17 May Question and Answers about Duplicate Content

What is Duplicate Content?

Online Content that appears in more then one place.

How does Google handle Duplicate Content?

Google looks for Duplicate Content. When they find more then one page showing the same content they filter out all but one page and all the duplicate content will get shoved down toward the bottom of the rankings for that specific search and the main page they choose will stay in its appropriate rank.

For the most part Google does not treat duplicate content as spam. With that said if you do nothing but duplicate content they do reserve the right to view your entire website as spam and your website wont show up in searches.

Can I make a blog post and quote text from another website?

Yes. You can put a text in a quote. For example if your writing a blog post and you have your own original content, then a paragraph that in quotations quotes someone’s text from another site. If possible leave a link back to the original website.

But if you are copying an entire article from someone website even if you put it in as a quote you will be dinged for that.

Can I write a blog post, then take snipits from my blog post and paste those around the web on other websites with a link back to my website to the full blog post?

Yes. You can always copy some of your content and publish it on other websites around the web. On those other websites you won’t get dinged from google but you also won’t gain any points with google for that content.  Though this is just in my opinion, as I have not confirmed this, but what I like to do is wait 1 day after you post your original blog post before you share snippits of that post around on any other website. That way google recognizes your post as being the original and gives credit to your website for the original article.

How to deal with duplicate content on an E-commerce Website?

If you are selling unique and original products on your website this most likely wont be an issue for you.

For those who are selling products on there e-commerce website that other people sale online as well, then you want to be careful with your product descriptions. First of all, whenever possible you “do” want to have a product description for each product you sell. This gives you a great opportunity to write a short description and give your page some value. What you “don’t” want to do is just copy the manufactures description.  If other people are also selling the same product online the chances are you will have duplicate content.

So take the time to write your own product descriptions. Give your page valuable unique content even if the picture is the same.  Thicken up your descriptions for each of your products and your product detail pages become a source of good seo and start to really show as a value added page.

Also another good idea is to add a product review. This may not be possible for all your products but if you have the opportunity to write a review for your product and share that on your page this also can help.

Do:

It is ok to have your Privacy Policies and legal Disclaimers on your website even if they have duplicate content. Google will recognize these for what they are and not hinder your ranking because of duplicate content.

It is ok for an E-commerce websites that need to show a list of ingredients for a product that someone else also has listed. For the most part google will recognize this as the product description and though you wont get dinged for this, you also will not get ranked for it.

Don’t:

Don’t Have Multiple pages sharing the same content.

Don’t have guest blogger’s post content that they already posted somewhere else online.

and the simply Don’t Copy and paste text from another website.