Duplicate Content Penalty and other such Gibberish

by tpw

Posted: 14 years ago 23 replies

This post is for those people who continually ask about Google's Duplicate Content Penalty...

I should tell you that if Google truly penalizes Syndicated Articles, then they would also penalize such content as:

* Press Releases;
* News Stories;
* Privacy Pages;
* Affiliate Sales Pages;
* E-commerce sites that use Manufacturer Information to describe products;
* Movie descriptions;
* and much more...

Duplicate Content Penalty is a myth...

The suggestion that you must publish content on your website first to prove ownership of the content, so that your website will rank higher in Google for that content, is also a myth...

I can tell tell you these things, but am I believable?

If not, let the following two videos show you the light of truth:

The Duplicate Content Penalty Myth... and how to make money from it!

and this one from a Google engineer:

YouTube - Duplicate Content & Multiple...

#content #duplicate #gibberish #penalty

spennyc 14 years ago

Thanks for this TPW
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Kay King 14 years ago

That video was just posted by another member in another thread about duplicate content. Of course he interpreted it differently

This makes threads posted about duplicate content almost an even dozen - for this week.

It comes down to this: Those of us who understand the lack of a problem know it from experience - and those who think it's a problem read that somewhere, believed it and are only looking for corroborating opinions.:p

I think the only answer is to tell people to do what they have decided is the right thing - and then let them rewrite to their heart's content.

kay
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derekwong28 14 years ago

In this post, Google adamantly says there is no duplicate content penalty

Official Google Webmaster Central Blog: Demystifying the "duplicate content penalty"

But it goes on to say

There are some penalties that are related to the idea of having the same content as another site—for example, if you're scraping content from other sites and republishing it, or if you republish content without adding any additional value. These tactics are clearly outlined (and discouraged) in our Webmaster Guidelines:

•Don't create multiple pages, subdomains, or domains with substantially duplicate content.
•Avoid... "cookie cutter" approaches such as affiliate programs with little or no original content.
•If your site participates in an affiliate program, make sure that your site adds value. Provide unique and relevant content that gives users a reason to visit your site first.

If anything, it confirms that some sort of duplicate content penalty may occur under some circumstances. I suppose it really depends on how you interpret the term duplicate content penalty.
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IndigoJack 14 years ago

Was the Duplicate Content Myth originally started by a 'Guru' who was trying to sell his unique method of avoiding the pitfalls of duplicate content?

Anywho, you can reply to a thread with what you know to be the absolute, factually correct answer but then if another seven people reply with the wrong answer and it supports the OP's position, they're gonna believe the seven.
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- kindsvater 14 years ago
  
  I firmly believe in the duplicate content "penalty". Not just a belief, but born out from personal experiences.
  
  Here's why:
  
  The word "penalty" is wrong. Instead, it is Google trying to choose a diverse package of relevant websites to show in its search results.
  
  The result is that if I write an article and syndicate it across 1000 sites, I may get position #1 in Google for a generally related keyword search. Obviously I will not get positions 1-1000, even though logically if the article is good enough for position #1 it should also be good enough for positions #2-1000.
  
  Instead, positions #2-1000 will go to others.
  
  If the search is narrowed to a specific phrase only appearing in my article, then yes, I might get positions #1-1000 simply because Google has nothing else to show.
  
  So there may not be a "penalty" in that syndicated articles do not automatically count for back links, or they are penalized 150 slots in the search results. But the EFFECT is the same if the article does not appear in the search results.
  
  That is why I prefer to create unique content as much as possible - because it increases the odds my "core content" will get more high rankings.
  
  Of course, everyone can show different searches that "prove" their point. There are many factors in Google's algorithms.
  
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- JohnMcCabe 14 years ago
  
  > On the first video, Dr. Shearing was careful to change his wording from "penalized" to "banned" about halfway through what was essentially a pre-sell for a $700+ per year PLR membership site. The examples may have been factual, but they were also carefully hand-picked to support use of the PLR articles unchanged - making the membership more attractive to the lazy. Dr. S. is nobody's dummy.
  
  > The relevant part of the second video was "Google is NOT penalizing 'duplicate content' - Google is penalizing SPAM." He specifically mentioned scraping content and posting it unaltered. Autoblogging, anyone?
  
  The bottom line remains:
  
  Don't be afraid to submit the same content to multiple outlets. It's allowed. Even encouraged. Spamming is still verboten.
  
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- deloriagod 14 years ago
  
  Originally Posted by John McEachern
  
  Why would this necessarily be true? Not everyone is susceptible to groupthink, don't you think?
  
  Go over to the Digital Point forum and you'll see the groupthink mentality at it's greatest. One guy says something completely untrue but throws in a few fancy words and suddenly half the forum is agreeing with him and newbies are being loaded up with bad info. I like to spend time over there once in a while taking shots at those guys :rolleyes:
  
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mayorlan 14 years ago

In this type of topics,everyone would always one thing or the other according to their own personal view or experience with varrying proofs.I believe everyone would at the long run knows what works for them through trial and error and would surely map out the way to go later based on this.Who can even know the real thing about the way Google works,everyone with different views.
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Jordan Kovats

14 years ago

I wonder if he still has his job after debunking "the myth".

