing but duplicate content, as best as I can tell. All Matt Drudge does is link to news sites for the stuff he is interested in. I will not say that Matt never does any original stuff, but I don't think he does, at least not often. I know that I would be fairly happy to know that my site was ranked PR7 and as popular as his is.

"Proof'? First, drudgereport is NOT using doop content per se. He is using a unique combination of article titles.

Also, it's very likely that drudgereport.com has been white-listed by Google, meaning they can do things others can't.

In addition, we know Google has a different algo for "news" type sites, which drudgereport.com likely is. Using "news" as proof that doop content is OK doesn't take into consideration that Google treats news differently than it does "regular" content.

[Marhelper]

Originally Posted by Kurt

As said above, you must publish the article as is...

However, you are in control of every other aspect of the page. You can change the page title to exploit any keywords you wish. You can add content and html elements before and after the article.

For example, you can write an intro paragraph before and/or comments after the article.

You can also control the anchor text of links pointing to the page.

So there's still a number of elements of the entire page you can use to influence SEO as well as make the page "more unique".

I like that Kurt. In fact, I have just taken some of the articles I wrote in a particular niche and decided to paste them into my WP site. I added some backlinks and found the keyword they are ranking for. I then went and added the keyword to the top and bottom of the page in bold. I have also included a link to each page. Hopefully that makes a difference and I can outrank the EZA I wrote previously ... we'll see.

[cryptone24]

Originally Posted by Zeus66

People republish articles from EZA all the time on their own properties. That's part of the reason we submit our articles there! Gains us backlinks (as long as the republisher keeps the links intact... some don't, which is a copyright infringement).

And yes, you can actually outrank the original iteration of that article with good backlinks. Depends on how established your own site is. Remember that EZA is an authority site sitting at PR6. That gives any content there a lot of ranking juice.

John

Hey John, if the links are removed from an ezine but the original author source was cited, is that still considered copyright infringement and does Google penalize for that?

[dburk]

Originally Posted by timpears

I will give you a simple proof that duplicate content has no penalty.

DRUDGE REPORT 2009®

On my browser it shows as a PR7. This site is nothing but duplicate content, as best as I can tell. All Matt Drudge does is link to news sites for the stuff he is interested in. I will not say that Matt never does any original stuff, but I don't think he does, at least not often. I know that I would be fairly happy to know that my site was ranked PR7 and as popular as his is.

Hi Tim,

Sorry to have to correct you again.

The Drudge Report is a personal website of a reporter famous for breaking really big stories. His page is unique in the way it lists related stories. Most of the content on his page is unique, he usually writes his own unique headlines for each story and links to the source.

Matt Drudge's appeal is his ability to find real news that is often buried and glossed over by the main stream media. Most major reporters hate him because of his ability to take there own stories and write a unique headline that emphasizes the truth buried within the story that original reporter missed or deliberately buried.

On the occasions where Matt Drudge breaks a big story he posts exclusive content and gets 10 of millions of daily visitors.

By the way he does not rely on search engine traffic and he mainly only ranks for variations of his name or his website's name.

I do agree that there is no such thing as a duplicate content penalty. I've never seen any evidence of a penalty, however there is a filter that prevents SERP from listing redundant content when alternate results are available.

[dburk]

Originally Posted by dean.powel71

This is a really interesting thread to read on.

Well i dont think using the duplicate articles or content is a good idea coz sometimes it really can harm your backlinks.

Hi dean.powel71,

That's an interesting assertion, how exactly does duplicate content "harm your backlinks"?

[Kiwigal]

Originally Posted by JayXtreme

Re-purposing of EZA content is one of the biggest reasons that people submit to EZA

To have that content re-published elsewhere..

There have been adsense sites doing what you describe, en masse for years now and they still hold ranking.

I do this with all my content..

Publish the content to My site first, then EZA, then everywhere else.. even back on other properties I own.

Peace

Jay

I have to agree with Jay on this, he with the most backlinks to an article can win the serps position whether it be duplicate or not.

[cryptone24]

That is some real talk, thank you Ametis

[Mr_Julian_S]

For Duplicate Content, following is the view of Google:
"Duplicate content on a site is not grounds for action on that site unless it appears that the intent of the duplicate content is to be deceptive and manipulate search engine results. If your site suffers from duplicate content issues, and you don't follow the advice listed above, we do a good job of choosing a version of the content to show in our search results."

For more details about Googles reaction on Duplicate Content you can get the details at Duplicate content - Webmasters/Site owners Help