Duplicate Content a Myth? Not anymore...

[Toby Lewis]

If you're running a site with scraped content, or duplicate content, you might want to check out google's latest algorithm change discussed on Matt Cutts' blog:

Algorithm change launched

It looks like they'll be favoring the site that has the original content. So there you go! Myth busted?

[Shazia Mirza]

Yeah, many internet marketers have already talking about it.

[Kevin Riley]

Great news. Myself, I'm more than happy to rid the Internet of garbage, and sites that only scrape other sites' info are nothing but useless flotsam.

[Slyknight]

Love it.. about time

[Toby Lewis]

I wonder how this will effect article directories? If the big ones have enough original content they should be fine.

[Nick Brighton]

cool. Does this mean I can trust the search results again, like I used to about five years ago?

[darkwizgemz]

I haven't clean up like months because of works and stuff. I can now get rid of my garbage.

[officer_iron]

This is great to hear. I couldn't be happier about it.

[MarkAnderson]

Great news, something I was looking since long time. Many times, I was thought that “Why SEs can’t give priority for sites and blogs publish only original and useful contents” And, I’m proud about my self because still I haven’t used at least one or spun article for my decent marketing purposes in my whole carrier (I’ve used thousands of spun articles for experimental purposes) because I strongly believe that using of spun articles has some negative issue with rankings, if we can’t see it directly.

Go ahead SEs…….

[Kevin Riley]

Originally Posted by Nick Brighton

cool. Does this mean I can trust the search results again, like I used to about five years ago?

Five years ago? More like ten years ago.

[TPFLegionaire]

Ladies and gentleman

SPIN your Engines! I mean spin your articles !

me---> don asbestos underpants due to the heated responses below

[Rsberg]

This is somewhat old news now, theres been 3 or 4 threads about this recently.

Only time will tell how it actually affects anyone here. There has been "talk" of this for the last 3 years and so far....well...

[tpw]

No longer a myth, but greatly over-exaggerated.

[scrofford]

Originally Posted by Toby Lewis

If you're running a site with scraped content, or duplicate content, you might want to check out google's latest algorithm change discussed on Matt Cutts' blog:

Algorithm change launched

It looks like they'll be favoring the site that has the original content. So there you go! Myth busted?

Um, this doesn't really have anything to do with TRUE duplicate content. Duplicate content is when you have the exact same content on one site. This has to do with getting rid of pond scum scrapers who want to just copy and paste original content and put it on their site.

[jasonmorgan]

I spy with my eye a bunch of people who are setting themselves up for disappointment.

Wait for results before throwing a party.

So far there have been no results to suggest that any changes google has made will do any damage to sites using syndicated content.

By syndicated, I mean any content that is used on multiple sites, ethically, legally or not. Articles, RSS feeds, scrapped etc... to a bot, it's all the same.

This has to do with getting rid of pond scum scrapers who want to just copy and paste original content and put it on their site.

Any move that google makes that would hurt those sites would also hurt every site that is using syndicated content ethically or the right way.

Tell me how a bot knows if somebody scrapped an article or if you gave somebody permission to reuse it? It doesn't.

Put the balloons and cake away.

[scrofford]

Originally Posted by jasonmorgan

I spy with my eye a bunch of people who are setting themselves up for disappointment.

Wait for results before throwing a party.

So far there have been no results to suggest that any changes google has made will do any damage to sites using syndicated content.

By syndicated, I mean any content that is used on multiple sites, ethically, legally or not. Articles, RSS feeds, scrapped etc... to a bot, it's all the same.



Any move that google makes that would hurt those sites would also hurt every site that is using syndicated content ethically or the right way.

Tell me how a bot knows if somebody scrapped an article or if you gave somebody permission to reuse it? It doesn't.

Put the balloons and cake away.

True enough but it is not Google getting rid of Duplicate Content per se. A lot of people don't really understand the duplicate content thing. They call reading the same article on two different sites "duplicate content" and that's just not true. That was my point. Maybe I should have been a bit more clear.

[jasonmorgan]

True enough but it is not Google getting rid of Duplicate Content per se. A lot of people don't really understand the duplicate content thing. They call reading the same article on two different sites "duplicate content" and that's just not true. That was my point. Maybe I should have been a bit more clear.

