CLARIFICATION: Duplicate content, Domain Sandboxing, Footprints and the resulting Google Slaps

[tigerwar]

Many people are asking questions relating to Duplicate Content, Domain Sandboxing, and Footprints. Nevertheless, many answers tend to end with a question mark.

Warrior Forum is "a Great Source" filled with top qualified, experienced Internet Marketers and SEO Experts
Many TOP Warriors here are renouned for their IM qualities and highly respected.

Can we use this opportunity and their expertise to discuss and clarify the exact meaning of the following, in context with Autobloging:

1. Duplicate Content = DC

a) What is DC exactly
b) To what extent can DC be penalized
c) are too similar articles on one site classified as DC (Autoblogs)
d) When is an Article classified as unique, where is the borderline(if it exists at all)

2. Domain Sandboxing with Backlinks= DS

a) What is the meaning of Domain Sandboxing through incorrect backlinking(backlinking to the same domain)
b) What role does DS play when backlinking from an addon-Domain to the main Domain
c) What role does DS play when backlinking from 10 sub-Domains to the same addon-Domainor from one addon-domain to another on the same server

3. Footprint = FP

a) What is a FP
b) when will a FB be recognized by an SE
c) To what extent can a FP be penalized
d) What types of FP are there
e) How can a Newbie recognize and avoid FP

I am sure that clarifying these points will be of enormous help to many existing and upcoming Warriors and it would be good to here some expert opinions

Thanks
Tigerwar

[Steven Fullman]

Hi Tigerz,

I'm not qualified to talk about points 2 and 3, but I can talk about Dupe Content.

Google says:

"Duplicate content generally refers to substantive blocks of content within or across domains that either completely match other content or are appreciably similar"

Let's take an article on the BBC website.

The BBC has a syndication team. They actively seek out other news sources to carry their stories.

The result? 1000's of sites carrying the same story. Verbatim.

Duplicate content? Yep. Penalized? Nope.

Google's smarter than that. But how?

My guess is it all goes back to their "Page Rank" algorithm.

Authority...not content...is king.

A site with authority...maybe by necessity...becomes a legitimate aggregator.

A site with no authority is simply a scaper.

It's an over-simplification, but you can best trust those sites whom are trusted by other trusted sites.

Lol, it's the internet equivalent of an "old boys network"

So the question should be...

How do I become an authority?

Google don't answer that, but I suspect the answer is visitors/reach/PR/Trying hard...

Cheers,
Steve

[FrankBowman]

Originally Posted by Steven Fullman

Google's smarter than that. But how?

My guess is it all goes back to their "Page Rank" algorithm.

Authority...not content...is king.

A site with authority...maybe by necessity...becomes a legitimate aggregator.

A site with no authority is simply a scaper.

Interesting theory. I'm testing something out with PLR on a new site. The site was indexed a while ago, but had no content. I want to see if it will rank with enough backlinks, regardless of the duplicate content....We'll see what happens.

Frank

[tigerwar]

Hi Steve,

Love your product..WpUnique... It's ranking my sites at no.1 now!

but to your post.....

within or across domains

I know of a number of people that state the opposite, here for example:


Duplicate content:

"if you still believe in that myth, you are you going to lose in a big way. I have Thousands of pages indexed and ranking for long tail keywords in Google and they are nothing but UNEDITED PLR, and No, I didn’t to any backlinking. As long as you don’t post multiple articles in the same domain, Google DOES NOT consider your content to be duplicate".

I could enter more quotes here but they're pretty repetitious and this simply confirms my first post: most answers end up with a question mark!

thanks
Best regards
Tigerz

[tigerwar]

Originally Posted by FrankBowman

Interesting theory. I'm testing something out with PLR on a new site. The site was indexed a while ago, but had no content. I want to see if it will rank with enough backlinks, regardless of the duplicate content....We'll see what happens.

Frank

hello Frank

thanks hope you come back on that one

I found a site...nothing but a list of Search engines(linking out to SE)no advertising..ranking at no 1 on google, so I decided to do the same and low and behold (from 11 million) I was no.2 within 2 weeks on the same page with the same keywords. My site 2 weeks old, the other, an aged site with PR4. My site with an identical list, only a different layout+CJ and adsense. I could never beat his no.1 position due to his authority backlinks- universities and such - Now that I know more about authority backlinks, I probably could top him pretty quickly.
This was strange.
I made the outgoing link text only slightly different and had 0 backlinks. Nevertheless....

it is still duplicate content or not?
why was I never penalized?


the site is now 2 years old and dances from pos.3-9 but alway on the first page

Tigerwar

[Steve Crooks]

Duplicate content question again...

Honestly, the search button will reveal more answers to this question than you can imagine.. Just ignore the answers from people with unfounded theories, go with what Google actually say about the "D" word and try and create unique and good content anyway.. Simple.

[tigerwar]

Originally Posted by Steve Crooks

Duplicate content question again...

Honestly, the search button will reveal more answers to this question than you can imagine.. Just ignore the answers from people with unfounded theories, go with what Google actually say about the "D" word and try and create unique and good content anyway.. Simple.

hello Steve and I agree to an extent " Duplicate content question again... "

If google said" jump over the cliff" I would't!

This isn't only about DC, it's about people claiming to be successful allthough using DC. If this is true, then one has to ask whether there's any truth behind the google "rules" or is it merely a "myth".
I personally wouldn't want to scold my fingers by creating a wonderful site, only to be penalized after so much hard word, but there are many that have tried and succeeded!

Alone the example above regarding my site with the SE list(which btw..didn't incorporate much work) is a fact.

Besides that, there are two other questions: DS and FP, any experience with those?

Thanks
Tiger

[bgmacaw]

I agree with Steve, these are all Groundhog Day topics.

Originally Posted by tigerwar

1. Duplicate Content = DC
a) What is DC exactly
b) To what extent can DC be penalized
c) are too similar articles on one site classified as DC (Autoblogs)
d) When is an Article classified as unique, where is the borderline(if it exists at all)

I suggest that you do some research on this yourself with some test sites and observe what happens with news sites, music lyric sites, game cheat sites and the like. You'll discover that 'DC' isn't as bad as some make it out to be but that you may be stacking the deck against yourself ranking-wise if you use it and don't have authority links.

