Whats it called when.....

Hey Thomas,

Don't know the name but if you are doing this with WP blogs, you can use Warrior Jeremy Kelsall's Content Blender WP plugin (I do) which makes the same content less unoriginal.

PM Jeremy for the details if you can't find it through Google.

It's called either "cheap", "easy way out", "lazy" or "doesn't know any better".

Actually, it's only 'bad' if you want your site to rank well. There are many such circumstances where it makes sense. One example is Avon. They'll set up their reps with a marginally customized website that is otherwise the same as every other reps site - products, descriptions, prices, etc. It's the only practical way to do something like that and assure the integrity of the brand, pricing, etc.

In that case however, reps specifically aren't going to use the site for organic traffic; but rather for referral and direct traffic.

That said, it's 'bad' because a) Google might only show one instance in their SERPs along with "additional results omitted...", b) your competing against yourself for rankings, and c) you are diluting your ranking efforts.

Mark

Because it becomes spam and you a spammer then.
But I guess it depends on how much Google likes you.
Search buy video games on Google.
The first two results are the exact same sites with different names. They are even owned by the same company.
But they are the largest company in the niche so I guess Google makes exceptions for the giants.

Google doesn't have a problem with it as a content model by itself although they'll tend to frown on it when it's used in conjunction with affiliate marketing. But, there is a problem with it and that's getting the content to rank well for the target keywords.

Google says that they prefer to show what they consider the most relevant and unique sites in their top 10 search results. But, that's in theory. Sometimes all ten of these might be almost entirely duplicate primary content such as you'll see in niches like music lyrics, video game cheats and so forth.

You can rank well with duplicate content as long as you do the necessary work to make your site an authority site for the target keyword(s). This usually means having an aged domain with aged links, having a lot of incoming links or having a good niche authority links to your site and having a lot of relevant content. If you don't do this work, your site will be on page 43 of results and won't get any serious organic traffic.

As for your question: Exact duplicates are usually known as mirrors, or mirrored sites.