I wasn't ranting on you, if that is what you thought. You just had a nice juicy bit of text to quote that summed up the thoughts and feelings of many. And your right, many people have a misconception of what duplicate content is. Duplicate Content = same site, Syndicated Content = many sites.

I was just ranting to all of the 'the scrapers are dead' crowd.

[Ouroboros]

Welcome news for those of us that write content for human consumption rather than random backlinks.

I can't see a major effect on how I do things, and welcome the diminished role of rehashed crap that might have been affecting my efforts. It's all about the fact that the same old tried and true techniques will continue to work, just screening out all the useless noise.

[scrofford]

Originally Posted by jasonmorgan

I wasn't ranting on you, if that is what you thought. You just had a nice juicy bit of text to quote that summed up the thoughts and feelings of many. And your right, many people have a misconception of what duplicate content is. Duplicate Content = same site, Syndicated Content = many sites.

I was just ranting to all of the 'the scrapers are dead' crowd.

Oh I know....It's all good! That's the prob with the forum sometimes, it's hard to tell the tone of voice of people at times.

[markowe]

Do you think Google will penalise forum threads about duplicate content? Cos there's a lot of them around and they are VERY similar, just very lightly spun

[cashcow]

I don't think the myth is busted at all.

The myth is that your site will be penalized for using duplicate content.

This is not at all what Google is saying they are trying to do, they are just saying that the original source of the duplicate will get the top rank. This is as it should be and, judging by another thread I read recently a lot of people thought it already worked this way.

For my own sites, the algorithm update at the beginning of the week was underwhelming to say the least. Not really any change in my dupe content or my unique content.

Lee

[Fernando Veloso]

I guess we all love this idea. BUT... It's not so simple.

1 - Webmaster A posts one article on site A. Article is NOT indexed for one week.

2 - Competitor B grabs HIS article and post it on site B, article gets indexed in 20 minutes.

Houston, we have a problem.



But I love the idea. Really do. We all love fiction movies, right?

[thebitbotdotcom]

Originally Posted by Toby Lewis

I wonder how this will effect article directories? If the big ones have enough original content they should be fine.

That's my question. All of them have mostly duplicate content in my opinion.

Even EZA...After all, they publish my dupes.

[JackZeeRipper]

I actually run a site that scrapes content, and a site that uses original content generated by users. The site that uses scraped content has over 20,000 indexed pages, but very little traffic. The original content has less than 1,000 pages, but gets 100x more traffic.

I've had these sites for about 6 months, and set them up to monitor the difference.

I'll stay clear of scraped content from now on.

[JayXtreme]

Google will have to slap itself real soon

Nothin to worry about if ur posting quality content in the correct manner...

[paulie888]

I really wouldn't jump to any conclusions just yet. Let the dust settle first, and then we can actually determine how things have changed.

[Steven Wagenheim]

I'll believe it when I see it, cause right now, there is tons of duplicate content
in positions 1 - 20 for a ton of keywords.

Time will tell.

Either way, do what I've been doing for many years now.

1. Fricken write articles that people will actually want to read.

2. Don't go spreading them around the Internet like peanut butter on
crackers. Instead, multi purpose them as in...

a. break larger articles into smaller ones.
b. turn into videos.
c. put together into a series and make a pdf from them.

3. Here's a novel concept, product quality...not crap. Ooops, is that
essentially what I said in # 1.

Guess it was worth repeating.

[Tim Franklin]

Interesting post and responses, I began to divest myself of the auto blogging website stuff about 6 months ago when I noticed a drop in revenue, for me it was a sound business decision, provide quality original content, and your website gets more traffic,

Develop additional unique concepts to go with your original content and your in the drivers seat to higher search engine rankings, it is really just that simple.

Keep on using auto blogs, scrapped content, and watch as over time your traffic begins to go away, and eventually yes, you will see consequences to using this outdated technique.

Long term results are what I want for my efforts, if people want to keep on doing what they have been doing with weak results, that means less competition for me, so I say go right ahead and keep on doing the auto blog routine, I will be ahead of your in the search engines, using real human readable unique content.