Originally Posted by tigerwar

2. Domain Sandboxing with Backlinks= DS
a) What is the meaning of Domain Sandboxing through incorrect backlinking(backlinking to the same domain)
b) What role does DS play when backlinking from an addon-Domain to the main Domain
c) What role does DS play when backlinking from 10 sub-Domains to the same addon-Domainor from one addon-domain to another on the same server

There is no spoon...

...but there are a lot of excuses.

Originally Posted by tigerwar

3. Footprint = FP
a) What is a FP
b) when will a FB be recognized by an SE
c) To what extent can a FP be penalized
d) What types of FP are there
e) How can a Newbie recognize and avoid FP

Well, this one isn't exactly a topic worthy of Ned Ryerson.

My take is that Google's algorithm searches for patterns. That's how data mining applications work, finding information patterns. Certain patterns trigger alerts for humans to review while others automate an action. These patterns are always changing so it's hard to nail down exactly what might trigger an action. My observation is that Google can bring new action triggers online relatively quickly if they think there's reason to act.

So, you can't know exactly what's going to fit a pattern since it's a moving target. However, it is safe to assume that certain scripts with a spammy history (BANS, YACG, others) are targeted for deindexing. Certain actions, such as obvious link wheels and massive autogenerated link building across a few sites with little or no authority, will probably get noticed but the action take seems to vary.

You can avoid problems in this area by using popular CMS systems, such as WordPress or Drupal, a system of your own, exclusive, design, or just plain HTML. Then avoid using obvious plugins and scripts that might show up as a pattern. For linking, avoid well publicized SEO patterns and tricks (link wheels, etc) and stick with naturalized patterns.

[MichaelRay]

I have a couple of friends with exactly the same article posted in their blog a week apart but both article reached the first page in Google SERPs. SO I don't think every duplicate content get's penalized.

[tigerwar]

Thanks bgmacaw

The topic may as Steve Crooks said, be scattered all over the forum but I am looking for more than simple answers from peter, pan and paul standing at the next kiosk who have just read a cover story and now believe themselves to be omniscient to the topic. Rather I was hoping for discusion from authority (experienced)warriors who might last but not least be able to erradicate that question mark always left after the answers.

I am not looking for assumptions or the "bible says....... so do it that way."

I have personally done a lot of testing over 3 years with DC, yet I'm still not in the position to give a concrete answere; basically, I was never penalized unless doing as Steve Fullman mentioned, entering DC on the same server with two different sites.

As to your last entry:

You can avoid problems in this area by using popular CMS systems, such as WordPress or Drupal, a system of your own, exclusive, design, or just plain HTML. Then avoid using obvious plugins and scripts that might show up as a pattern. For linking, avoid well publicized SEO patterns and tricks (link wheels, etc) and stick with naturalized patterns.

In this fast evolving IM platform, it's near to impossible to monetize a site (with fast results) if we eliminate the possiblities offered through autoblogs.
If we believed everthing the Doc tells us about which foods are healthy and which are not, we'd probably starve to death.
By "avoiding", I think you possibly mean't "find the good programs and not just first offer thrown at you"

My take is that Google's algorithm searches for patterns

I would love know how populated a pattern has to be before being recognized, 1000, 2000, 100,000?
Programs like wpRobot have been arround for a long time and it doesn't appear that they'll be "marked" in the next decade.

Tigerwar

[tigerwar]

Originally Posted by MichaelRay

I have a couple of friends with exactly the same article posted in their blog a week apart but both article reached the first page in Google SERPs. SO I don't think every duplicate content get's penalized.

Hi michael

maybe as Steve fullman suggested:

Authority...not content...is king.

A site with authority...maybe by necessity...becomes a legitimate aggregator.

Tigerwar

[cashcow]

Interesting theory. I'm testing something out with PLR on a new site. The site was indexed a while ago, but had no content. I want to see if it will rank with enough backlinks, regardless of the duplicate content....We'll see what happens.

I've tested this to death and dupe content or PLR ranks fine with the appropriate amount of backlinks.

Lee

[hollieollo]

Hi Tigerwar,
You will remember me from another thread, so you will excuse the intervention in this thread.
You will recall that I had a site onlinereview.biz that I used WP-Unique to uniquify the content that was autoposted. The problem I had was that unlike my other sites, it did not show in Google SERPS. You then took a look at the site an in the meantime I made some changes to keywords etc and the alii-in-one SEO.
That was laste week, and my articles suddenly appeared on page one.
Now they have disappeared again and the site, again, seems to have disappeared?
In an earlier exchange on this thread, it was mentioned that maybe because of some kind of intervention or flagging up, a human at Google looked at a site and the DC situation.
I have noticed that since our last conversation, even articles that I have written myself and posted to interrupt the auto-posting procedure, are not appearing on Google.
The domain is only 1 month old, so maybe that is a factor, but my point is that it is entirely possible that someone whose article is `used` on another blog using the WP-Unique plugin, then sees their article demoted, may make representations to Google!
This is the inescapable conclusion I have arrived at.
I have my sites set up identical fashion as regards plugins etc. The only difference being maybe the theme. I have tried and tested everything I can think of to make the WP-Unique system work on this blog without much success.
I have pointed a couple of PR domains at it, checked with any number of seo sites yet still the articles do not show?
It can only be human intervention motivated, I think, by a disgruntled competitor.
You may want to re-check the website again and let me know if you agree.

Regards

Chris Arnfield

[atwellpub]

Originally Posted by tigerwar

Many people are asking questions relating to Duplicate Content, Domain Sandboxing, and Footprints. Nevertheless, many answers tend to end with a question mark.

Warrior Forum is "a Great Source" filled with top qualified, experienced Internet Marketers and SEO Experts
Many TOP Warriors here are renouned for their IM qualities and highly respected.

