The Duplicate Content Penalty Myth

A reader recently wrote to me, concerned that my suggestion to recycle blog content would result in duplicate content penalties from search engines such as Google.

To clarify this myth and alleviate your concerns, read this excellent post by SEO (search enginge optimization) expert Jill Whalen: The Duplicate Content Penalty Myth.

In summary, don’t be afraid to syndicate your content and articles to selected sites. You’ll reach potential new readers who aren’t already part of your audience and get links back to your website. Google’s filtering mechanism should be able to determine the original source of the content (you) and even if the duplicate content appears in search results the link will take people back to your originating site.

Filed Under Author Websites, Blogging, Google 

Comments

3 Responses to “The Duplicate Content Penalty Myth”

  1. Patsi Krakoff, The Blog Squad on August 3rd, 2007 6:14 am

    Thanks for the heads up on this post, Patrice-Anne, it is very useful. I’m sharing it with my readers over on CoachEzines blog with a mention of you.

  2. Sharon on August 3rd, 2007 5:14 pm

    I’ve always wondered about that … I have multiple websites that carry each other articles from time to time :) and I heard that search engines can penalize you for that. That ’s good to know.

  3. Jenn Mattern on August 16th, 2007 6:43 pm

    The key thing that people need to keep in mind is how often Google indexes their content. For example, you shouldn’t post an article on your site, and then post it to a site that crawled much more frequently (like ezinearticles) on that same day. If you don’t want your content on your own site to be viewed by the Google Gods as the duplicate version, don’t re-post it anywhere until it’s indexed on your original source site first (which for some sites will take hours, and on others will take days or even a few weeks).

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