Article Marketing - The Truth About Duplicate Content and Article Marketing
I already wrote an article about this subject on my blog, but things are so complicated that I continually get questions about it.
Actually, the subject is wider than what it may seem at first sight, at least this is what I realized by my own experience with article submission and website publishing.
In this article I will disclose to you my deepest thoughts about duplicate content in all its forms and the consequences you may face as a publisher as far as search engine optimization is concerned.
Duplicate content Search engines define duplicate content as the same content being published on a given domain in two or more different pages.
This may be spotted by their spiders at first by comparing the page title and description meta tags, then by a deeper comparison of the body on the page.
The consequences of publishing the same content on different places on a website are that these pages will get a lower rank than what it would be in a situation in which only one page existed.
This is the well known duplicate content penalty.
If you own the website, nobody can stop you from doing it.
If you don't, let's say you're publishing your article on an article directory, it's up to them to care about it, because the penalty would be charged on their site (as a matter of fact, your article will not rank so well neither).
Some article directories have a strong duplicate content filter, and they will reject clearly duplicate articles.
Others have none or lower level filters and you could even publish over and over the same article just spinning the title.
Aside of this, I was recently surprised by the filters of Hubpages, which works pretty hard even on almost duplicate content.
In this case, your "hub" just won't go live until you make it unique enough for their standards.
One more alert I can give you concerns free web hosting.
Usually this comes in the form of a free sub-domain you're allow to publish your website on.
The filter applies on domains.
If your sub-domain "gardening.
123host.
gt" has got the same content than "gardentools.
123.
gt", the filter would be applied.
You need to be aware that your "website" is part of someone else's website, and you can't control the rest of it apart for your sub-domain.
In this case, copyscape or any other duplicate content checker tool could be of use.
In any case, the big myth about you site being shut down for duplicate content penalty...
is just a myth.
Almost duplicate content This classification can be applied to two or more pages on the same website which slightly differ one from the other, but clearly come from the same source.
This kind of filter could especially bother you when submitting article to quality directories, if the original article is taken from there.
Their staff is quite attentive and checks each and every article to ensure good quality content is always provided.
I would suggest avoiding submitting this kind of content.
As for your own website, I think that the main problem is the same as for duplicate content: if you struggle to have your main page rank, focus on other strategies, try something different.
Duplicate or almost duplicate content won't do any good for your website.
Again, this applies on different pages on the same website.
Some times it may happen unwillingly, especially on blogs where you're publishing content since a long time.
You could forget that you've already written it and use the same description and keywords in different pages.
It's rare, but it may happen.
If you have this kind of doubt, you could check old posts by category or tag before publishing the new one.
Mirroring content Usually mistaken with duplicate content, this kind of filter gets activated when the same content is detected on different websites.
Frankly, I don't think there's any sort of penalty associated with this filter.
In fact, I often find automatic blogs publishing nothing but articles taken as a whole with pretty good rankings as a result.
You can do the same if you want.
There's a WordPress plugin which does the job on autopilot on any given keyword or set of keywords.
Or, you could look it from the opposite side, and provide good unique articles on some highly researched keywords: once they're published, you'll start seeing them appear like mushrooms on these autopilot blogs, complete with resource box with your name and website in it.
You can trace it with a simple Google alert on your title.
The point is that with each one of them you get a back-link to your website, which increases exponentially the SEO results you are getting from your main article.
Derivative content As far as I know, EzineArticles editors coined this definition.
It describes content "derived" from low value not original content, such as PLR articles you can download in mass even for free.
Actually, these article have most likely been written some years ago and have been published some thousands times on blogs, websites and article directories all over the internet.
Some times I try to read some of them, just to see if I can find any interesting ideas, but most of the times I just find a bunch of words looking like separate rings rather than a chain of thoughts.
They can be used as filler content, if you really need a blog post on a week when you know you won't be able to write your thing.
But think about your readers going through it and feeling what you felt reading it.
You know that sense of...
nonsense? As for low quality article directories, they can be used to get some more low quality back links.
Resuming the consequences of your content being filtered according to these "informal regulations", they are related to: The hassle you go through modifying again and again your article to get it accepted on high rank websites.
The low search engine ranking you may get for your own website.
In the end, nothing so bad you cannot get through, but if your publisher outcome is making money on line by driving traffic to your website, well, you will just waste an enormous amount of time and delay your results.
As a personal advice, writing your own unique content or outsourcing to qualified ghostwriters would be for sure way better strategies to implement for a faster success.
If you're short on budget and don't know how to write, exercise would surely help you.
At first your posts and articles will not be so good, but at least they will be unique, until you'll realize that by doing so you strengthen your skills and begin to let your own personality and thoughts come out in your words.
Trust me; this is when you can see the good you can get from it, because readers will show you their appreciation for your work.