Can we use this opportunity and their expertise to discuss and clarify the exact meaning of the following, in context with Autobloging:

1. Duplicate Content = DC

a) What is DC exactly
b) To what extent can DC be penalized
c) are too similar articles on one site classified as DC (Autoblogs)
d) When is an Article classified as unique, where is the borderline(if it exists at all)

2. Domain Sandboxing with Backlinks= DS

a) What is the meaning of Domain Sandboxing through incorrect backlinking(backlinking to the same domain)
b) What role does DS play when backlinking from an addon-Domain to the main Domain
c) What role does DS play when backlinking from 10 sub-Domains to the same addon-Domainor from one addon-domain to another on the same server

3. Footprint = FP

a) What is a FP
b) when will a FB be recognized by an SE
c) To what extent can a FP be penalized
d) What types of FP are there
e) How can a Newbie recognize and avoid FP

I am sure that clarifying these points will be of enormous help to many existing and upcoming Warriors and it would be good to here some expert opinions

Thanks
Tigerwar

I believe all the information your looking for can be found over at the AutoblogBluePrint.com, which gives a very thorough course on new blog building, autoblog building and how to successfully dance through all the sand traps you worry about while giving proper perspective on them.

Aff Link: Earn Over $3000 Per Month on Autopilot | Auto Blog Blueprint 2.0
non Aff Link: Earn Over $3000 Per Month on Autopilot | Auto Blog Blueprint 2.0

also,

You can be punnished if your website is new.

Google monitors new sites to determine their percentage of original content. If content across the site is 100% unorginal you can find yourself sandboxed and possibly never able to get out unless you prove better statistically.

That being said, you can avoid this by passing the new-site period of time by seeding your new site with 100% original content at first and letting it sit for awhile before you make use of it. This will pass the new-site-test, and free you up to post un-original content without being considered a new splog( which google has to look for and devalue because splogs are unnatractive and not beneficial to the internet).

In addition, unoriginal content is not considered unorginal if it is mixed heavily in new formats with other unoriginal content, because here you have an orginal arrangement. We want to do this to keep our original content stats up, and thereby be more valuable.

Besides the new - site - sandbox penalty, there is no penalty for using unoriginal content. If content is indexed, then it is valued. And from my studies unoriginal content, even unmixed, does get indexed. But unoriginal content is competing with it's same content on the serps, so it might not have benifit for your site, UNLESS the seo and focus of your site makes the unoriginal content most attractive and relevant.

Original Thread:
BlogSense Commnity • View topic - How to Build Valuable Websites

[tigerwar]

Originally Posted by hollieollo

Hi Tigerwar,
You will remember me from another thread, so you will excuse the intervention in this thread.
You will recall that I had a site onlinereview.biz that I used WP-Unique to uniquify the content that was autoposted. The problem I had was that unlike my other sites, it did not show in Google SERPS. You then took a look at the site an in the meantime I made some changes to keywords etc and the alii-in-one SEO.
That was laste week, and my articles suddenly appeared on page one.
Now they have disappeared again and the site, again, seems to have disappeared?
In an earlier exchange on this thread, it was mentioned that maybe because of some kind of intervention or flagging up, a human at Google looked at a site and the DC situation.
I have noticed that since our last conversation, even articles that I have written myself and posted to interrupt the auto-posting procedure, are not appearing on Google.
The domain is only 1 month old, so maybe that is a factor, but my point is that it is entirely possible that someone whose article is `used` on another blog using the WP-Unique plugin, then sees their article demoted, may make representations to Google!
This is the inescapable conclusion I have arrived at.
I have my sites set up identical fashion as regards plugins etc. The only difference being maybe the theme. I have tried and tested everything I can think of to make the WP-Unique system work on this blog without much success.
I have pointed a couple of PR domains at it, checked with any number of seo sites yet still the articles do not show?
It can only be human intervention motivated, I think, by a disgruntled competitor.
You may want to re-check the website again and let me know if you agree.

Regards

Chris Arnfield

Hi Chris,

As I mentioned in the other thread:

"We are obliged to keep any links that are within a collected article, you can add more but never delete the originals unless allowed in the TOS of Ezine or other directories."

If you comply to this, there is no reason for anyone to complain, au contraire, that is the point of posting articles, the author gets the backlink, You are not demoting their site, you are gaining a position in google thanks to their article and they are gaining a backlink!

I'll get back to the othe thread and talk about the other things.

Best regards
Tigerwar

[tigerwar]

Hello atwellpup,

I believe all the information your looking for can be found over at the....

I am personaly not looking for help! I am hoping to receive the opinions of some TOP Expert Warriors to enable not only myself but also others to weigh the results against the so called "bible"

Tigerwar

[atwellpub]

Then maybe the second part is more helpful?, which has to do with new site sandboxing, and Google's measurements of original content->OC in a new site to initially determine the site's worth to the internet. (To make sure it's not a invaluable splog).

Good luck!

Originally Posted by tigerwar

Hello atwellpup,



I am personaly not looking for help! I am hoping to receive the opinions of some TOP Expert Warriors to enable not only myself but also others to weigh the results against the so called "bible"

Tigerwar

[hollieollo]

Hi Tigerwar,
Thanks for the reply. I have lost the bookmark for the other thread! Can you give me a link to it?

Regards

Chris

[tigerwar]

Hi Atwellpup,

You can be punnished if your website is new.

Google monitors new sites to determine their percentage of original content. If content across the site is 100% unorginal you can find yourself sandboxed and possibly never able to get out unless you prove better statistically.

Sounds like a lottery; "You can be punnished if your website is new" also means might not be punnished.
There are many "in-a-box-sites" out there with the identical content but I know for a fact that they still rank high under different or similar long tail keywords- so this doesn't really conclude anything

In addition, unoriginal content is not considered unorginal if it is mixed heavily in new formats with other unoriginal content, because here you have an orginal arrangement. We want to do this to keep our original content stats up, and thereby be more valuable.

did I understand this? if your talking about spun articles then that is unique.

And from my studies unoriginal content, even unmixed, does get indexed. But unoriginal content is competing with it's same content on the serps, so it might not have benifit for your site, UNLESS the seo and focus of your site makes the unoriginal content most attractive and relevant.

I believe (correct me if I'm wrong please) that the importance of content cannot be judged by algorithm, only by human interrest, therefore duplicate or not, the content is only as important as it's related keywords.


thanks for the insight
Tigerwar

[tigerwar]

Originally Posted by cashcow

I've tested this to death and dupe content or PLR ranks fine with the appropriate amount of backlinks.

Lee

Hi Lee,

Very interresting, a picture paints more than a thousand words!

are you saying, it's worth the risk or there is no risk involved if the site otherwise complies, i.e SEO+strong backlinks?

