Question about Duplicate Content

by Sevin
16 replies
So I've been working on a blog for a while and making sure to write very unique articles so google doesn't think I'm just copying other sites.

I want to submit some of these articles to ezinearticles and other similar sites. But if I do that, will google think my site is copying the article on ezinearticles? Do I have to write brand new articles for ezinearticles?
#content #duplicate #question
  • Profile picture of the author PatriciaJ
    No you don't, the duplicate content issue is when you have the same content more than once on your own site.

    You can submit it to as many directories as you want but make sure you get it indexed on your own site first.
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  • Profile picture of the author David Jackson
    Originally Posted by Sevin View Post

    So I've been working on a blog for a while and making sure to write very unique articles so google doesn't think I'm just copying other sites.

    I want to submit some of these articles to ezinearticles and other similar sites. But if I do that, will google think my site is copying the article on ezinearticles? Do I have to write brand new articles for ezinearticles?
    Just write, and don't worry about the duplicate content issue. Duplicate content is a myth!

    David Jackson
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    • Profile picture of the author Matt Bard
      Originally Posted by David Jackson View Post

      Duplicate content is a myth!
      Not exactly.

      There is a great confusion when it comes to this subject.

      Taking an article and submitting it to several directories is perfectly fine and is NOT Duplicate Content. That is called "Syndication".

      Duplicate Content is when someone takes the same content blocks, or a kickbutt article that has been designed for great SEO purposes and repeats that same content on their site.

      (I am not talking about having an article at EA and then repeated at your site. I am talking about taking the content and repeating it over and over again redundantly on your site.)

      Syndication or the same article to many different sites and directories is fine.

      The same content repeated over and over again, or duplicated on your site to fool search engines into giving you a better ranking is not fine.

      People confuse "Article Syndication" with "Duplicate Content" and that is where the problems come in.
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      • Profile picture of the author David Jackson
        Originally Posted by Matt M View Post

        There is a great confusion when it comes to this subject.
        There's no confusion on my end. Duplicate content is a myth. Actually, let me be more precise: Duplicate content penalties are a myth.

        David Jackson
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        • Profile picture of the author Matt Bard
          Originally Posted by David Jackson View Post

          There's no confusion on my end.
          David, what do you make of this statement by Google on their official Google Webmaster Blog:

          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.
          More specifically:

          "...unless it appears that the intent of the duplicate content is to be deceptive and manipulate search engine results."
          They just stated that it is "grounds for action".

          Although they didn't actually use the word "penalty", it still doesn't sound like something that I would want. It sounds like there would be a negative consequence.

          Also on that page about three paragraphs down they state:

          Don't create multiple pages, subdomains, or domains with substantially duplicate content.
          If it is a "myth", why would they (Google), tell you not to do it?
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  • Profile picture of the author Sevin
    awesome! thanks, guys
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    • Profile picture of the author juliewilson
      Agreed with Alexa, you need to make sure that articles on your site get indexed first, before you throw it into the marketing pool. Search engines love content and the backlinks that point to a copy of content on a domain.
      Get ready with your ride, after the content on your site is already in search index.
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  • Profile picture of the author Matt Bard
    A quick little background history on "Duplicate Content".

    Back in the day, (before Google) you could create a site and put your keywords in the url, title, heading title, site description, the alt tags of a pic, and sprinkled throughout your page and get a good ranking.

    Then, someone figured out that if you had your keywords show up more on your page, you got a better ranking than the other guy.

    It got so bad that you could actually see a page on a site with nothing more than the keywords repeated over and over again like this:

    make money online, make money online, make money online, make money online,...all the way down the page.

    Naturally, that looked terrible to the reader so another smart designer had the idea to "hide" the repeated keywords by making the keywords the same color as the background color.

    You would then come to a page that had what appeared to be a normal page with information that appealed to the human reader and a big space at the bottom of the page with the "hidden" keywords repeated on down the page for several pages.

