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Duplicate content.... is it such a bad thing???

by birdfood
32 replies
Many experts on this forum and elsewhere state that duplicate content is bad and only use original content. Fair enough so I've always tried to avoid duplicate content.

After checking out a number of successful blogs that use duplicate content, I'm now not so sure it is a bad thing. Take an article from Gizmodo, a major tech blog, as an example

Toddler Sucks On a USB Cable, Ends Up in the Hospital - USB - Gizmodo

They duplicated content from this newspaper site
Longmont toddler in critical condition after apparent iPod cable shock - Colorado Daily

This is not 100% duplication (too lazy/busy to find one that is) but many cases are.

So with many successful sites using duplicate content, I'm now not so sure that duplicate content is such a bad thing.

What are other peoples thoughts on this topic?
#bad #content #duplicate #thing
  • Profile picture of the author VegasGreg
    If you search this forum you will see MANY threads that discuss this in detail.

    Being penalized for duplicate content is a myth and not true.

    People that tell you to avoid it are either:
    A)Selling something.
    B)Have 48 posts and no real clue about the matter.
    C)Heard it from a friend who, heard it from a friend who, heard it was bad.
    D)Create scraped Spam Blogs and get no results and blame it on Dupe Content.
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    • Profile picture of the author discrat
      Originally Posted by VegasGreg View Post

      If you search this forum you will see MANY threads that discuss this in detail.

      Being penalized for duplicate content is a myth and not true.

      People that tell you to avoid it are either:
      A)Selling something.
      B)Have 48 posts and no real clue about the matter.
      C)Heard it from a friend who, heard it from a friend who, heard it was bad.
      D)Create scraped Spam Blogs and get no results and blame it on Dupe Content.

      I know I am NOT selling anything and have more than 48 posts here and have actually seen first hand where several people have gotten their Adsense Accounts Banned because of Duplicate Content over a period of time.

      So i guess it is semantics, To me getting your Adsense Account banned is a Penalty. But maybe you dont consider that getting a Penalty from Google ??

      IMHO, it is not a myth. Whether you want to categorize it as a Penalty by Google or not , excessive Duplication can bring with it potentially large reprecussions !!! It has been proven over and over again.
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      • Profile picture of the author NicSennen
        There is no way you can get your adsense account banned for using duplicate content - otherwise all article directories, squidoo etc. would have lost their adsense accounts and what about all the sites that republish articles from ezine articles?

        This is what google says "Duplicate content on a site is not grounds for action on that site unless it appears that the intent of the duplicate content is to be deceptive and manipulate search engine results."
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        • Profile picture of the author discrat
          Originally Posted by gracebiz1 View Post

          There is no way you can get your adsense account banned for using duplicate content - otherwise all article directories, squidoo etc. would have lost their adsense accounts and what about all the sites that republish articles from ezine articles?

          This is what google says "Duplicate content on a site is not grounds for action on that site unless it appears that the intent of the duplicate content is to be deceptive and manipulate search engine results."

          Yes, just like people in denial said that there is NO way the Earth was round hundreds of years ago. I would be careful in the way you use words like 'no way'.

          Article directories and Web 2.0 properties work on a different Level with Google than the regular small time Blogger or webmaster. Thats a fact.

          If you have a Site and ALL you provide is duplicate material with Adsense as your only form of Monetization then you stand the chance over a period of time in losing your Adsense Account (as many people can attest to) . The fact is your are NOT contributing anything of ORIGNAL value and you are only clogging up the Web just so as to get people to Click on your Adsense Ads. Google can see this from a mile away. Believe they catch on to this shirt !!

          So why jeopardize your Adsense Account ?? Just provide original, unique content and you wont have to worry about this issue.

          This is real and has actually happened to people whether you believe it can happen or not !
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      • Profile picture of the author VegasGreg
        Originally Posted by discrat View Post

        I know I am NOT selling anything and have more than 48 posts here and have actually seen first hand where several people have gotten their Adsense Accounts Banned because of Duplicate Content over a period of time.

        So i guess it is semantics, To me getting your Adsense Account banned is a Penalty. But maybe you dont consider that getting a Penalty from Google ??

        IMHO, it is not a myth. Whether you want to categorize it as a Penalty by Google or not , excessive Duplication can bring with it potentially large reprecussions !!! It has been proven over and over again.
        Those people fall in category:
        D)Create scraped Spam Blogs and get no results and blame it on Dupe Content.

        Of course they could say it wasn't a spam blog but I would like to see the sites in question and say it is some form of that. A site that provided no value to the end visitor.
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    • Profile picture of the author Glenn Leader
      Originally Posted by VegasGreg View Post


      8< snipped

      B)Have 48 posts and no real clue about the matter.

      8< snipped

      Just because somebody has a low post count, it doesn't mean that they
      don't know what they're talking about. WF isn't the only place to hang
      about and get no work done. LOL

      But I do agree with you, and even five years ago I has disproving that
      Google didn't have a duplicate content penalty. I don't bother much
      now days, as the search function in this forum will reveal all the answers
      people need.

      Glenn
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  • Profile picture of the author digigo
    yes.. myth has been debunked many times.. many factors... original content helps your rank.. dup content is not a death sentence
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    • Profile picture of the author birdfood
      Thank you Vegasgreg and digigo

      I often have trouble identifying bogus claims on this forum from genuine valid concepts/ideas so confirmation like this is useful for myself and many other people.
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  • Profile picture of the author yoessan
    It can't be that bad, I have 2 pages with mostly the same content but they still got ranked in google fine.
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  • Profile picture of the author mrozlat
    I always use my own duplicate content for link building... and I get stellar rankings... so as far as it relates to me and link building... love it!
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  • Profile picture of the author Arun Pal Singh
    Duplicate content issue confuses a lot. Most of the answers on either side are bsed on perceptions and personal experiences.