Thanks
Tigerwar

[dburk]

Hi Tigerwar,

Google isn't interested in penalizing webmasters, instead they are interested in providing useful results for their users. When you put autoblogging into perspective, you have to ask "do Google searchers want to find autoblog content in their search results?" I think that the answer to that question is generally "no." The exception might be when the auto-generated content is put together in a way that it is truly useful to searchers.

The point I'm tying to make is that auto-generated content is not always useless, but the way auto-blogging is typically done is both self-serving and useless to users. If you devise a system that truly offers a benefit to users then I think you should expect that type of content to perform well in the search engines.

Now to your questions, you ask common questions that are frequently asked and answered almost daily on this forum. The answers come from different viewpoints, some credible and some not. I believe we can break down the answers into three groups:

• Answers from people who have researched or tested to find reasonable accurate answers, often citing credible sources for their conclusions.
• Answers from people who tend to regurgitate things they have read or heard, but never challanged the accuracy or credibility of sources, or they just made up something that sounds plausible.
• Answers from people who have no idea, they are just saying something to be part of the conversation, or to get their post count up, or get their sgnature link in the thread (spammers).

I think the reason we are seeing the same questions asked over and over are in part due to spammers just copying and pasting common questions to get there profiles indexed. And then there are those that are truly seeking answers, yet they don't know how to discern credibility or they were too lazy to search for the answers which have already been repeated in dozens of threads. And finally, there are those that are looking for a consensus or who aren't happy with the correct answer and insist on asking the question over and over until they get the answer they wanted.

Which type of questioner are you?

Here are my answers which you will find repeated over and over on similar threads where I cite credible sources that collaborate the answers:

• There is no Duplicate Content Penalty
• The mythical Google Sandbox for SEO is a figment of imagination
• A Footprint is any pattern that is repeated. Typically used to find content generated from a common source, tool or method.

The interesting thing about footprints is there is no reason to fear them unless you are doing something unscrupulous and hoping to avoid detection. The paradox of this approach is that the whole point of SEO is to achieve maximum exposure. "Maximum exposure without detection" is a silly, oxymoronic notion in my opinion.

Google engineer Matt Cutts has stated "the Google Sandbox doesn't exist", however there is a part of their organic algorithm that some webmasters "perceive" as a "sandbox effect". It's a problem of perception, not reality.

Most webmasters "perceive" the so called "sandbox effect" after they see the temporary boost from QDF wear off of their newly indexed web pages. QDF applies to individual pages, not websites, its a temporary boost awarded to fresh content for the benefit of users, not a penalty to a website as it is typically perceived by webmasters.

Sources:
Official Google Webmaster Central Blog: Demystifying the "duplicate content penalty"
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/03/bu...gewanted=print

[cashcow]

Hi Lee,

Very interresting, a picture paints more than a thousand words!

are you saying, it's worth the risk or there is no risk involved if the site otherwise complies, i.e SEO+strong backlinks?

I am saying there are no risks involved. Not at this time anyway. Who knows what google will do in the future but I think it is unlikely that they will be penalizing sites that have duplicate content - content syndication is too widespread and a very legitimate practice.

[tigerwar]

Hello Don,

Great, short to the point and without question marks on answers...Thankyou!

I think the reason we are seeing the same questions asked over and over are in part due to spammers just copying and pasting common questions to get there profiles indexed. And then there are those that are truly seeking answers, yet they don't know how to discern credibility or they were too lazy to search for the answers which have already been repeated in dozens of threads. And finally, there are those that are looking for a consensus or who aren't happy with the correct answer and insist on asking the question over and over until they get the answer they wanted.

The point of putting these questions into one thread is to tag and centralize the topics and clarify many uncertainties or half hearted answers that are literally scattered arround the forum. I personaly get cheesed of when searching for something only to be confronted with an inadequate answer!

Best regards
Tigerwar

[tigerwar]

btw....Don,

there are truly people looking for quick, correct answers, I don't understand the neccessity of your question above regarding "who are you?" The answere to that was in my question but maybe you did it for this reason......

.........One day, a scorpion looked around at the mountain where he lived and decided that he wanted a change. So he set out on a journey through the forests and hills. He climbed over rocks and under vines and kept going until he reached a river.

The river was wide and swift, and the scorpion stopped to reconsider the situation. He couldn't see any way across. So he ran upriver and then checked downriver, all the while thinking that he might have to turn back.
Suddenly, he saw a frog sitting in the rushes by the bank of the stream on the other side of the river. He decided to ask the frog for help getting across the stream.
"Hellooo Mr. Frog!" called the scorpion across the water, "Would you be so kind as to give me a ride on your back across the river?"
"Well now, Mr. Scorpion! How do I know that if I try to help you, you wont try to kill me?" asked the frog hesitantly.
"Because," the scorpion replied, "If I try to kill you, then I would die too, for you see I cannot swim!"
Now this seemed to make sense to the frog. But he asked. "What about when I get close to the bank? You could still try to kill me and get back to the shore!"
"This is true," agreed the scorpion, "But then I wouldn't be able to get to the other side of the river!"
"Alright then...how do I know you wont just wait till we get to the other side and THEN kill me?" said the frog.
"Ahh...," crooned the scorpion, "Because you see, once you've taken me to the other side of this river, I will be so grateful for your help, that it would hardly be fair to reward you with death, now would it?!"
So the frog agreed to take the scorpion across the river. He swam over to the bank and settled himself near the mud to pick up his passenger. The scorpion crawled onto the frog's back, his sharp claws prickling into the frog's soft hide, and the frog slid into the river. The muddy water swirled around them, but the frog stayed near the surface so the scorpion would not drown. He kicked strongly through the first half of the stream, his flippers paddling wildly against the current.
Halfway across the river, the frog suddenly felt a sharp sting in his back and, out of the corner of his eye, saw the scorpion remove his stinger from the frog's back. A deadening numbness began to creep into his limbs.
"You fool!" croaked the frog, "Now we shall both die! Why on earth did you do that?"
The scorpion shrugged, and did a little jig on the drownings frog's back.
"I could not help myself. It is my nature." Then they both sank into the muddy waters of the swiftly flowing river.

Regards
Tigerwar

[tigerwar]

Till now we have had some great replies on the question 1 and 3, Thankyou all for that!

