[Alan Mater]

I just started a new Wordpress blog, hosted by Wordpress. My goal with this blog is to add other people's content and blog posts, specifically related to the topic of my blog.

My question is this. How do i show proper credit for the original poster? Should I include a link to the original post? If not, should I enter a trackback? I'm still not quite sure about trackbacks and pingbacks.

Suggestions and any info on this would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks everyone,

Alan

[Kooza]

Hi Alan, not entirely sure I follow exactly what you are wanting to do, you shouldn't just copy someone else's content and paste it on your blog. It wouldn't be beneficial for you anyway as it would be duplicate content.

Common practice is to add a snippet of content quoted from the post and link to the post using the trackback link. That way you get a link back to your post although it will be nofollowed. You would then have to add some of your own content to make it unique.

Some blogs have trackback disabled as it can be abused therefore just add a standard link to the post.

Mike.

[Alan Mater]

Hi Mike,

Actually it wouldn't be duplicate content, in terms of Google. I see this method used quite a bit actually, more so with articles. Duplicate content is only an issue with having the same content on the same domain (i.e. 2 pages on the same domain containing the same content).

If it's better to create my own content instead of using someone elses, then that defeats the purpose of this blog and also takes up more of my time. Something I want to avoid.

After thinking about, I may just post part of the original post, just enough to get the point across, and then point them to the original.

Does that sound like a good idea?

Thanks,

Alan

[Peter Lee]

Hi Alan,
As you know I recently started a wp blog hosted by wordpress too so we seem to have similar interests too. Currently I'm using articles submitted to EzineArticles to post onto this blog and apart from changing the first paragraph, the title and linking anchor texts, nothing else is changed so you can say this blog predominantly is using duplicate contents. We already know from the horses' mouth (G) that there is no duplicate penalty. That the recent PR update saw this one-month blog get a PR1 proves that too. The only thing bad about duplicate content is that when someone searches a particular search phrase in search engines, you won't know which one the search engines will use. Hopefully for me by changing the first paragraph and the post title (from my articles), it appears unique and hopefully I don't have this problem.

Once I've exhausted using contents from my submitted articles, I intend to use other people's contents(like you). But I will be getting these posts from RSS feeds instead. My question now to add to yours is: Can someone tell me is it right to just use such posts from RSS feeds for your blog. Are we free to do so or do we have to read up each RSS sites's TOS. Any other things we should do before doing so?

Peter Lee

[Alan Mater]

Hi Peter. I agree. My goal is for link building, as yours is.

The RSS automation is something I'm also looking into, thanks to Graham. That's a very good question you brought up. Perhaps the title of the blog will link to the original, or have some other sort of link giving credit?

I guess I should read through that mile long post about it, but not tonight.

[Stephen Meyer]

Alan, give shareapost.com a try. You can add your blog to the system and then it's a matter of a quick click and articles will be posted on your blog with the proper credits in place.

I don't pay much attention to duplicate content issues or page rank. Good content and inbound links are my goals.

[lianwei]

Hi Alan,

Actually different people require you to do different thing for using their content. Some stat their own method and what you need to include to use that particular article. I think for those who did not indicate anything, it would be up to own decision as to what you want but I would normally a link to the blog with the author's name and a link to the blog post with the exact same words that the title reads.

[Alan Mater]

Stephen, I'm actually a member there but totally forgot about it until you mentioned it. I'll have to look and make sure they have affiliate marketing stuff there as that is my topic.

Ben, I was going to do what you suggested but thought I'd ask first and get some opinions.

Thanks for the responses.

[Alan Mater]

Okay, I added both of my blogs to ShareAPost.com and have now got my first post up on my new blog.

Feel free to check it out...
The Affiliate Marketing Guru

This is the route I believe I will go as this is the easiest and less time consuming of them all.

[chris47]

Could someone tell me what a trackback link is and how do i use it?

Christine

[Stephen Meyer]

If you use content from a website or a blog you would use trackback to let them know you have used their material. If all goes well they will post a link back to your site and you both get a linkback.

For WordPress you put the link back to the page you got the content in the trackback space. Wordpress will automatically send them a link to your page where you used the content.

