The Tricky Issue Of Duplicate Content & What Google Says About It

Being a full-time online marketer means you have to keep a close watch on how
Google is ranking pages on the web... one very serious concern is the
whole issue of duplicate content. More importantly, how does having
duplicate content on your own site and on other people's sites, affect
your keyword rankings in Google and the other search engines?

Now, recently it seems that Google is much more open about just how
it ranks content. I say "seems" because with Google there are years
and years of mistrust when it comes to how they treat content and
webmasters. Google's whole "do as I say" attitude leaves a bitter taste
in most webmasters' mouths. So much so, that many have had more than
enough of Google's attitude and ignore what Google and their pundits say
altogether.

This is probably very emotionally fulfilling, but is it the right
route or attitude to take? Probably not!

Mainly because, regardless of whether you love or hate Google, there's
no denying they are King of online search and you must play by their rules
or leave a lot of serious online revenue on the table. Now, for my major
keyword content/pages even a loss of just a few places in the rankings
can mean I lose hundreds of dollars in daily commissions, so anything
affecting my rankings obviously get my immediate attention.

So the whole tricky issue of duplicate content has caused me some
concern and I have made an ongoing mental note to myself to find
out everything I can about it. I am mainly worried about my content
being ranked lower because the search engines think it is duplicate
content and penalizes it.

My situation is compounded by the fact that I am heavily into
article marketing - the same articles are featured on hundreds,
some times thousands of sites across the web. Naturally, I am
worried these articles will dilute or lower my rankings rather
than accomplish their intended purpose of getting higher rankings.

I try to vary the anchor text/keyword link in the resource boxes
of these articles. I don't use the same keyword phrase over and over
again, as I am nearly 99% positive Google has a "keyword use"
quota - repeat the same keyword phrase too often and your highly
linked content will be lowered around 50 or 60 places, basically
taking it out of the search results. Been there, done that!

I even like submitting unique articles to certain popular
sites so only that site has the article, thus eliminating
the whole duplicate content issue. This also makes for a great
SEO strategy, especially for beginning online marketers, your
own site will take some time to get to a PR6 or PR7, but you
can place your content and links on high PR7 or PR8 authority sites
immediately. This will bring in quality traffic and help your
own site get established.

Another way I combat this issue is by using a 301 re-direct
so that traffic and pagerank flows to the URL I want ranked.
You can also use your Google Webmaster Tool account to show
which version of your site you want ranked or featured:
with or without the www.

The whole reason for doing any of this has to do with PageRank
juice - you want to pass along this ranking juice to the appropriate
page or content. This can raise your rankings, especially in Google.

Thankfully, there is the relatively new "canonical tag" you can use
to tell the search engines this is the page/content you want
featured or ranked. Just add this meta link tag to your content which
you want ranked or featured, as in the example given below:


link rel="canonical" href="place your preferred link here"


Anyway, this whole duplicate issue has many faces and sides,
so I like going directly to Google for my information. Experience
has shown me that Google doesn't always give you the full monty,
but for the most part, you can follow what they say. Lately, over
the last year or so, Google seems to have made a major policy change
and are telling webmasters a lot more information on how they (Google)
rank their index.

So if you're concerned or interested in finding out more about
duplicate content and what Google says about it try these helpful
links. First one is a very informative video on the subject
entitled "Duplicate Content & Multiple Site Issues" which is
presented by Greg Grothaus who works for Google.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hSoXutuj0g

Another great link is this page from Google Webmasters Support Answers
by Matt Cutts. It has a lot of helpful information, including a video on
the Canonical Link Element. It's located here:

http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=139394


In yet another post, Matt Cutts discusses the related issue of
content scraping and advises webmasters not to worry about it.
This is a slightly different matter, other webmasters and unmentionables
may use software to scrape your site and place your content on their
site. This has happened to me, countless times, including when my
content has been reduced to scrambled nonsense. Cutts says not to
worry about this matter as Google can usually tell the original source of the
material. In fact, having links in this duplicate content may
just help your rankings in Google.

"There are some people who really hate scrapers and try to crack
down on them and try to get every single one deleted or kicked off
their web host," says Cutts. "I tend to be the sort of person who
doesn't really worry about it, because the vast, vast, vast majority
of the time, it's going to be you that comes up, not the scraper.
If the guy is scraping and scrapes the content that has a link to
you, he's linking to you, so worst case, it won't hurt, but in some
weird cases, it might actually help a little bit."

As a full-time online marketer I am not so easily convinced, I
mainly have pressing concerns about my unscrupulous competition using
these scrapings and duplicate content to undermine one's rankings
in Google by triggering some keyword spam filter. Whether in fact this
actually happens, only Google knows for sure, but it is just another
indication, despite the very detailed and helpful information given
above, duplicate content and the issues surrounding it, will still
present serious concerns for online marketers and webmasters in
the future.




...

The author is a full-time online marketer who has numerous
websites. For the latest web marketing tools try: Marketing Tools
If you liked the article above, why not try this Free 7 Day
Marketing Course here: Internet Marketing Tools
Copyright 2009 Titus Hoskins. This article may be freely
distributed if this resource box stays attached.