    But I do see the point in the issue, at least in theory. If we are talking about it, I think the issue exists very much.

    How search engine views and determines whether the content is duplicate is a different issue. I think there are other factors involved than mere content.
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  • Profile picture of the author Shoaib
    There's nothing wrong with using your OWN content on different venues as a duplicate. It has never hurt my SE rankings. As has been said time and time again, something called syndication has been around forever.

    The problem & the flip-side of duplicate content is.. you can't just buy a PLR package about a certain niche let's say, copy and paste it into a blog with affiliate links, and hope to make millions. It just doesn't work that way, aside from the rare possiblity that you may get "lucky".

    It sickens me the amount of junk websites that are thrown out there based on PLR, and even copyrighted stuff. Next time anyone looks into buying a PLR package, or those articles provided by vendors for affiliates, just pick a random sentence or two and Google it in quotes.

    Like I said, it sickens me.

    That is the only issue I see with duplicate content.
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  • Profile picture of the author UBotBuddy
    I wish this question would go away.

    No penalty! No penalty! No penalty! No penalty! No penalty! No penalty! No penalty! No penalty! No penalty! No penalty! No penalty! No penalty! No penalty! No penalty! No penalty! No penalty! No penalty!

    BACKLINKS are the Key
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  • Profile picture of the author farasens1
    Duplicate content is a bad thing because you will fall in the same thing with the autoblogs and other sites which have dupe content around the net which google does not like very much,.
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  • Profile picture of the author DotComBum
    If you don't rely on getting traffic from search engines, then I'd say just go ahead with duplicate content if your site visitors want to read them.
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  • Profile picture of the author Sparhawke
    If you are in a small niche then you will obviously not have so many original things to say everyday about polka dotted yellow and puke green widgets, so duplicating news posts is essential, Much more so than a blog on every single brainless idiot on the television right now.

    If you are going to use someone elses article, never simply steal it but credit the author.

    It is good to link back to the original source of where you found it.

    And yes, in my forums we do this a lot and as such us big fansites all know each other and freely quote our competition all the time especially in the exclusive interviews I am good at securing, we may in the process send people away...but they always come back and vice versa.
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    And to put one's thoughts into action is the most difficult thing in the world ~ Goethe”
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  • Profile picture of the author JayRedley
    Duplicate content for building links, great. For ranking for the same keyword, not so great.
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    • Profile picture of the author Sparhawke
      Originally Posted by JayRedley View Post

      Duplicate content for building links, great. For ranking for the same keyword, not so great.
      If you are building forums and a news station then you will almost inevitably have to duplicate stuff, though not so much that all you are doing is pinching others work constantly because none of us can afford 1000 reporters to go out and get original content constantly, however if you are building a blog based on upper nasal hair extractors then you will want it to be original.

      Sorry if I didn't qualify that.
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      And to put one's thoughts into action is the most difficult thing in the world ~ Goethe”
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  • Profile picture of the author Jason Perez O'Connor
    I've done it as an accident when I first started... no penalty and I did it several times

    The reason I spin is because if Article Directories catch on they can ban your account, plus, I don't want people to go from site to site seeing the same content over and over republished by me. So in order of not getting banned by those sites (not google) and not boring people I spin it to add diversity.

    Maybe people did mass linking then blamed it on duplicate content
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    • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
      Banned
      [DELETED]
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      • Profile picture of the author Jason Perez O'Connor
        Originally Posted by Alexa Smith View Post

        Are you sure, Jason?



        Most of the people who go from article directory to article directory are your competitors and webmasters looking for content for their sites/ezines/newsletters. That's what the directories are there for. Most of your customers don't: they find your article in a directory from the SERP's, not by browsing article directories looking for information. To all intents and purposes, article directory traffic is SERP's traffic.
        Wouldn't have said it if it hasn't been a problem in the past, because I use software to automate my submissions, a lot of e-mails came returning complaining of duplicate content from competing sites. I wasn't clear, they do not accept your article at first, but if you continuously post content that again is on competing sites they do ban.

        Whilst EZA might not mind, there are alot of other sites who do and do keep checks on it, especially when the niche you are in has had a high increase of similar articles due to webinars with record breaking numbers explaining how to publish articles quickly, what they should write about etc. So submissions in that category significantly increase when they go off, buy the product and submit to the same sites.

        At one point I only spun my titles and a small chuck of my article (when I mean small I mean miniscule), meaning alot of people followed onto more of the same content. When you look for something, you don't just look at one article, you look for several.

        Hope this clears it up
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  • Profile picture of the author JayXtreme
    lol... when I saw the title of this thread, I instantly thought "Poor James!".. he's gonna get into this debate and lose more hair.

    He's probably twitching in a corner somewhere, scared to reply here..

    Anyways, you can catch my opinion and that of many others to help you in your duplicate content research here:

    http://www.warriorforum.com/main-int...eza-first.html

    It's a very long thread, with many good points and various opinions for you to take into account. It's long, but worth the read.

    Peace

    Jay
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  • Profile picture of the author whateverpedia
    Another day, another question about duplicate content.

    (Yawn).
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    So that blind people can hate them as well.
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  • Profile picture of the author Brenden Clerget
    I've launced a couple niche websites recently, one with a couple rewrite articles that I used, and one with completely unique content, and the unique website is now on page 1 of Google for the term I'm targeting and the rewrite website is on page 2** (num pad typo on page 5 initial time). Take it for what it's worth. I did very little backlinking for either, and both shot up quickly with good SEO in the articles. It's all about competition and topic choice as far as I'm concerned.
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