Duplicate Content - please let this myth finally die!

[sethczerepak]

It only hurts if you have duplicate content on the same URL. I have sites on the first page of Google that are almost all duplicate content. But, keep believing the myth if you want to. Makes things easier for the rest of us.

[AwesomePossum]

I honestly feel original content is STRONGER than duplicate BUT the weight isn't that much of a difference...

What's most important is how long visitors stay on the site, how much interaction there is, and how often contet is put on your site...that's the golden 3 right there...

With that said if you're going to send months on building a site, why not pay somoene to make original articles or just write them yourself?? It's in the end stronger because it helps you understand yor market and makes it easier to keep your content fresh...

Hope this helped somewhere,

AP

[peter gibson]

Originally Posted by AwesomePossum

I honestly feel original content is STRONGER than duplicate BUT the weight isn't that much of a difference...
AP

A bit more myth perpetuating going on here, for example "I honestly feel original content is stronger than..." Yep, you can certainly "feel" that way, but the very suggestion is another symptom of this larger disease. There is no evidence - and I mean 0 that proves a piece of 1 time only, original content is any easier to rank or worth anything more than a piece that is syndicated to many article sites. O. Conversely there is plenty of empirical evidence to suggest the opposite is true.

I sited this example eons ago in another thread about dupe content myths, so I'll revert to it here in response to your "feelings":

For example, I have a site on page 1 position 1 for a competitive term. Directly below me is my own EZA article - identical to my ranked site article. At position 6 is my closest real competitor, who ripped my EZA article from EZA and placed in on his site. At position 8 is MY goarticles page - again - an IDENTICAL version of the article on my site, EZA, and my competitor.

Plainly by my own experience alone I can tell you that my syndicated content OWNS the first page of google for a highly competitive and profitable keyword. If original content was "stronger" or carried more google "weight" as suggested, why isn't the original content that sits on pages 2 to 10 outranking my own "carbon copies?"

Please note also that since the time of my quoted response above, I've duplicated (no pun intended) these results with other articles and sites, having up to 6 spots within the top 10 for an identical article, on different URLs.

Originally Posted by AwesomePossum

With that said if you're going to send months on building a site, why not pay somoene to make original articles or just write them yourself?? It's in the end stronger because it helps you understand yor market and makes it easier to keep your content fresh...

Yep, another technique that specifically caters to the unwarranted fears of duplicate content. Here's why what you are saying above is not the best and most economic use of your time and why you will consistently lose to competitors who successfully syndicate content they produce or purchase:

Here's another point r.e. all this "would you/google rather have unique or duplicate" content. I've said this before and I will again. I am NOT an advocate for duplicate content, I'm an advocate for economic use of time and money ....

...100 unique articles is always better than 1 from a point of pride alone. However, if 1 article takes 30 minutes to write, what's the math on 100 articles? 3000 minutes, or 50 hours. If I'm buying these articles, does it make more sense to pay for 15.00 for one, or 1500.00 for 100? What is the end result of all that time or money? ...

Furthermore, when you take a piece of work that may have wonderful and compelling content, and then you throw it into an article spinner or fatigue your subject matter by rewording and re-purposing your points, that article may be losing a great deal of intrinsic value and in the end, make you look like an idiot in the eyes of your reader.

As you can see, the reasons FOR syndicating your SINGLE piece of content to multiple pages far outweigh any supposed benefits for "keeping it 100% original to you". If not simply for the residual traffic of having infinitely more exposure across the web, than because there just isn't enough hours in the day - or money to spend - making the Utopian "original content only" wish a reality.

[bestitrix]

So what you're is once I've written an article, published it on my website, and let it get indexed, I can then submit the same exact article (verbatim) to EZA or other well known articles and Google will not get penalized for it? So that means I don't have to rewrite my article or spin it at all? But I've seen several article spinning services here at WF in the pass few days. Is there even a point for spinning your articles before submitting them to article directories because this will really save me so much time.

[peter gibson]

Originally Posted by bestitrix

So what you're is once I've written an article, published it on my website, and let it get indexed, I can then submit the same exact article (verbatim) to EZA or other well known articles and Google will not get penalized for it? So that means I don't have to rewrite my article or spin it at all? But I've seen several article spinning services here at WF in the pass few days. Is there even a point for spinning your articles before submitting them to article directories because this will really save me so much time.

