Duplicate content - is it a myth?

[J smith]

So I was just checking google to see where my sites and articles rank. And I find one of my ezine articles second o page 1 of google for its targeted keyword. I get curious as to what the site at #1 has. What do you know, it's a adsense site that copied my article (but got rid of all the links)

How can two identical articles take top spots in google's search? I thought duplicate content ment that google wil only show whatever site got that content indexed first. More importantly I suppose, wth an adsense site with I'd assume no original content gets a better position than ezinearticles.

[Chris Kent]

It is and it isn't.

The latest trendy thing to say is "dupe content only exists on your own server". This is not true. There is still some penalty from having the same content as on another domain. But not always so.

I don't claim to know exactly 100% how it works but I know enough to try not to have dupe content on my sites in the first place.

[SoEasyMoney]

Actually, that's a horse that has been beat to death here in the forum. If you search duplicate content you will find all you ever wanted to know and more about duplicate content.

My understand is so long as you don't have the same content on your webite twice then you are good to go. But, I'm sure there are others will have a different opinion.

Just my 2 cents!

[MommyEnterprises]

This was something I was always worried about too since I have different sites. If I make a blog post and want to put it on another, I change a few words/sentences around so its not the exact same.

[SISMediaGroup]

Duplicate content is a myth. I mean there was a post on google about this a couple weeks ago.

The only type of duplicate article problems you get is if you end up stealing articles from someone else.

If you publish articles on your site and then post them in 1000 article sites there is no problem at all.

[sree94]

Yeah, I really think all the people spouting off about duplicate content are just trying to sell article spinners or something

Case in point... I recently copied my EzineArticles to my website, and those pages are now bringing me sales

[Anna Johnson]

This should answer your question: Google Debunks The Duplicate Content Penalty Myth (Part 1) | Kikabink News

[jimbobo2779]

I was never too fussed about dupe content. My biggest earning site is about 80% dupe content and that content ranks very well. I have had lots of pages of lots of sites deindexed due it being the same content as appears on other parts of the site so that occurs but it didn't hurt rankings or visitors in the slightest.

I would say grab what content you can and publish along with a good linking campaign and you will be laughing.

Jim

[cashcow]

Yep, it's a myth and you have proven it with your OP!

[urbt]

Yes, it's a myth - but I still recommend unique content for many reasons.

Don't worry too much however about using an EzineArticle on your site for example.

By the way, are you going to take action on the guy who stole your article and removed the links?

Ed

[Traffic-Bug]

it IS a myth since there is no way for a search engine to tell, which site copied from which, so you cannot penalize a site for duplicate content. If you find your competitor doing lots of articles, simply copy all the articles and put your own links and both you and them will get a) penalized or b) ignored for the articles passing link value. So you are able to nullify your competitors efforts by making sure their articles are not getting any ranking value.

[nichemarketninja]

Ok, so this is going to sound a little harsh, I hope no one takes offense, take it from whence it comes.

When you want to compete in a Marketplace, do you go for the biggest market possible and live of the scraps like the rest of the bottom feeders, or do you play in a smaller more targeted market and get rich in the process. Me, the later for sure. I don't get involved with content spinning and the likes, so I don't have to worry about duplicate content issues (Not that I believe it to be a real issue anyway) I focus my efforts on providing fresh, valuable and useful information to the people that visit my websites. I do this by researching my Niche markets and really understanding them along with outsourcing my content creation work to writers who have the same principals as myself. The content is mine, Google knows this as it indexes my sites fast and always sees it first on my sites before someone rips off my content, Google then rewards me for it by raking me on page 1 for 95% of the niche markets I work in.

There are far less people who have this focus and far more people who focus on Web spamming, I don't want to compete with the millions of content spammers, I want to compete in a smaller market, where fresh content is king, and I know I can rule.

Jeez, Ok that did come off a little harsh. My apologies in advance.

Cheers
Nick

[cashcow]

The content is mine, Google knows this as it indexes my sites fast and always sees it first on my sites before someone rips off my content, Google then rewards me for it by raking me on page 1 for 95% of the niche markets I work in.

Yes, well, apparently this didn't work for the OP since google listed the guy that ripped him off as #1 and the original work as #2.