Your satisfaction will just be the prelude to your success.
Actually, the subject is wider than what it may seem at first sight, at least this is what I realized by my own experience with article submission and website publishing.
In this article I will disclose to you my deepest thoughts about duplicate content in all its forms and the consequences you may face as a publisher as far as search engine optimization is concerned.
Duplicate content Search engines define duplicate content as the same content being published on a given domain in two or more different pages.
This may be spotted by their spiders at first by comparing the page title and description meta tags, then by a deeper comparison of the body on the page.
The consequences of publishing the same content on different places on a website are that these pages will get a lower rank than what it would be in a situation in which only one page existed.
This is the well known duplicate content penalty.
If you own the website, nobody can stop you from doing it.
If you don't, let's say you're publishing your article on an article directory, it's up to them to care about it, because the penalty would be charged on their site (as a matter of fact, your article will not rank so well neither).
Some article directories have a strong duplicate content filter, and they will reject clearly duplicate articles.
Others have none or lower level filters and you could even publish over and over the same article just spinning the title.
Aside of this, I was recently surprised by the filters of Hubpages, which works pretty hard even on almost duplicate content.
In this case, your "hub" just won't go live until you make it unique enough for their standards.
One more alert I can give you concerns free web hosting.
Usually this comes in the form of a free sub-domain you're allow to publish your website on.
The filter applies on domains.
If your sub-domain "gardening.
123host.
gt" has got the same content than "gardentools.
123.
gt", the filter would be applied.
You need to be aware that your "website" is part of someone else's website, and you can't control the rest of it apart for your sub-domain.
In this case, copyscape or any other duplicate content checker tool could be of use.
In any case, the big myth about you site being shut down for duplicate content penalty...
is just a myth.
Almost duplicate content This classification can be applied to two or more pages on the same website which slightly differ one from the other, but clearly come from the same source.
This kind of filter could especially bother you when submitting article to quality directories, if the original article is taken from there.
Their staff is quite attentive and checks each and every article to ensure good quality content is always provided.
I would suggest avoiding submitting this kind of content.
As for your own website, I think that the main problem is the same as for duplicate content: if you struggle to have your main page rank, focus on other strategies, try something different.
Duplicate or almost duplicate content won't do any good for your website.
Again, this applies on different pages on the same website.
Some times it may happen unwillingly, especially on blogs where you're publishing content since a long time.
You could forget that you've already written it and use the same description and keywords in different pages.
It's rare, but it may happen.
If you have this kind of doubt, you could check old posts by category or tag before publishing the new one.
Mirroring content Usually mistaken with duplicate content, this kind of filter gets activated when the same content is detected on different websites.
Frankly, I don't think there's any sort of penalty associated with this filter.
In fact, I often find automatic blogs publishing nothing but articles taken as a whole with pretty good rankings as a result.
You can do the same if you want.
There's a WordPress plugin which does the job on autopilot on any given keyword or set of keywords.
Or, you could look it from the opposite side, and provide good unique articles on some highly researched keywords: once they're published, you'll start seeing them appear like mushrooms on these autopilot blogs, complete with resource box with your name and website in it.
You can trace it with a simple Google alert on your title.
The point is that with each one of them you get a back-link to your website, which increases exponentially the SEO results you are getting from your main article.
Derivative content As far as I know, EzineArticles editors coined this definition.
It describes content "derived" from low value not original content, such as PLR articles you can download in mass even for free.
Actually, these article have most likely been written some years ago and have been published some thousands times on blogs, websites and article directories all over the internet.
Some times I try to read some of them, just to see if I can find any interesting ideas, but most of the times I just find a bunch of words looking like separate rings rather than a chain of thoughts.
They can be used as filler content, if you really need a blog post on a week when you know you won't be able to write your thing.
But think about your readers going through it and feeling what you felt reading it.
You know that sense of...
nonsense? As for low quality article directories, they can be used to get some more low quality back links.
Resuming the consequences of your content being filtered according to these "informal regulations", they are related to: The hassle you go through modifying again and again your article to get it accepted on high rank websites.
The low search engine ranking you may get for your own website.
In the end, nothing so bad you cannot get through, but if your publisher outcome is making money on line by driving traffic to your website, well, you will just waste an enormous amount of time and delay your results.
As a personal advice, writing your own unique content or outsourcing to qualified ghostwriters would be for sure way better strategies to implement for a faster success.
If you're short on budget and don't know how to write, exercise would surely help you.
At first your posts and articles will not be so good, but at least they will be unique, until you'll realize that by doing so you strengthen your skills and begin to let your own personality and thoughts come out in your words.
Trust me; this is when you can see the good you can get from it, because readers will show you their appreciation for your work.
Your satisfaction will just be the prelude to your success.
