There continues to be a debate about duplicate content – some will tell you to avoid it like the plague, while others will tell you to do what you want, Google doesn’t really care.
In my opinion, both are partially right. It’s far more complex and requires more than a yes or no answer.
There are many instances where duplicate content is appropriate. If there wasn’t, sites that aggregated content like Social Media Today wouldn’t exist with a 6/10 Google PR and 8,834 Alexa Ranking. Ezinearticles.com has the same PR with an even higher Alexa ranking.
Social Media Today republishes articles exactly as they are printed, they are not snippets, they are entire articles.
Ezinearticles allows users to submit their content for publication and when accepted, the articles are made available for others to republish the exact article – taking this same already duplicated content to a higher level.
So what gives? How could these sites manage to survive if Google is so intent on penalizing any and everyone who duplicates content? The truth is the sites are thriving – that’s because Google is not out to penalize people, but to simply make the viewer’s experience better. That means there are some conditions or guidelines, that if followed properly, will allow you to republish or duplicate content without penalization.
Here’s what Google wants you to do when you want to republish your content:
“Syndicate carefully: If you syndicate your content on other sites, Google will always show the version we think is most appropriate for users in each given search, which may or may not be the version you’d prefer. However, it is helpful to ensure that each site on which your content is syndicated includes a link back to your original article. You can also ask those who use your syndicated material to use the noindex meta tag to prevent search engines from indexing their version of the content.”
The above mentioned sites are thriving because they are abiding by these guidelines – if do the same, you can avoid these horrible plague-like penalties. It’s that simple.
So remember to follow the guidelines, whenever you want to republish an article, whether it be a great post you found on the web, or your own that you’d like to republish on one of those popular aggregated content sites.
Make sure that you:
1. Include the link to the original article. A simple way of doing this would be to include a short note at the bottom of the post. For example:
View the original post at: http://example.com or you could simply link the “view original” text directly to the URL.
2. Then take the extra step and add the “no index” meta tag:
<meta name=”robots” content=”noindex”>
or
<meta name=”googlebot” content=”noindex”> to exclude Google, but allow other search engines to index the post.
I think that’s simple enough and provides more than enough clarity. So yes, you can publish duplicate content, if you follow the rules.
Does this help you better understand this issue? Do you have any other questions or tips to offer?
Kiesha is the author of A Step by Step Guide to a Better Blog. She’s blogs at We Blog Better, is a blog consultant for small business owners. If you’d like to know more, read her extended bio. Connect with her on Twitter, Google and subscribe to her newsletter for blogging tips & tricks.
FREE 20/7 Report
FREE WordPress Training Videos
Hi Kiesha, Matt Cutts, a well known google expert (and employee I believe) has already debunked the “penalized” theory.. You don’t get penalized for duplicate content, you just have 2 pages competing for each other, and the highest ranking wins, so the lower ranking page will never be displayed in top search results.
It’s not really a penalty, just a duplicate content filter in action. If anyone wants to say I am full of it, bring it on but I am always right
Aaron´s last [type] ..blogReaction Introduces Revenue Sharing on Free Blogging Platform
Hi Aaron,
I’m about as tired of hearing about this one as you probably are. 
Thanks for adding clarity! I don’t think you’re full of it
Hey Kiesha,
Great post! Question for you re: excluding the Google bot: Do you think the other engines will follow Google’s lead with similar filtering parameters around duplicate content?
Cheers,
Bryan
Bryan´s last [type] ..Infopreneur Tips Blog
Hi Bryan,
It’s definitely possible, but I couldn’t say for sure.
Hey kiesha,
Nice Post. Awesome Tips girl.
Thanks for sharing.
~Dev
Dev | Technshare´s last [type] ..How to Let Your Personality Flow while Blogging
Hi Dev,
Thanks! I appreciate that!
Hi Kiesha,
Thanks for the clarification. I’m have the Ezine WP plugin which I use to automatically sendmy articles to their site when I publish a new article. So, because they are better indexed and of higher rank, those articles will (should) appear on the first page. I agree that having the link back to your own site is a key way to attract people who want to read similar articles.
One question regarding your meta tag. Can I simply include that in the HTML view of my article and it will be accepted? I’m not familar with this method so where do you put that code?
Thanks,
Karen
Karen´s last [type] ..Understanding Your Chances In Life – Guest Post
Hi Karen,
Glad to help. That code should go into the HTML of the post that you don’t want indexed. So, if you want the ezinearticle post to be indexed because of the higher search engine ranking, add that code to the post on your site. In other words, which ever post you don’t want Google to index, that’s the one you place the code into. Do this for individual posts only.
Hi Kiesha, thanks for the post and the meta code.
Karen, thanks for introducing me to this plugin. I sounds like a good way to submit to Ezine that I need to take a look at.
Ileane @ Basic Blog Tips´s last [type] ..Blogging Extension ScribeFire Comes to Chrome
Hi Keisha!