[Kooza]

Actually it wouldn't be duplicate content, in terms of Google. I see this method used quite a bit actually, more so with articles. Duplicate content is only an issue with having the same content on the same domain (i.e. 2 pages on the same domain containing the same content).

I am talking about duplicate content in terms of Google will only rank one version of the content. So you may find it difficult to get any rankings for content which is copied from other sites.

I see this method used quite a bit actually, more so with articles.

Articles are fine because that is the whole idea of submitting to articles directories so that others can pick them up and use them on their own sites. It's part of the terms and conditions of most article directories that articles can be distributed as long as the resource box stays intact linking back to the authors site(s). I have noticed quite a few of my articles showing up all over the place.

Copying entire content from a blog post is another matter and wouldn't be advisable.

We already know from the horses' mouth (G) that there is no duplicate penalty. That the recent PR update saw this one-month blog get a PR1 proves that too

Having a PR1 doesn't prove that there is no penalty being applied to your site but you are right Google has stated that they don't penalize duplicate content. However, there are other issues with duplicate content as I mentioned above Google is only going to rank one version of the article therefore you are less likely to get any traffic than if the articles were unique.

Are we free to do so or do we have to read up each RSS sites's TOS.

Ben is right it would differ from blog to blog but generally it is acceptable if you add a snippet of the post and link to it using the title as the anchor text.

This is the route I believe I will go as this is the easiest and less time consuming of them all.

Easiest usually means least effective but it really comes down to the amount of time you are investing. You can set up blogs which post duplicate content automatically using several different methods, set and forget. If you are manually posting the content it is probably not going to be worthwhile.

Could someone tell me what a trackback link is and how do i use it?

This should tell you everything you need to know about trackbacks WordPress Trackback Tutorial - WordPress SEO and Blog Marketing

Regards,
Mike.

[houdy]

Originally Posted by Kooza

Copying entire content from a blog post is another matter and wouldn't be advisable.

There is the right way and wrong way to do this and Mike touched on it in his explanation above. You can setup a WP blog and with the right plugins scrape other blog posts from RSS feeds. I have a few right now I am fighting that actually creates a post using my exact post title and the excerpt to automatically post on these "trash" blogs. This really pisses me off because you can tell the lazy &#@#&* setup a blog in a few minutes and is now stealing content. These garbage posts show up as trackbacks on mine and I delete them and try to contact the thief. Problem is that these kinds of people cover their tracks pretty well and don't care.

Then there are a few others that do it right and use some of my posts as well but there is a human touch to it and a big difference. These blogs subscribe to many different blog feeds on a similar subject and then manually create a post with a unique introduction paragraph and then the excerpts to the others similar posts with a link to the post. This is fine by me, while the person may not be coming up with their own unique content, they at least are manually compiling a "best of" on a certain subject and building their blog manually.

[Stephen Meyer]

Jeff, sounds like you're talking about the automatic blog building software another PIPs member pointed out a few days ago. It grabs content from RSS feeds post nd doesn't really give a link back to the original post. But, if you are getting a track back then there must be a link to your post some where in the copied post?

I received a nasty letter and a nasty Twit Tweet about a week ago for an article I posted on my blog. I posted the entire article graphics and all. When I got the nasty email I pointed them to the source at the bottom of the post and to the TOS they had to sign for the directory where I got the post. They thought I had copied it off their blog but infact I had never seen their blog. I got it from an article directory.

As with all content I get from other sources I always include all the links that are in the original article and a resource box for the original author. If no resource box is available I will leave a link at the end of the article to the source where I got it.

I don't see any problem using duplicate content copied from another site as long as there is permission and as long as there is a link back to the original article. Automatic software that scrapes RSS feeds and the like just takes content with no permission to do so. To me that is the wrong way to do it. Since there are so many free articles avaialable there's no real need to copy articles without permission. As a matter of fact my own article directory is getting large and is a good place to find reprint articles, resource box and all.

[John McRae]

I set up a new blog a few months ago (actually I had Houdy do it ) and I have been struggling to find content for it.