My Second question regarding getting sandboxed has apparently been misinterpreted due to the discussion about duplicate content.

b) What role does getting "Sandboxed" play when backlinking from an addon-Domain to the main Domain
c) What role does "Sandboxed" play when backlinking from 10 sub-Domains to the same addon-Domain or from one addon-domain to another on the same server

perhaps I it would have been better to say penalized instead of sandboxed

so once again:

b) can content, a page or a website be penalized (degraded) when backlinking from an addon-Domain to the main Domain on the same server

c) can content, a page or a website be penalized (degraded) when backlinking from say, 10 sub-Domains to the same addon-Domain or from one addon-domain to another on the same server


many thanks
Tigerwar

[dburk]

Hi tigerwar,

My question was meant to be rhetorical and intended for all readers. It would be nice if folks would look for answers already posted before asking for the second or third time in the same day. Or they could just look at the FAQs pinned to the top of this board. If they aren't able to get the answers from there, then post a question. I believe that is considered proper forum etiquette.

For those that are more visually effected:

YouTube - Posting and You

[tigerwar]

ooo0000H Don! got outa the wrong side of bed this morning huh?

Instead of playing tinky-winks, is there any chance of answering the question above?

Thanks
Tigerwar

[Kay King]

Who died and made you Dog?...or is it scorpion king?

The rudeness and arrogance of your posts and questions are astounding.

Your insistence that only "authorities" answer your questions ignores the fact that authorities aren't inclined to answer the same basic questions daily.

Your need to organize and control the way info is presented here isn't helpful. If you want only answers that suit you - and only some allowed to answer the repetitive questions, perhaps you need your own forum where you can exercise full control.

The questions have been answered by people know the subjects. If you have tested for three years - you should know that little in SEO is "concrete". Often the rules are defined by the exceptions.

This entire thread does not appear focused on answers to simple basic questions (that have been answered multiple times) but simply a platform to argue endlessly.

is there any chance of answering the question above

I doubt it.

kay

[dburk]

Originally Posted by tigerwar

ooo0000H Don! got outa the wrong side of bed this morning huh?

Instead of playing tinky-winks, is there any chance of answering the question above?

Hi tigger,

I posted with tongue placed firmly in cheek. but the point is still valid, is it not?

Here's a link to my ~95 previous attempts to answer this question on this forum:
site:warriorforum.com dburk "google sandbox" - Google Search

In case those answers are too much trouble to read, here it is again:

The "Google Sandbox" for SEO is not real. It is an imaginary place or penalty that webmasters refer to when they don't understand why their page is not ranked higher in the search results. This "perceived" penalty typically manifests when a webmaster sees his page drop in ranking as the boost from QDF factor wears off.

This phenomenon has been dubbed by many in the industry as the "Sandbox Effect". It is due in part to trust factors which treat pages, that have stood the test of time, with more trust. Since there is nothing that you do to cause the "sandbox effect", there is nothing that you can do to avoid it. The passage of time is all that is necessary to overcome it. You have not been singled out either, it applies equally to all new pages.

To answer your rephrased questions:

Google does not penalize websites or pages for linking to relevant content. They may remove PR and/or trust from pages that link to harmful content, but that is not the question you asked, I'm just pointing out that there are notable exceptions when other factors come into play.

Google encourages interlinking of pages when it makes since to do so, regardless of domains.

[tigerwar]

Originally Posted by Kay King

Who died and made you Dog?...or is it scorpion king?

The rudeness and arrogance of your posts and questions are astounding.

Your insistence that only "authorities" answer your questions ignores the fact that authorities aren't inclined to answer the same basic questions daily.

Your need to organize and control the way info is presented here isn't helpful. If you want only answers that suit you - and only some allowed to answer the repetitive questions, perhaps you need your own forum where you can exercise full control.

The questions have been answered by people know the subjects. If you have tested for three years - you should know that little in SEO is "concrete". Often the rules are defined by the exceptions.

This entire thread does not appear focused on answers to simple basic questions (that have been answered multiple times) but simply a platform to argue endlessly.



I doubt it.

kay

Well the outcome of this has truly astounded me!

These were honest questions with good intentions with the point of containing all my questions to a "single" thread rather than having to search for longer periods!
The question were aimed specifically at Top Experienced Warriors in the hope of getting "concrete" answers rather than assumptions from the "not so experienced"

I for one, was extremely happy with the ressonance and many of the replies and don't see any justification for the latter bombardment.

I certainly do appreciate what is being said about the search factor but I was sincerely hoping to confine all answers a single thread for simplified future referencing.

To be scolded for good intentions goes beyond my understanding!

Best regards
Tigerwar

[tigerwar]

Thx Don for helping me accomplish my goal, even if the side line had to be walked to get there first!

Some top answers here and I think everyone now searching for these, will be glad to have
so many "concrete" answers in such a short thread.

could have been a little shorter though

Best regards
Tigerwar

[williamspd]

I autoblog, which was the context of the original post.

1) I find that some autoblogged sites jump around in Google and Yahoo rankings quite a lot, especially in the early days, but nothing I've ever done using unmodified PLR or republished articles from EzineArticles etc has ever harmed my site in any way that might make me think of a penalty or sandbox. What I would say though is that unoriginal content does not benefit my site with anywhere near the strength that original content does. Whenever I have interrupted my autoblogging to insert some original content, that has (once indexed) been a powerful shot in the arm to my rankings.

I have ranked sites in at #1, #2 and #3 in Google just with unmodified PLR, especially for long tail keyphrases. I think this had more to do with the domain name being an exact match for the searched keyword phrase though, Google seems to love those especially for microniches. One is still there and I have never touched it - one page of content, Adsense ads, and it has survived a human review without incident. The others have dropped to #5 - #15 and some have dropped even further, but generally I don't seem to be able to do anything to my sites to harm their rankings.

BUT... having said that, I once tested duplicate content on the same domain, tagging one as canonical as it was also an original piece, and the other page was a straight dupe of it. The original page ranked well and got PR4, whereas the copy never ranks and has no PR, despite the same backlinking strategy for both pages.

The other thing I tried was using subdomains as Addons to try and take the top ten slots in Google. I soon found that I couldn't get more than 3 indexed pages to rank from the main domain and subdomains combined. Mostly it would max out at 2, sometimes it would go to three but that was the exception not the norm for me.