Wow – this is great information. I was still under the impression that duplicate content was a real no-no. It sounds like things have changed (for the better).
I’m creating promotional videos for clients and I host a version on my YouTube channel (donpowerme) for promotional purposes but I also send the client a high res copy for them to include on THEIR YouTube channel. Of course, I change the name of the duplicate promotional video and I change the description and tags – so I”m probably covered anyway – but it’s good to know Google seems to be out of the duplicate content penalization game.
Thanks for blogging about this. Will RT!
Cheers!
- Don
Don Power – Marketing Consultant | Social Media Manager | Video Producer´s last [type] ..Do What the Gurus Do
Hi Don,
I’m glad you’ve found this to be useful. I think Google is happy as long as things are being abused. I think it’s the outright content scrapers that get in trouble for duplicating content.
I often will republish exact articles on some article submissions sites, like AssociatedContent and I have seen that the highest PR wins, but don’t see any penalization. Though this may be why my blog is still a PR2 who knows.
Justin Germino´s last [type] ..Are You a Victim of KeywordLuv Abuse
Hi Justin,
It’s hard to say if that’s the reason for your PR – because ezinearticles.com and SocialMediaToday, have high ranks and they’ve got basically nothing but duplicate content on those sites. So, I don’t think that’s it – but of course, I’m no expert, either.
Justin, what I’ve noticed is that if an article is syndicated on more than one website, initially, the site that’s crawled first wins. Large sites that update content very frequently often get crawled faster than smaller blogs. The time gap between this posting is also a factor. If you publish the article on your blog first, then wait a day to syndicate it elsewhere, you might find the post on your blog ranks better.
When one of my blogs was relatively new, I had added it to Zimbio. The Zimbio posts ranked ahead of mine which really made me laugh.
Jarret´s last [type] ..L-arginine supplementation enhances exercise tolerance
Kiesha, I wrote for a Sports Blog Network in the recent past. They had individual site bloggers create content for their Winter Olympic Site. Their Olympic site was a source for Google News. Many of the authors cross posted content on that site from their original sites. It didn’t seem to hurt the Olympic site at all in terms of search rankings, PageRank, or traffic.
Jay´s last [type] ..10 Blogging Tips from Perez Hilton
Hey Kiesha,
How are you girl?
Great indepth post that really clarifies some of the myths about the supposed duplicate content penalty.
I know the whole thing is a joke because I have tested it and seen my article ranked 1st,2nd, and 3rd for BlogEngage, Ezine, and my site, and my site was actually first, with a PR of 2 versus the other two, so really I think the whole issue is much like the algorithm that controls Google in that no one will really ever understand completely how it works.
Thanks for a great post Kiesha.
Alex Whalley´s last [type] ..Want organic traffic
Finally, some rational discussion!
It always floored me how people could, in successive breaths, demonize “duplicate content” then evangelize article marketing.
Made no sense.
I dug into after hearing Matt Cutts speak last year, and discussed it myself a few times.
Alex Whalley discussed it recently as well.
When I read some random blogger looking for guest posts and restricting submissions to unique content because of duplicate content penalty, I just have to laugh. There may be reason for holding someone else’s copyright, but duplicate content is that reason.
Dave Doolin´s last [type] ..Who’s afraid of outbound links
Keisha,
Thanks for that clarity. There is so much noise from people who don’t really know that it is hard to reason things out.
Ralph´s last [type] ..60′s Nostalgia-Suspicion and Paranoia with Buffalo Springfield
Nice idea and this would make us safe too. Thanks
Tinh´s last [type] ..PayPal Electronic Withdrawal Service for Indian Bloggers Now Resolved
One additional thought on this topic. There are some sights that do manage to thrive in spite of consisting primarily of duplicate content. This includes sites as you mentioned that basically function as feed aggregators.
Examples include Zimbio, Wellshpere, as well as article marketing sites like Ezinearticles as you mentioned among others.
In my opinion, these sites differ dramatically from your average blog in that they have an incredible volume of content. They also have trusted domains often with hundreds of thousands or even millions of backlinks by Yahoo. Most, but not all of these sites also make use of adding the nofollow tag to the original article that they link back to such as Wellsphere or Facebook Networked blogs.
For article marketing sites, they usually have old trusted domains with millions of backlinks. Not all of their content is duplicate either. I’ve heard that some people take advantage of the domain authority of these sites and capitalize on their ability to rank well for competitive search terms based on their title tag alone. After that, they also often build links for these articles.
I would be interested to hear back from an average blogger who’s created a blog that consists of a large percentage of duplicate content. I would imagine that it doesn’t generate very much traffic.
Jarret´s last [type] ..L-arginine supplementation enhances exercise tolerance
Hi again Keisha!
Great and simple, two clues and thats it! Its almost a question of good manners!
No follow and sindicate the original!
Also clear that Google will not penalize, just will show the one with best PR.
Thanks!
Charly
charly @md marketing digital´s last [type] ..Nuevas tendencias en el mercado de los dispositivos móviles