I also just signed up for SharePost and have already added two posts. It is very easy and less time consuming but as Mike said I'm not sure how effective it will be.

Like Alan though I'm going to try this method for awhile and see if my traffic increases.
Retirement Income Report

[Alan Mater]

The main purpose of my blog is for linking purposes. Yes, I want traffic too, but I can drive traffic to it with other means than trying to get those duplicated posts to rank well in Google. That's not my goal, so I'm not bothered by that.

Article directories are a great source for content, and I will be using those as well. I do believe you can change the article around a bit to use your own keywords. Am I right? You can't change the posts in any way from ShareAPost as this violates their TOS.

[Stephen Meyer]

When you use an article from an Article Directory you are not allowed to change the article and you have to leave the resource box in place. If you are going to change the article then you should do a complete rewrite in your own words.

The reason we all post to article directories is to have our articles with our keywords in place posted throughout the Internet. If you change only the keywords you would be destroying our articles and the reason we wrote them.

Steve

Originally Posted by Alan Mater

The main purpose of my blog is for linking purposes. Yes, I want traffic too, but I can drive traffic to it with other means than trying to get those duplicated posts to rank well in Google. That's not my goal, so I'm not bothered by that.

Article directories are a great source for content, and I will be using those as well. I do believe you can change the article around a bit to use your own keywords. Am I right? You can't change the posts in any way from ShareAPost as this violates their TOS.

[Kooza]

The main purpose of my blog is for linking purposes. Yes, I want traffic too, but I can drive traffic to it with other means than trying to get those duplicated posts to rank well in Google. That's not my goal, so I'm not bothered by that.

I was going to ask if the purpose was solely for link building. In which case using duplicate content is not a bad idea however you will still need either a lot of low quality low PR blogs (scraped content) or as Houdy suggested be selective with the content you add and try and make a few useful blogs with good PR that people might link too to make it an effective strategy.

Either way the challenge is getting PR on those blogs, if your blogs have low PR any back links won't hold much weight.

Why would you want to send traffic to a blog if it is just for link building purposes? You should be sending traffic to your "money" pages

Article directories are a great source for content, and I will be using those as well. I do believe you can change the article around a bit to use your own keywords. Am I right? You can't change the posts in any way from ShareAPost as this violates their TOS.

I think Steve is right most article directories do not allow you to modify the article in any way.

"Agree not to change the title or content of the article in any way" - Ezinearticles.com Terms of Service For Publishers Who Wish To Reprint Any Content From EzineArticles.com

Regards,
Mike.

[Alan Mater]

That was my understanding as well with articles. Duplicate content isn't an issue anyway.

[danaprince]

As a writer and blogger who gets some of my content scraped from time to time, I personally don't mind when someone posts a snippet and a <read more> of something of mine. It's when they take the whole post without asking that makes my blood boil.

[kazakhan]

Originally Posted by Alan Mater

My question is this. How do i show proper credit for the original poster? Should I include a link to the original post? If not, should I enter a trackback? I'm still not quite sure about trackbacks and pingbacks.

If you use the WP-O-Matic Plugin as Keith suggests here then the post title can be left linking to the original content.
I just noticed that searches on GoArticles can be used as feeds

[Alan Mater]

The thing with ShareAPost and article directories is that the author agrees to have their posts or articles published elsewhere. This gives you permission to publish the entire post or article on your blog.

I just noticed that searches on GoArticles can be used as feeds

Good tip, Jim. I'll have to look into that.

[Kooza]

I just noticed that searches on GoArticles can be used as feeds

Yep, very useful and if don't mind a bit of a learning curve you can use Yahoo Pipes Pipes: Rewire the web. You can create feeds out of any piece of content, you can sort the content, mash it with other content there are really no limits. This is a super powerful tool.

Mike.

[Alan Mater]

Originally Posted by Kooza

Yep, very useful and if don't mind a bit of a learning curve you can use Yahoo Pipes Pipes: Rewire the web. You can create feeds out of any piece of content, you can sort the content, mash it with other content there are really no limits. This is a super powerful tool.

Mike.

I've heard of Yahoo Pipes before. I'll have to look into that as well.