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Question regarding duplicate content

by syedirfanajmal
7 replies
  • SEO
    • |
How much of an issue is duplicate content?

I do remember that Matt Cutts says duplicate content is not an issue if the aim is not to spam or something.

Should we change our domain name after not getting good seo results and recieving a DMCA removal notice from Google Search? That notice was for one page only but we have duplication on other pages too.
This is an e-commerce website with over 100 pages. We discovered that the freelancer content writer he had hired had copied content from competitors websites.
So should we change the domain or just fix the content on the same domain name? We have done over 1.5 month of SEO and while there was no improvement in rankings (the targetted keywords are not even indexed) the data from OSE, Ahrefs, GWT and GA does show some improvement.

Please suggest a good strategy. Thanks
#content #dmca #duplicate #question #seo
  • Profile picture of the author amitjha
    Hi,

    Yes, Matt Cutts said that duplicate content will not hurt if its not intended for spam, but he was referring to what legitimate things happens on web everyday, like people sharing some part of the content either on their blog or through social channels.

    However, two websites from the same niche having same content will be considered duplicate as the copied content doesn't add any value.
    Changing the domain name is not a good idea, instead you should get the content re-written (outsource the product description writing work to freelancers, there are many of them and if one guy did something wrong, doesn't mean that all of them will do the same, just ensure that you tell them about this in the beginning).

    Indexing the links takes time and truly speaking 1 and half month is not enough to judge someone's work. Still if you want the links to be indexed faster you can use some other softwares (like onehourindexing).

    So, I will advise you to stick with the same domain, get the content changed and give some time to your SEO before you start analyzing the performance.
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  • Profile picture of the author yukon
    Banned
    Originally Posted by syedirfanajmal View Post

    How much of an issue is duplicate content?

    I do remember that Matt Cutts says duplicate content is not an issue if the aim is not to spam or something.

    Should we change our domain name after not getting good seo results and recieving a DMCA removal notice from Google Search? That notice was for one page only but we have duplication on other pages too.
    This is an e-commerce website with over 100 pages. We discovered that the freelancer content writer he had hired had copied content from competitors websites.
    So should we change the domain or just fix the content on the same domain name? We have done over 1.5 month of SEO and while there was no improvement in rankings (the targetted keywords are not even indexed) the data from OSE, Ahrefs, GWT and GA does show some improvement.

    Please suggest a good strategy. Thanks
    You have bigger problems than worrying about ranking pages If your taking competition content. You can blame hired writers or whoever but you approved the content or you wouldn't have paid for it. Next time verify unique content before posting it on your own sites to prevent DMCA warnings.

    For Google it doesn't matter the same content was on two different domains, the page/domain with better SEO wins the ranked SERP position.

    There's no reason to start a new domain, remove the competitions content from your site/s & work on SEO as usual.

    Reading the OP makes me feel like you don't really care either way since your so quick to jump ship on the domain. To be honest sounds like an affiliate scraper site.
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    • Profile picture of the author syedirfanajmal
      You are very quick in being judgemental. Here are the facts:

      1. Its not my site. I did not hire the writer. I did not pay the writer. I did not approve the content. Its a client's site and all the activity happened 6 months being I was hired to fix the issue.

      2. Its not some affiliate scraper site or whatever. Its a legitimate e-commerce website with hundreds of products and more than 100 pages of content.

      3. I am not jumping ships; I am working on deciding what would be the best for my client.

      Thanks very much.
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      • Profile picture of the author PBScott
        Remove that specific duplicate content and move on.

        If you linking to your duplicate content from your higher ranked pages, your losing pagerank from your good pages to it, yet duplicate content generally will not get indexed. In short duplicate content drags your site down. If it was me, I would get rid of it all duplicate content, and 301 those old urls to your homepage.
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  • Profile picture of the author bindaaspropery
    I do agree with all the above posts. But according to me Google will give the priority to the first website where you paste content first.
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    • Profile picture of the author PBScott
      Originally Posted by bindaaspropery View Post

      I do agree with all the above posts. But according to me Google will give the priority to the first website where you paste content first.
      It doesn't quite work like that for sure, but I don't know exactly how it works. Reason I guarantee that isn't the case is Google doesnt index all website at the same speed for one, and once the Google index gets reset, which happens now and then, duplicate content sometimes replaces the original. My website is fully original but duplicates beat me now and then.

      Authority is defiantly one factor that comes into play, and having a lot of known duplicate content isn't going to help your authority, in fact it might destroy it.

      Defiantly get rid of any aged duplicate content that is PR n/a

      You could also go through your analytic and find duplicate pages that get no traffic from google at all. They are just bleeding your authority.
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