[petevamp]

First off what you do not realize is that a simple blog is a content farm. You create any article and post it to your own site and your own site alone. You are a content farm. What they are going to be trying to eliminate is the autobloggers. Think of how many blogger auto blogs are out there right now. If they can just find a way to eliminate these types of sites out of the search engines it would make way for actual businesses and sites.

Now as far as it effecting article directories I do not think it will. Only time will tell though. The duplicate content issue will still be a myth. Yea it may not get indexed but people will still go to those sites and read the articles just because those are the places they go to in order to find the information they are looking for. Simply because they are not forced to buy anything at all. If that here also true then sites like ehowto or what ever it is would be completely wiped off the search. Simply because that is all they are is content farms. They may provide some information but it leaves out so much vital information. That and most of the content on these sites is scrapped from many different sources from other article directories. The only difference is they make it look and feel more appealing.

So the duplicate content is still just a myth. There is no proof to say so otherwise at this time.

[Chri5123]

Yes, glad this is happening.

I write most of my content myself and it is original and then the amount of times you see your own article with a few words changed and someone else's bio box is amazing.

I laugh it off now but good to see things should be moving in the right direction.

Chris

[petevamp]

Originally Posted by Chri5123

Yes, glad this is happening.

I write most of my content myself and it is original and then the amount of times you see your own article with a few words changed and someone else's bio box is amazing.

I laugh it off now but good to see things should be moving in the right direction.

Chris

You do realize you can contact their host for matter like that. In many cases the host will shut the site down. If is their first offense most the time they will just remove your content from their site. But the sad thing is they are profiting from your work. Which is why I always create google alerts to tell me when others have used my content. So I can jump on to getting my content off of their site as soon as possible. When all they are doing is breaking your copyright. It is your work not theirs so dont let them profit off of your work. Fight back and get them shut down. If you can not get them shut down then spam the hell out of their site and make sure to comment on each of those articles pointing out to the readers it is plagerized work and is not theirs then politely direct them back to your site.

[Rsberg]

Originally Posted by thebitbotdotcom

That's my question. All of them have mostly duplicate content in my opinion.

Even EZA...After all, they publish my dupes.

I think you (like many others out there) misunderstand what the duplicate content penalty really is...

Duplicate content isn't simply an article that is posted on more than one site (or even several sites = syndication). If that were the case then 90% of articles ever written would probably fall into this catagory. The problem or penalty comes into play when you have the same article on the same site more than once...making it "duplicate content".

[Palusko]

I wonder how this effects syndication. How will Google even tell what is syndicated content and what is scrapped content? One of the reasons people use article directories is the potential of re-distribution of your article on other people's websites. One must wonder if Google (or Matt Cutts) is just blowing smoke in order to discourage the practice of scrapped content, or if they really perfected their algorithm to be able to distinguish between different type of contents. Or is it going to be simply the rule of first indexed content wins? Or, if not sure, are they just going to kill them all and let the Google gods sort them out (like they did with Adwords)?

[James Rogers]

Originally Posted by Steven Wagenheim

.

a. break larger articles into smaller ones.

I like to do this. Basically, I write one article (long) and have two articles to send to EzineArticles (short versions)

I still don't believe the hype everybody is doing about the algorythm change. I can't imagine ArticleDirectories (most of their content is duped) banned by big G.

[JohnMcCabe]

Originally Posted by Toby Lewis

I wonder how this will effect article directories? If the big ones have enough original content they should be fine.

Here's my take on that...

After much wailing and gnashing of teeth by the "flood the directories with sewage for backlinks" crowd, article directories will return to their original function. Providing a place for writers of quality content (useful content that people actually want to read) to get a head start on syndication, and for publishers to search for quality content to syndicate on their sites, blogs, newsletters, etc. Direct traffic will be a happy side effect. And the 'link juice' will be minimal.

The only ones who lose here are the backlink strip miners.

=========

Filed under "No Good Deed Goes Unpunished"...

Matt Cutts' announcement of Google War on Scraper Sites triggers eruption of sales pages offering "spinning" services and software, where this announcement is used as "proof" that website owners need to twist their otherwise legitimate content into unreadable garbage, lest Google judge them a 'content farm'.

