Is duplicate content online really penalised by Google?

Hi Hendry,

I had a quick look at the article and some of the links to other related info and found it all quite interesting & helpful.

Thanks for that.

Michael

The latest issue of Search Engine News that is put out by Planet Ocean told us that Google has officially come out saying there is NO penalty for duplicate content. However, only 1 of your listings has the opportunity to show in the search engines. Among other issues, but no penalty.

Having multiple urls pointing to the same content can hinder you and stealing copy is just down write wrong.

A common cure for this is to write your articles in this format is...
Sit down and write the article. When that article is complete write another one. the topic is still fresh in your mind and the content will be different enough to not be duplicate. When the second article is done write another one and so on. Your content only has to be 20% different in order to not be considered duplicate.

Also, planet ocean reported that Google down graded the importance of links coming from article directories that are not quality. And that when looking for directories to submit to make sure they have a decent page rank and a fresh cashe date. Only 10% of your link building program should be from directories.

Hope that helps

Hey CaptiveReef:

What is a "low hanging keyword"???

Multiple url's but pointing to the same content is waste and google will penalise it easily...

Hi,

If the content is duplicated on your own site, Google doesn't like that, and may penalize you.

Google tries to give the browsing person quality relevant content, and if you try to inflate your site by having the same content in different parts of your site Google will rightly think that you are trying to fool it. If Google showed such a site to the browsing person, that person might not use Google again. If you were Google, I know what you'd do.

On the other hand if you, for example, have an article on your site, and the exact same article on Ezinearticles, Google does not in my view penalize you at all. What Google will do is show the site with the highest page rank. That may mean that the duplicate article on your site will not be shown at all. That in my view is not a penalty. Your content still got shown, though it was on Ezinearticles, and if you had a good resource box and link - you're all right.

Look at it another way. If your content was on your site only, and if it was relevant to a searched for term and there were few competing sites for that term (or if your page rank was high) your content would possibly be shown. By duplicating your content to Ezineartilces (one of many places) you dramatically increase the possibility of your content and link been seen.

And... you still got it on your site as well, and Google knows that, and it helps your page rank.

About duplicating your content to lots of places. There is, in my view, an advantage in that readers browsing those places specifically will come across your content. And the back links to your site cannot hurt either for sales and authority.

Something else you could do. Change the article on your site sufficiently that it is not duplicate content. Easy to do. You've already written it right.

Good luck.

Tom