But I see your point and I'm not knocking original content, I mostly use original stuff myself on my money sites and I think in the long run you are probably better off by using original content simply because you never know what the SE's are going to do in the future. The only thing we do know is that they all WANT you to use original content so that is the safest course.

But, I think there are 2 issues at hand when we talk about dupe content. 1 is the people that steal other peoples content. That's just wrong.

The other is using YOUR OWN article on several different sites or even using PLR articles unchanged. I don't see anything wrong with this and it kind of irritates me when people imply that doing this is spamming or filling up the internet with garbage.

There are a gazillion websites out there so to think that someone visiting your website on has already seen all the articles out on the web that has to do with your niche is probably not realistic, therefore, I do think that you can post 1 article on several places and still have it be "fresh and unique" to those visitors.

Lee

[Terryr]

As far as dupliacte content on your own website goes I can say without doubt that it has a detrimental effect on your rankings. Particularly if you have duplicate titles on pages. I had a website where my normal SEM blueprint was not producing the required results. On checking the content of the 140 page site I found 12 pages where there were duplicate titles (I had entrusted this to someone else). Once I changed these titles the results I was expecting came within 2 weeks.

Hope it helps a bit.

Terry

[Allen Graves]

http://www.warriorforum.com/blogs/al...nt-google.html

[raydp]

I've said it before but it must have upset someone as the post was deleted.

However many duplicates there are, the one with the best - not necessarily the most - links, will have the highest listings.

There can be times when this doesn't seem to be the case, but there can be other factors involved, ie. general design and quality of the site.

Ray

[Quentin]

Duplicate content will only effect you with google and believe it or not that is not the whole world. Check your stats and if your getting more than 15% of your traffic from google then you have an unstable business.

Other than that don't listen to people read it from the source then test.

Duplicate content - Webmasters/Site owners Help

Q

[pearsonbrown]

"However, in some cases, content is deliberately duplicated across domains in an attempt to manipulate search engine rankings or win more traffic."

"In the rare cases in which Google perceives that duplicate content may be shown with intent to manipulate our rankings and deceive our users, we'll also make appropriate adjustments in the indexing and ranking of the sites involved. As a result, the ranking of the site may suffer, or the site might be removed entirely from the Google index, in which case it will no longer appear in search results."

[Brandon Tanner]

If the duplicate content penalty is a myth, then what are the "supplemental results" for? They don't actually call them "supplemental results" anymore, but they most definitely still exist. Do a Google search for a specific article title (in quotes), and you'll often see this at the bottom of the search results...

In order to show you the most relevant results, we have omitted some entries very similar to the (#) already displayed.

Now, Google states on their blog that these supplemental results (or "omitted" results, as they now call them), are often due to low page rank (ie not enough quality backlinks). But if that's the case, then what is the "very similar" thing all about?

"Very similar" sounds like it has a lot more to do with "duplicate content" than page rank.

From my experiences, page rank and unique content are BOTH important for getting the best rankings possible (at least in most cases).

[cashcow]

Correct me if I am wrong, but I think that whenever I have seen the "very similar results" thing that has been for dupe pages on the same domains as those already listed.

If that is true, then I think it agrees with what most people have said that there is no penalty for dupes on different domains but if you have duplicate content on the same domain you might be in trouble.

Lee

[Bruce NewMedia]

One way to test the duplicate content theory is to 'google' a specific medical story/problem or report of findings.

You will often see the top 10 results will typically have the same content of the report over and over again. ....Usually with virtually no changes.

It seems to me, if Google was trying to not rank duplicate content, all those sites would not show up. Instead it seems G is more interested in ranking those sites by their authority and backlinks instead.

The fact that the content is identical doesn't seem to matter.
_____
Bruce

[Steve Sanchez]

Maybe Google accidently deleted the duplicate content code in the last algorithm update.

I sucks that your links were deleted. Maybe that was the key, no links just the link free content are what ranked it higher.

[LilBlackDress]

At the site that stole your article....go to the Adsense code and click on ADS BY GOOGLE. It will take you to Google.
At the bottom of the Google page..it will say something like comments on the ads you just saw. Click on that...make your comments and also Report Violation in the Report Violation box as stolen content.