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sanssecret

14 years ago

Originally Posted by tpw

I should tell you that if Google truly penalizes Syndicated Articles, then they would also penalize such content as:

* Press Releases;
* News Stories;
* Privacy Pages;
* Affiliate Sales Pages;
* E-commerce sites that use Manufacturer Information to describe products;
* Movie descriptions;
* and much more..

This really comes down to how you interpret the word 'penalty'. If you think theyre going to show every copy of your article in the main search index, you're wrong. Sure they call it a filter, but the effect is the same. And they also apply that filter to other types of content. They use Amazon affiliate sites as their example:

For example, we sometimes hear from Amazon.com affiliates who are having a hard time ranking for content that originates solely from Amazon. Is this because Google wants to stop them from trying to sell Everyone Poops? No; it's because how the heck are they going to outrank Amazon if they're providing the exact same listing?

Originally Posted by tpw

The suggestion that you must publish content on your website first to prove ownership of the content, so that your website will rank higher in Google for that content, is also a myth...

Bill, if Google isn't interested in who published the content first why would they go to the bother of carrying out "further processes with the intent of determining the original source of the content"? (from the webmaster blog)

Originally Posted by kindsvater

The word "penalty" is wrong.

I think there's too much interchanging goes on and that's where the confusion comes up. Folks talk about duplicate content, syndicated content, penalties and filters... all in the same breath and then they don't clearly differentiate between 'within' and 'across' domains. I often think it's done deliberately sometimes, depending on which side of the coin you're trying to prove.

Originally Posted by JohnMcCabe

>

> The relevant part of the second video was "Google is NOT penalizing 'duplicate content' - Google is penalizing SPAM." He specifically mentioned scraping content and posting it unaltered. Autoblogging, anyone?

Would that constitute 'deliberate duplication'?

Again, from the webmaster blog:

Having duplicate content can affect your site in a variety of ways; but unless you've been duplicating deliberately, it's unlikely that one of those ways will be a penalty.

So if you are duplicating deliberately, it seems likely that one of those ways will be a penalty! In which case, yes, there is a duplicate content penalty.

(I have always talked gibberish, so this is nothing new for me :p)

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shaggard 14 years ago

It has been my experience that the only time duplicate content was a factor was when you were trying to submit an article to the same database. The database says you can't post it because it is already there.

That being said, it is my experience and may not apply to anyone else.
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- ewenmack 14 years ago
  
  From my experience I have found that relevance has a much bigger decider than page rank.
  
  I'm beating sites that have page rank 4,5, and 6 using copied and pasted articles and videos on a site created in June and content started in August.
  
  My page rank is 0.
  
  According to Alexa I only have one backlink while my page one competitors have hundreds.
  
  My site sits at #5 for targeted keyphrase.
  
  All the best,
  Ewen
  
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  Kay King 14 years ago
  
  I wonder if he still has his job after debunking "the myth".
  
  And people follow Matt Cutts and say "wonder if google knows he said that".
  
  Have you ever considered you hear this stuff when google wants you to hear it? That maybe it's not a big secret in the first place?
  
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  It actually doesn't take much to be considered a 'difficult woman' -
  that's why there are so many of us.
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rockstaradi 14 years ago

What tpw tells here is absolutely correct. I have practical experience and duplicate content penality is a BIG Myth and nothing else. And people are so taken to this myth that they are unable to believe when you tell them the truth behind this myth.
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alg6565 14 years ago

Okay, so I accept that the duplicate content penalty is a myth, but if you mass submit the same article to 200 sites, will Google give you equal credit for each of those links (once each is indexed)?

If so, does each link carry the same weight it would compared to an article spun 200 times and then submitted to the same sites? Would Google give more weight to links coming back from what it might perceive as 200 "unique" articles?

Would a better approach be to spin just the anchor text and URL so that you don't have a mass of links pointing to the same page with the same anchor text?
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Mozzyweb 14 years ago

I would share my experience:
Actually I have never copied any content and will nver do this but one week ago I just found that the admin of the website I'm promoting has placed the same content on the domain that is PR5 and an old one (the site where the content first appeared is PR0). So what? The main page of the website I promote just disappeared! And I can't get it back now! I made admin to remove the content and close the domain, I also wrote a consideration letter to google and.... nothing yet. Guys, what to do? I would appreciate any constructive answer!
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jhonsean

14 years ago

I think if you duplicate an specific content and google founds out then your rankings in search engine will be affected and eventually get banned and that's we called penalty.

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deloriagod

14 years ago

Originally Posted by jhonsean

I think if you duplicate an specific content and google founds out then your rankings in search engine will be affected and eventually get banned and that's we called penalty.

That's completely untrue. Would you be worried about your website getting banned if I copied a page of your website and put it on a whole bunch of other websites? You shouldn't be the least bit worried. Google isn't going to let someone else hurt your website without going through more effort than it's worth. It wouldn't even hurt your search engine rankings. You don't have control of who posts your content on other websites. You won't get penalized for someone (or even yourself) posting your content on other websites.

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IndigoJack 14 years ago

I think people over estimate Google's ability to watch what we're all up to.

Yes, they are good but they are not so good that they can keep tabs on all of us and what's been duplicated by us and others all over the shop.
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- threenine 14 years ago
  
  Im pretty sure you won't get penalized for duplicate content
  
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threenine 14 years ago

I think if you do use duplicte content it's always worth chopping it around abit
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Duplicate Content Penalty and other such Gibberish

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