When is an article classified as unique? From my tests it is when it is approaching 50% originality of word content AND layout and structure. I have achieved a lot of uniqueness just by breaking up paragraphs, merging others together, mixing in images and video, adding a table of contents and in-page anchors for navigation, and varying the use of bold, italic, underline and font sizes and colours.

On top of that, the word content becomes original the moment that you start adding your own words into the mix, provided that it makes sense from a grammar and syntax point of view. I tried using some of those unique content plugins that add random ASCII characters etc to fool the search engines, and they do work well, but I got anxious about how a human review might see them one day in the future (they have all survived human review so far - I have called Google to review several of my sites to see if they will spot some of the techniques and so far, nobody has. I think the quality of human reviewers is highly variable though, for reasons that I won't disclose here) so I stopped using them.

As far as autoblogging goes, if I post articles unedited straight to my sites then Google does not see them as unique. If I mix them together, in a sort of ContentFX style, then they are significantly better and CopyScape and DupeFreePro flag up parts but not the whole thing.

My best techniques for making word content unique is topping and tailing the original piece with my opinion, and inserting my opinion throughout in parentheses and italics. So far, ranking hasn't been a problem.

Overall though, I do feel that while autoblogging techniques work well at the moment, they probably won't in the long term. In the long term, high quality content and building an authority site with mixed media is always going to be a strong contender for #1 in the charts.

2) Sandboxing - I don't think it exists, other than Google will ignore pages on the same domain/subdomain beyond the three most relevant ones for any keyword. Excessive backlinking from your own server to another site on your own server is just ignored by Google as far as I have seen. Google DOES however love it when you deep link to your pages from your main page, but that's more to do with site structuring SEO and passing domain PR faster to subpages. Having loads of links from one of your own subdomains to your main domain is too blunt an instrument and get ignored by Google as being backlink manipulation. Yahoo don't tend to worry about it at all though. Haven't tested Bing enough to tell yet, but early signs are that Bing behaves much more like Google than it does Yahoo. So I don't think there is a sandbox, I think your links just get ignored. I tried black hatting a friend's site once in an experiment, doing all sorts of crazy linking to it to try and get it demoted in SERPS. Couldn't do it.

3) As for footprints, well everything you do is a footprint. If all your autoblogs are on Wordpress as a CMS, that's a footprint. Yes the search engines can detect a lot of footprints. Do they act on it though? Mostly no, until you give them a reason e.g. you start trying to game Adsense, or you get loads of poor sites to #1 etc. How do they penalise you if they detect it? I've had a site thrown out of the top 1000 because I was using a linkwheel that carried loads of porn and viagra spam. I had an Adsense account banned for arbitrage, I just didn't realise back then how easy it was to detect those types of footprint.

I think if newbies concentrate on creating good content that users will enjoy, and ignore 'magic bullet' stuff that IM'ers seem obsessed with, then they will avoid footprints and so won't have to worry about them. Only the guys and dolls trying to take shortcuts and avoid doing the work to create quality content, need fear the footprint.

I am really interested in discussing what kinds of footprint there are in use out there, and how effective / undetectable people find them. e.g. Hamiltonian paths.

Hope that helps and was the kind of input you were looking for.

[tigerwar]

H i william,
Thanks very much for that, the majority basically confirms Don's explanations and you showed everyone this in a detailed breakdown of your actual experience.

I think if newbies concentrate on creating good content that users will enjoy, and ignore 'magic bullet' stuff that IM'ers seem obsessed with, then they will avoid footprints and so won't have to worry about them. Only the guys and dolls trying to take shortcuts and avoid doing the work to create quality content, need fear the footprint.

Your right and this is also what I teach. There's no point whatsoever in Newbies trying to run before they can walk, but you must admit, the way the modern IM is being characterized and shaped by many JV prelaunches, it's not easy to convince newbies to learn the basics first when the smell of gold is pushed right under their nose and are told that they can have the same by automating the process.
Especially when they see that it works for intermediates and advanced marketers!

That's much appreciated
Best regards
Tigerwar

[bgmacaw]

Originally Posted by tigerwar

By "avoiding", I think you possibly mean't "find the good programs and not just first offer thrown at you"

The more hyped a particular system or script is and the more it's used within known BH circles the more likely you'll have trouble with it. I've found it better to write my own scripts since I'm a programmer, even if they don't have all the bells and whistles of commercial products, and, for the most part, keep them to myself.

Originally Posted by tigerwar

I would love know how populated a pattern has to be before being recognized, 1000, 2000, 100,000?

So would everybody else. It probably took several thousand sites and about a year for BANS to become targeted for elimination by Google. When they did go after it, it was brutal. People went from earning $1000 a day to $10 or less within a matter of days.

Another affiliate feed auto-site script that was released last year about this time got a lot of hype in certain SEO/BH circles and was on the targeted list within 7 days of release with probably just a few 1000 sites. Other plugins and scripts, such as WP-Robot, seem to be unaffected though with a larger user/site base. Overall, I think it's about how high and how quickly it climbs on Google's radar and how much what it's doing offends their sensibilities.

[tigerwar]

Originally Posted by bgmacaw

The more hyped a particular system or script is and the more it's used within known BH circles the more likely you'll have trouble with it. I've found it better to write my own scripts since I'm a programmer, even if they don't have all the bells and whistles of commercial products, and, for the most part, keep them to myself.



So would everybody else. It probably took several thousand sites and about a year for BANS to become targeted for elimination by Google. When they did go after it, it was brutal. People went from earning $1000 a day to $10 or less within a matter of days.

Another affiliate feed auto-site script that was released last year about this time got a lot of hype in certain SEO/BH circles and was on the targeted list within 7 days of release with probably just a few 1000 sites. Other plugins and scripts, such as WP-Robot, seem to be unaffected though with a larger user/site base. Overall, I think it's about how high and how quickly it climbs on Google's radar and how much what it's doing offends their sensibilities.

yeah right bgmacaw,

I've seen that happen too and really feel for the "victims", many might say "we did warn you" but that's life..you can't win em all.