[Alex Barboza]

Originally Posted by Toby Lewis

If you're running a site with scraped content, or duplicate content, you might want to check out google's latest algorithm change discussed on Matt Cutts' blog:

Algorithm change launched

It looks like they'll be favoring the site that has the original content. So there you go! Myth busted?

This reminds me of a conversation in the Devil's Advocate:

Kevin Lomax (Keanu Reeves): In the Bible, you lose. We're destined to lose, Dad.
John Milton (Al Pacino): Well, consider the source, son.

YouTube - Devil's Advocate FINAL Part 2 - O...

[Richard Weiler]

LOL, I just came in here to pick a fight.....

Guess I am too late, everyone seems to agree.
I thought this was interesting.
Is This Google Algorithm Change About Content Farms or Not? | WebProNews

[howinfo]

Reading all those threads about New Google algorithm, content farms and duplicate content, as it seems to be a major change how Google will rank the websites but nobody would really know what the change really is. People have different opinion about what is a content farm and people have different understanding about what exactly is duplicate content and nobody really seems to know when and what level the changes will happened. That little blog post on Matt Cutts blog - Algorithm Change Launched - has been interpreted in so many ways and instead of being helpful and give some clear quid to website owners, it only seems to have created more confusion. There was already enough confusion about duplicate content even before that - New Algorithm Change-

[LegitIncomes]

Originally Posted by Kevin Riley

Great news. Myself, I'm more than happy to rid the Internet of garbage, and sites that only scrape other sites' info are nothing but useless flotsam.

Agreed! I spend a lot of money on unique content, so this is very welcome news.

[Steve Diamond]

Originally Posted by JayXtreme

Google will have to slap itself real soon

Ironic, isn't it? The Google search engine itself is the ultimate content scraper.

[Matt Maiden]

I don't think the problem has ever been about duplicate content. It's always been about who can rank well with duplicate content and who can't.

People have mentioned article directories that have duplicate content being on the front page and used this to say that there are no penalties.

The problem with that argument is that there is this assumption that all sites are equal.
Google has made exceptions for certain sites that have duplicate content.

I remember a discussion I had with a guy about this who kept "proving" his duplicate content penalty myth on the fact that the Washington post and other big newspapers allowed it so therefore it was proved to be a myth.

The problem is when people expect or feel they deserve to be treated equally with the Washington Post and sites like that.

The biggest myth is that Google has some fantastic algorithm designed to make this whole ranking process "fair". Not that I think it should be. I think Google has the right to pick and choose what goes on their site just like I do.

If I have links to other blogs on my site and you're not one of them, oh well.

[LauraJames]

Good news indeed. Good riddance to the junk.

[celente]

Originally Posted by LauraJames

Good news indeed. Good riddance to the junk.

Amen that sister!!

[Jason Perez O'Connor]

This isn't completely new. I remember a youtube video I saw around 6 months ago where in a google employee (I don't know if it was Matt) said that Google classes the original as the one who is crawled first or al the links lead to.

He also added, if you wanted to syndicate your content elsewhere but wanted to make sure Google knew which one to use as the original you could let them know through their webmaster tools.

He also stated in the video that the duplicate content bs about google not liking the same content on other sites was not true, and that what they meant instead is that in order to improve the service of the search engine it would be best if people only got 1 result in the search engines regarding that content. This content being the original. Hence why when you bookmark at first a lot of them show in the search engine then eventually only 1-3 stick around.

Google hasn't perfected this yet as a lot of the same content still ranks from time to time.

[KingArthur]

The algorithm changes must have been real and not just blowing smoke. Look what happened to the articles on Ezine Articles. They are losing half of their income now because of those changes.


Affiliate Marketing Programs - Is Article Marketing Dead Or Does It Still Have A Bright Future for Affiliate Marketers?

[jerrydavid]

just bookmarked the blog of matt cutts, thanks!

[JohnMcCabe]

Originally Posted by KingArthur

The algorithm changes must have been real and not just blowing smoke. Look what happened to the articles on Ezine Articles. They are losing half of their income now because of those changes.


Affiliate Marketing Programs - Is Article Marketing Dead Or Does It Still Have A Bright Future for Affiliate Marketers?