That's exactly what I'm saying yes. And as for spinners, since I've not ever mass submitted articles to over the top 30 directories, I've not required the spun versions of anything. One thing you may want to consider, if anyone has reason to perpetuate the duplicate content myth it's the cats that produce article spinner software. Just sayin'.

Bear in mind there are individual sites that truly will not accept duplicate content, as part of their own TOS. I believe huppages is one example. These are sites, web 2.0 properties to be built, and not simple directories. The only directories that require your content be exclusive are those that compensate you for the article, or otherwise offer ways of generating income from the article being placed there. Otherwise your article can certainly exist on many directories, verbatim.

A few spinner "guru" cats can come in to comment on why spinning is popular and necessary, but from what I've seen, spun content that's been submitted to ... say... 1000 directories offers negligible results for the effort. I've only ever seen positive results from the top directories, by submitting my articles manually, verbatim.

Again, where spinners and mass submitters are concerned, I'm no expert.

[silvercap]

Originally Posted by Rsberg

WF Members, Newbies, random people just surfing your way through here and everyone else who still doesnt know...

Duplicate Content IS A MYTH...period!

I don't care if anyone replies to this or not but at the very least read the brief statement below before you go.

Duplicate content is ONLY an issue if you publish the same piece of content on the same site more than once.

I dont know how to make that any more simple to understand. If you still don't get it just ask and I'm sure either myself or someone else who does (get it) will try to better explain it to you.

I consider myself a very cordial person in general and don't typically "rant", if this comes off that way...well...so be it. I'm tired of seeing this rediculous myth continue and the only way it will die is if those that don't know it's a myth (and they should know now) stop spreading it!

Thanks for your time,
Robert

Hi Rsberg. I'd appreciate your take on the latest news from Google Blog. They write this about their update: "This update is designed to reduce rankings for low-quality sites—sites which are low-value add for users, copy content from other websites or sites that are just not very useful." (my underline)

I have a website with about 80% duplicate content (I copied the product feed from my wholesaler), and I can't rank on keywords non related to the duplicate content (other original articles on my site).

There is basically no competition on the keywords (and I mean no competition), but I rank about 50#, and have been doing so for over a year despite active link building...

So, I am thinking there may be something to this when Google writes this themselves. If you have some evidence which might prove otherwise than I'd sure appreciate it, cause I can't tell why I am not ranking despite all the effort (and zero competition).

[Rsberg]

Originally Posted by silvercap

Hi Rsberg. I'd appreciate your take on the latest news from Google Blog. They write this about their update: "This update is designed to reduce rankings for low-quality sites—sites which are low-value add for users, copy content from other websites or sites that are just not very useful." (my underline)

Hello silvercap,

I've seen this info/latest news from Google and even though I don't really have any "evidence" to show (other than my own sites rankings) I can say that I havent seen any effects from the lates algo change. I would say that this is likely due to the fact that my sites are (at least IMO) high quality sites with high quality content. I usually have about an 80/20 split from syndicated / u nique content on my sites and have have no problems (so far) maintaining or building ranks within my niches.

Originally Posted by silvercap

I have a website with about 80% duplicate content (I copied the product feed from my wholesaler), and I can't rank on keywords non related to the duplicate content (other original articles on my site).

There is basically no competition on the keywords (and I mean no competition), but I rank about 50#, and have been doing so for over a year despite active link building...

So, I am thinking there may be something to this when Google writes this themselves. If you have some evidence which might prove otherwise than I'd sure appreciate it, cause I can't tell why I am not ranking despite all the effort (and zero competition).

To be honest I must say this does sound interesting to me...I haven't had these types of problems. My newest site is about 2 months old in a fairly competitive niche and it's already ranking #21 without my doing any real link building to speak of. I know 21 isn't all that great and I know it doesnt get that much traffic but the point is I havent done much link buiding and it already has decent rrank in a fairly competitive niche.

I will send you a PM...so we can discuss this in more detail in private.

Robert

[Craig McPherson]

Originally Posted by Big Money

Okay, please don't blaze me.

What I've understood is that there is no penalty for duplicate content. It's just that Google only ranks whoever posted the content first.

Is this right?

For over a year my site and 7 others that published the exact same article had 7 of the top 10 places. It only has 4 now.

Just sayin'