WPRobot do try to keep up-to-date on that line and change their patterns where neccessary, that's probably the reason they're still on the market and going strong

Thanks
Tigerwar

[Steven Fullman]

Originally Posted by Kay King

Who died and made you Dog?...or is it scorpion king?

The rudeness and arrogance of your posts and questions are astounding.

Your insistence that only "authorities" answer your questions ignores the fact that authorities aren't inclined to answer the same basic questions daily.

Your need to organize and control the way info is presented here isn't helpful. If you want only answers that suit you - and only some allowed to answer the repetitive questions, perhaps you need your own forum where you can exercise full control.

The questions have been answered by people know the subjects. If you have tested for three years - you should know that little in SEO is "concrete". Often the rules are defined by the exceptions.

This entire thread does not appear focused on answers to simple basic questions (that have been answered multiple times) but simply a platform to argue endlessly.



I doubt it.

kay

Hi Kay,

Arrogant? Nigel? No...

He's one heck of a giving guy. I know from experience.

Asking for reasonable answers to reasonable questions on a prestigious forum is neither arrogant, nor rude...surely?

Asking for clarification from the respondents even less so.

Does Tigerwar want "control"?

No. Maybe he's challenging the accepted norm. Maybe he's right to do so.

Seems to me he's been perfectly polite and well-mannered throughout this thread?!? Have I missed something?

Why the "lynch-mob"? -- and yes, I realize that's a contentious term.

Kind regards,
Steve

[Steven Fullman]

Originally Posted by dburk

Hi tigger,

I posted with tongue placed firmly in cheek. but the point is still valid, is it not?

Here's a link to my ~95 previous attempts to answer this question on this forum:
site:warriorforum.com dburk "google sandbox" - Google Search

In case those answers are too much trouble to read, here it is again:

The "Google Sandbox" for SEO is not real. It is an imaginary place or penalty that webmasters refer to when they don't understand why their page is not ranked higher in the search results. This "perceived" penalty typically manifests when a webmaster sees his page drop in ranking as the boost from QDF factor wears off.

This phenomenon has been dubbed by many in the industry as the "Sandbox Effect". It is due in part to trust factors which treat pages, that have stood the test of time, with more trust. Since there is nothing that you do to cause the "sandbox effect", there is nothing that you can do to avoid it. The passage of time is all that is necessary to overcome it. You have not been singled out either, it applies equally to all new pages.

To answer your rephrased questions:

Google does not penalize websites or pages for linking to relevant content. They may remove PR and/or trust from pages that link to harmful content, but that is not the question you asked, I'm just pointing out that there are notable exceptions when other factors come into play.

Google encourages interlinking of pages when it makes since to do so, regardless of domains.

This is GREAT info...do you have proof, Don?

Seems to me...everyone's a Google expert, but no-one -- when pressed -- can explain how they know what they know.

Anecdotal evidence?

Yeah, we all have a ton of that!

But it's pretty meaningless. (not yours, not mine, but all such comparisons)

Cheers,
Steve

[dburk]

Originally Posted by Steven Fullman

This is GREAT info...do you have proof, Don?

Seems to me...everyone's a Google expert, but no-one -- when pressed -- can explain how they know what they know.

Anecdotal evidence?

Yeah, we all have a ton of that!

But it's pretty meaningless. (not yours, not mine, but all such comparisons)

Cheers,
Steve

Hi Steve,

You want evidence, I gave you plenty of evidence, and not just anecdotal evidence. If you look through the link I provided you will find a compendium of evidence, highly credible sources are cited throughout.

Of course it could be one big conspiracy by the Google engineers and scientist. So well played that all the geeks in the world cannot find a single crack in their made up formulas, which apparently by coincidence, just happen to calculate to precisely identical results. How diabolical indeed.

This conversation kind of reminds me of a fellow that got hit by a Mack truck and he immediately jumps up and proclaims "What truck?" "There's no truck here, where's the evidence?" All you can do is shrug and walk away.

[Kay King]

Steve -

I posted my impression of comments made in that thread to that point - that's all. When Tigarwar PM'd me I explained why I felt that way and that sometimes the written word ends up more critical than intended.

When he then PM'd me asking me to change my comments, I didn't.

In between the thank you's were comments like these

I am looking for more than simple answers from peter, pan and paul standing at the next kiosk who have just read a cover story and now believe themselves to be omniscient to the topic. Rather I was hoping for discusion from authority (experienced)warriors who might last but not least be able to erradicate that question mark always left after the answers.

I am hoping to receive the opinions of some TOP Expert Warriors to enable not only myself but also others to weigh the results against the so called "bible"

point of putting these questions into one thread is to tag and centralize the topics and clarify many uncertainties or half hearted answers that are literally scattered arround the forum. I personaly get cheesed of when searching for something only to be confronted with an inadequate answer!

btw....Don,there are truly people looking for quick, correct answers

Instead of playing tinky-winks, is there any chance of answering the question above?

At what point do you accept your own 3 year testing or the answer being provided by experts?

My opinion is worth less than 2 cents and is only my opinion. I may feel totally different about another topic posted the OP and if you say he's a nice guy, I'm sure he is.

kay

[tigerwar]

Originally Posted by Kay King

Steve -

I posted my impression of comments made in that thread to that point - that's all. When Tigarwar PM'd me I explained why I felt that way and that sometimes the written word ends up more critical than intended.

When he then PM'd me asking me to change my comments, I didn't.

In between the thank you's were comments like these

At what point do you accept your own 3 year testing or the answer being provided by experts?

My opinion is worth less than 2 cents and is only my opinion. I may feel totally different about another topic posted the OP and if you say he's a nice guy, I'm sure he is.

kay

Hello Kay

I wrote the names Peter,Pan and Paul Symbolically, representing the "assumed answers".
As Don said " ~95 previous attempts to answer this question", this was the point I was getting at, it can take hours(which I and many searchers don't have) to read through 1000's of posts. Not to forget that "older posts" are possibly no longer relevant to the "new bible" = SE rules and regs.
I thought it might be a good idea to try to reduce all questions to single thread.

When referring to Autoblogs, ALL the questions in this thread are addressed very often. I am now in a position to point the searchers to ONE single thread whereby IMHO, Don, bgmacaw and others have done a great job providing us with their honest, expert opinions and delivered answers and clarification that cut out the need to delve further into the topic.
Allthough I have been testing for 3 years, I was not able to explain the answers to the extent that Don has for us. Thankyou all.