    These people were obviously trying to fool the search engines by stuffing keywords all through their pages.

    When Google came on the scene around 1997, one of the first things they did to make their results more relevant was to penalize the hidden repeated keywords that they called "duplicate content'.

    If a site contained an abnormal amount of "duplicate content", it would get "points" taken away from it's rank. (Google had a system for giving "points" and then taking them away for certain things like duplicate content.)

    As the years went by and more and more people creating pages started to hear about different ways you could get points taken away, they read about this duplicate content issue.

    Many designers worried that their sites that the url contained the www. and the urls that did not have the www. would be penalized for having duplicate content since they were in fact the same site one with the www and the other without.

    This is known as "Canonicalization".

    Canonicalization - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

    In order to clear up the canonicalization discussion and the concerns that webmasters had over the multiple site issues, Greg Grothaus, an engineer with Google, made a video explaining the "myth" about canonicalization being "duplicate content" (this is the video that gets pulled up and placed here in the threads about duplicate content.)

    In that video, Greg explains how you will not be penalized for having the same content on multiple sites or the WWW v.s non WWW issues.

    Greg NEVER says that your site can not be penalized for having what Google traditionally refers to as "duplicate content". (the repeated content on one site in an attempt to trick the search engine).

    For that original definition of duplicate content, (repeated keywords and keyword stuffing) there are negative consequences and your site can be de-indexed.

    Once again, if you are Syndicating content (submitting your article to several directories) NO PROBLEM.

    If you are trying to fool Google into giving you a better rank by repeating keywords, or keyword stuffing, on YOUR PAGE then yes you will have a problem.
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  • Profile picture of the author duia
    I have ever met such an annoying problem before.
    If you have enough time to promote your site, it is better to write brand news articles for EZA; If not, when your articles on your blog have been indexed by Google, then submit these posts on EZA, which is better in order to avoid being punished by Google.
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    • Profile picture of the author Matt Bard
      Originally Posted by duia View Post

      ...it is better to write brand news articles for EZA; If not, when your articles on your blog have been indexed by Google, then submit these posts on EZA, which is better in order to avoid being punished by Google.
      Google will not punish you for syndicating your articles. It has never happened.

      As a matter of fact, Google states that Article Syndication (writing an article and submitting it to several directories) is fine and not a problem.

      Google does not, and never has had a problem with writing articles, posting them on your site, and submitting them all over the web.

      Where did you get idea that you would be punished?
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  • Profile picture of the author JimdoPro
    Well I can only speak for myself, and i never experienced that Google saw it as duplicated content, so I reckon you would be fine.
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  • Profile picture of the author Janice Sperry
    If I make 10 identical cakes and I eat them all I suffer. If I eat one and then give the other 9 to 9 of my friends we are all happy.

    If I write an article and post it on ten pages on my website my google ranking suffers. If I write an article and give the identical article to 9 of my favorite article sites we are all happy.

    The same principle goes for keyword stuffing as described in the great post above. If I put a keywod phrase a few times on a web page fine. If I put it in a dozen times google will not be happy since they will view it as inappropriate manipulation.
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  • Profile picture of the author Matt Bard
    Well, this is going to sound bad and probably very condescending to a lot of folks but here goes.

    I would spend a lot of time arguing with people like Alexa and others that would keep stating the "Duplicate Content is a Myth" mantra because I thought that we should try and educate people to the differences between Article Syndication and Duplicate Content but I see that it is futile.

    I really did believe that if we put the effort and energy forth to present the facts and differences between the two, that the confusion would be cleared up.

    Unfortunately, for reasons that baffle me, the general public just refuses to even try to grasp that there is a difference and are so hung up on mistaking Syndication for Duplicate Content, that it feels like it is impossible to show the difference.

    Steven Wagenheim tried to tell me this a few months ago and I have been insistent on banging my head against this wall for quite some time now.

    I officially give up.

    For reasons unknown, the general WF populace will NOT see the difference.
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