If anyone is looking for an excellent example of an informative, quality article that also does a great job pre-selling, study this one. Allan G. has put together a piece of content that is useful whether you join hos program or not, and very subtly makes the case that "membership has its advantages"...

Note: I am not a member of Allan's service, nor of his training program, and my comments are not an endorsement of either.

[dburk]

Originally Posted by Toby Lewis

If you're running a site with scraped content, or duplicate content, you might want to check out google's latest algorithm change discussed on Matt Cutts' blog:

Algorithm change launched

It looks like they'll be favoring the site that has the original content. So there you go! Myth busted?

Hi Toby,



It seems you stated a fact and then totally mis-characterized it.

First, you imply that "duplicate content" is considered a myth with your thread title. Where does that come from? The only myth surrounding duplicate content I'm aware of is the myth of a penalty.

There is no "duplicate content penalty" that part is a myth, however, there has always been a duplicate content filter. This algorithm change doesn't change any of that, it is simply an improvement in detecting the original source within the filtering process.

No myths were created or busted.

I did check my sites that use syndicated content and yes they were affected, traffic is up and earnings are at new record highs.

Originally Posted by cashcow

I don't think the myth is busted at all.

The myth is that your site will be penalized for using duplicate content.

This is not at all what Google is saying they are trying to do, they are just saying that the original source of the duplicate will get the top rank. This is as it should be and, judging by another thread I read recently a lot of people thought it already worked this way.

For my own sites, the algorithm update at the beginning of the week was underwhelming to say the least. Not really any change in my dupe content or my unique content.

Lee

Hi Lee,

Finally, someone in this thread has their thinking cap on.

I was amazed that it took so long for someone to challenge the premise of the OP.

Originally Posted by LauraJames

Good news indeed. Good riddance to the junk.

Hi LauraJames,

You should take a second look, this change doesn't get rid of any junk, it just improves the ability to recognize the original source of the content, junk or not.

[blue_sky]

Is this really a Myth...

a couple of days ago I used one of the legal content packages like TOS, PP, etc which of course is used by hundreds of other webmaster on the web aswell....

What I realized is that shortly after I put this pages up - my site disappeared from SERP 2 into nirvana - when I removed those pages the site came back...
Aged Domain With PR4 and Backlinks...

Originally Posted by cashcow

I don't think the myth is busted at all.

The myth is that your site will be penalized for using duplicate content.


Lee

[Tim Franklin]

@dburk


Interesting thread, and there are a lot of interesting replies in this thread, I believe that there is room for different opinions, some may be more accurate while others may not be accurate at all.

The one thing here that seems to stand out to me at least is the idea that results and traffic as well as ranking, would and could demonstrate the actual accuracy or inaccuracy of any given opinion.

One thing I do on a regular basis is to visit forum signature links to see what kind of websites that user is promoting, for example if I am looking at a WSO thread, where a seller claims to be an SEO expert and the websites he or she is promoting are ranked, at alexa say 4 or 5 million in the world, then I sort of evaluate their experience level with the websites they promote, which I think is a fair thing to do, Do those websites, perform if that person is selling an SEO course, I should be able to see their success reflected in the amount of traffic and popularity of those websites.

So, as respectfully as I can without offending you, I would love to see websites where your thoughts on content can be demonstrated to be beneficial to website developers and website owners.

Again, I am not trying to pick a fight, I am just interested in concepts that actually produce results, that is the one thing I think that we should all be able to agree about, we all want more search engine traffic and we all want successful and popular websites.

Understanding how we can better fit into the grove of the SEO search experience is something that really should be at the top of everyone's list, learning about how to produce the kind of content that website visitors really want and need, now that is something to write home about.

So, if you don't mind sharing, which websites do you have that use syndicated content and do well in say an Alexa ranking.

More interesting to me would be anyone that can show an auto blog that has both great traffic, excellent revenue and a high value business model.

Just something to think about, I believe that things are about to change in the world of SEO websites and if we want to be part of that change I sincerely believe that we have to be prepared to make changes in our own websites so that we can stay up to date and provide the public with what they want, relevant results that meet the consumers needs.