We are all humans and somewhere deep inside, emotionally orientated. Everyone is entitled to express there thoughts, I just believe there wasn't the necessity to do that in this thread and certainly not to the extent expressed.

As a good friend once said to me...

"Some peacocks like to show their plumes every once in a while"

I don't belong to this category and I'm sure you don't either?

And Steve, Thankyou for your very kind words

Best regards
Tigerwar

[tigerwar]

Originally Posted by dburk

Hi Steve,

You want evidence, I gave you plenty of evidence, and not just anecdotal evidence. If you look through the link I provided you will find a compendium of evidence, highly credible sources are cited throughout.

Of course it could be one big conspiracy by the Google engineers and scientist. So well played that all the geeks in the world cannot find a single crack in their made up formulas, which apparently by coincidence, just happen to calculate to precisely identical results. How diabolical indeed.

This conversation kind of reminds me of a fellow that got hit by a Mack truck and he immediately jumps up and proclaims "What truck?" "There's no truck here, where's the evidence?" All you can do is shrug and walk away.

Nevertheless Don,

your efforts to help and logical explanations are appreciated(allthough IMHO sometimes inappropriate "Which type of questioner are you?") at least for now. Maybe I'll reopen the identical questions after the next gooogle dilemma. I'd be interested if the old hat fits the new head.

best regards
Tigerwar

[Steven Fullman]

Originally Posted by tigerwar

Nevertheless Don,

your efforts to help and logical explanations are appreciated(allthough IMHO sometimes inappropriate "Which type of questioner are you?") at least for now. Maybe I'll reopen the identical questions after the next gooogle dilemma. I'd be interested if the old hat fits the new head.

best regards
Tigerwar

It's fair to assume...since Matt Cutts has said so...the "sandbox" is *not a problem*

Google's algorithm is so complex...in reality no-one understands it. Despite what they might say.

Cheers,
Steve

[Raynex80]

In my all honesty... this has been the most helpful thread I've ever encountered in Warrior Forums. The kind of discussion that usually only found on the paid forum / membership.

Thanks to tigerwar!!

I'd even appreciate it more if moderators can make this thread sticky. We will have a 'one have them all' thread about these sort of questions which I believe are being asked almost everyday here.

Just my 2 cents though.. can't deny the benefit of this thread though.. I'm not the kind of guy who appreciate looking through the Search function answers for more than 3 hours just to look for experts comments on duplicate content or sandboxing.


Ryan

[searchnology]

Originally Posted by tigerwar

I wrote the names Peter,Pan and Paul Symbolically, representing the "assumed answers".
As Don said " ~95 previous attempts to answer this question", this was the point I was getting at, it can take hours(which I and many searchers don't have) to read through 1000's of posts. Not to forget that "older posts" are possibly no longer relevant to the "new bible" = SE rules and regs. I thought it might be a good idea to try to reduce all questions to single thread.

I completely understand the goal but unless it is both "sticky" and "contains a final conclusion in the first post" (this thread has neither) then this thread is still just lumped in along with all of the others when doing a search....no way to tell by the post title if it is exactly what someone is looking for to answer their questions.

[Daniel McGonagle]

The best thing for anyone reading this thread and getting confused, would be to do their own tests, to have their own concrete examples.

If you have a few sites in same niche on same hosting platform (IP), post the same article verbatim on them all.

Wait until the first one gets indexed, then post another, wait for indexing

Do this for as many relevant sites for that article you have.

Then see which ones remains indexed....

THEN...use a tool like Automatic Article Submitter to mass publish those verbatim/dupe articles to directories.

Ping them all, RSS them all, social bookmark them all upon publication

That's good enough to get anything indexed

Then watch that list of 25-30 urls and see which ones, or how many REMAIN indexed

I'm not going to tell anyone what will happen here if they (you?) do this, but if you try this test you'll see for yourself exact how dupe content is handled and treated.

Extra Credit: Try doing it for extreme long tail terms and then medium comp. terms

[tigerwar]

Originally Posted by Daniel McGonagle

The best thing for anyone reading this thread and getting confused, would be to do their own tests, to have their own concrete examples.

If you have a few sites in same niche on same hosting platform (IP), post the same article verbatim on them all.

Wait until the first one gets indexed, then post another, wait for indexing

Do this for as many relevant sites for that article you have.

Then see which ones remains indexed....

THEN...use a tool like Automatic Article Submitter to mass publish those verbatim/dupe articles to directories.

Ping them all, RSS them all, social bookmark them all upon publication

That's good enough to get anything indexed

Then watch that list of 25-30 urls and see which ones, or how many REMAIN indexed

I'm not going to tell anyone what will happen here if they (you?) do this, but if you try this test you'll see for yourself exact how dupe content is handled and treated.

Extra Credit: Try doing it for extreme long tail terms and then medium comp. terms

Hi Daniel,
Thank's for your "constructive" contribution to the thread. I have already done this but much to my amazement the dupe content wasn't disguarded as I thought it would be...I used different keywords (with top SEO) in exactly the same text. Both keywords were listed at the top of google,so E.G. :

Site 1 was listed at the top for SEO keyword "tree" but not for keyword "plant"

Site 2 was listed at the top for SEO keyword "plant" but not for keyword "tree"

Site 1 was in a folder "----.com/tree/"
Site 2 was in a sub-domain "plant.----.com"

Other than what I mentioned in the above posts, I haven't tried much more than that. So appears (at the moment) that the SEO keyword relevancy is a main factor to consider and not necessarily the dupe content(at least on a minimal basis like this example), I'll have to do some more testing with about 10 identical articles on the same basis. The outcome should be quite interesting.

Has anyone tried this on a larger scale?

Best regards
Tigerwar

[Steven Carl Kelly]

I've personally never had a problem with duplicate content affecting the ranking of any of my pages. I've also never had any of my sites "sandboxed".

[tigerwar]

Originally Posted by Steven Carl Kelly

I've personally never had a problem with duplicate content affecting the ranking of any of my pages. I've also never had any of my sites "sandboxed".

Hi Steven,

if you don't mind me asking,to what exetent do you use dupe content on your site?


thanks
tigerwar