Don't just copy-and-paste content, without getting permission to reprint that content from the appropriate copyright holders.

Your content only needs to be original to the point that people WANT to read your content and are happy to have done so.

Remember this. The thing that is most important at the end of the day is "user experience". And Google is usually happy when their users are happy.

This is a can of worms....

I can rank duplicate content and have made good money doing so...

You need to look at the site and look at all of the other fundamentals of the site... look at the quality of backlinks they have pointing to not only the home page but internal pages and going from there looking at the internal linking structure...

How long has the site been around for etc etc....

Danny

exactly bill answer your users questions... give them what they are looking for....

Nothing has changed new algorithm or not the fundamentals are still the same :-)

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Correct me if I'm wrong. You mean that you can duplicate the content and if you get high quality baclinks to your pages, Google will rank you as well. I won't just simply copy and paste but I will change the content a bit I don't think the copy holders get angry or can do smt. In order to keep away from such things, I can do a resources page and tell my visitors the copyholder is bla bla. But my visitors don't need to see this page actually

Depends on your business model.

Blogging with affiliate marketing in mind - NEED GREAT CONTENT

Adsense based on SEO/search engines/CTR - DON'T NEED GREAT CONTENT (JUST GOOD SEO)

Actually i read in many places where it is not necessary for original content.

Its more for your user experience like what Bill mentioned.

Thank you guys I decided to use duplicate content on one category of my site. The others will be original. Hope that will work for ranking

Yes, original content is a +

As a fan of poetry I've always wondered on what people might be missing out on because when they search for a specific poem or poet (let's say Robert frost) they only get the most established sites (like you said). Just because it's the most established doesn't mean it has the best information when it comes to Robert Frost.

A lot of those so-called authority sites have terrible misinformation (I'm looking at you Wikipedia and BrainyQuote). It strikes me as unfair that when you're looking for something that is one of a kind and impossible to make unique like "Kippling's IF" or "Churchill Quotes" you will always be brought to the same so-called authority sites.

It's just a thought, I honestly don't know what else I could tell you except that I agree with another poster's sentiment that unique content doesn't equate to good content.

Don't count on this. Brand new content tends to go to the top of the SERPs for a bit, but usually drops back down to where it actually belongs within a few weeks. It's far too soon to make the assumption that original content doesn't matter.

Is original content really necessary? Of course it is. What do you think websites are for? Giving visitors what they seek. which is not seeing the same thing on multiple sites?

Oh, and there are so many other reasons why the answer is yes... probably all covered above.

MBDirect

for blackhatters, original content is not their way

You'll be surprised how often you can get away with using PLR content that nobody has used before on their sites. Taking a little bit of time to rewrite content (that you have the rights to) can work as well. It doesn't have to be totally unique to rank well.

Original content or being able to "curate" content in an original way that shows your unique viewpoint are what make you different from every other site in your niche. This is absolutely key to developing your brand. Brands are the way of the future because of the emergence of "social signals", big businesses re-directing most of their money to online activities and so forth. If you don't have a strategy for branding you or your site, neither will be found within the first (2) two pages of search engine results after the next few years.

I have contacted with a site and ask them if I could use their content or not. They answered positively. Then I thought to myself Organic traffic is not the only traffic method. I can get visitors with PPC as well as organic search. That's why I'm going to duplicate the content. So far I learned, the only matter is the traffic volume. Then I will go for it. No matter Google will rank me or not.

actually content is the king in seo

actually content is the king in seo

Come to think of it, you're right. When you post the lyrics of your favorite song on your blog, would that count as duplicate content, knowing that there are a lot of lyrics databases all over the Internet? This is actually a good question. I would actually think of the quality of how the lyrics is shared in this type of situation. I know it doesn't really answer the question, but that's how it's about in Google: the quality. Oh, and the user experience, too.

I have a blog in which the content is primarily made of of articles from ezinearticles. I have a little bit of unique stuff, but bugger all really. It is PR3 and gets a reasonable amount of traffic, so I don't think unique content is the be all and end all....

The thing is, most guys will copy & paste a poem (your example), that's it their done with content. I can turn that poem into a Wikipedia style page that goes on about the writers history, poem, etc... then for every single other poem by that author do the same thing on additional internal pages, some proper internal linking, & other quality on-page SEO, a few quality external links (depending on competition strength).

What you have to do is differentiate your own page from the rest of the net, to avoid getting buried on page #37 in the SERPs or worse, end up in supplemental SERPs because your page looks like 57 other pages from multiple domains.

As far as on-page SEO the amount of text on a page isn't really a ranking factor, what is a ranking factor is what you do with the text that's on the page, which again goes right back to quality on-page SEO.

The easier way to rank is to go above & beyond ordinary pages & site structure.

My point here is, they can scrape your content, but chances are very high they won't clone your site structure, which is the competitions weakness.

Keep in mind I'm not in any way supporting anyone that steals content. I used your poem example because there is enough public domain poems to actually build a full site.

I crush content thiefs in the SERPs, lol.

For the most part, I'd say that original content is key. There may be exceptions, but if you want to get to the top of the search results and stay there a long time, then you're best off to have original content.