While I read the discussion forums and blogs these days, a lot of people are concerned about their sites being penalized for duplicate content. I am one of many people with this concern, since I have used other people's articles on my blog to add fresh and authoritative content to my site. Some people feel that all the panic over duplicate content isn't necessary once you really understand what duplicate content is and how the duplicate content filters really work. Others see it as a major concern. This article will explain what duplicate content is, when you may be penalized for it, and what you can do to avoid it.
Duplicate content is not only about the pages on a site being the same or too similar. It can also be different websites using the same or very similar template. I know this well, as my own site stems from a program that creates the same template for thousands of users, and we are constantly encouraged to change and customize our sites to make them different from everyone else's. The reason duplicate content is deemed a bad thing from a search engine's perspective is because it is considered spamming when people deliberately throw up a site, or content that is identical or very similar to another in hopes that they will get indexed higher and quicker in the search engines, or have more listings.
When the search engines discover this duplicate content on the sites they scan, they use a filter to remove the offending content. This is what getting "dinged" means. The problem is that most people write good, original content for their sites, but still get dinged because there is other same, or very similar content out there already. This hardly seems fair if you are an honest person, I know...
Duplicate content can also mean that you have taken content from someplace else on the web, and tried to cleverly rearrange the paragraphs but it is still essentially the same content. If you're into writing articles like I am, it's easy to want to do this if you're looking for fresh new ideas, but you really need to come up with your own, unique content.
The next problem is that you do just that, and distribute your articles all over the internet, and now thousands of websites have your same article in their directories. Is this not duplicate content as well? And is it a good idea for me to be placing other people's articles on my blog so that their original article that is posted in other places too is on my site? There are varying opinions I've come across on this topic. Unfortunately not all search engines will determine who the original author was.
Some people will suggest that if writing your own, original articles, submit them to the directories as you normally would, but then post other unique articles on your blog. Some other advice regarding blogs is that if using someone else's article on your blog, ask the author for permission to change the title and content, or just add a report about someone else's article, and then add a link to the original article. What I have been doing is adding a short blurb of my own before posting the article, and concluding remarks after, with the original article and author information in tact.
If you do a Google search for tools you can use to avoid getting dinged for duplicate content, you will find that you can check your website's content against other sites to find out how many other sites have the same or similar content, and then you can rearrange or re-do your own work to make it completely original. Hopefully these tips will help you understand duplicate content a little better, and help you try to avoid it as best you can.
Dream When I Get There
It's a scary thought, especially if you have no real design or programming experience, but there are ways around this and the benefits far out way the bridge you need to get over. Read on and I'll tell you more! Your own site gives you several advantages and bonuses. What exactly are the Bonuses? Let's talk about that in point form. Your own Website:
- Will give you your own voice. The web is full of mirrored and duplicate sales copy. When you have your own site, you are able to introduce yourself to the Internet community and be an individual, with your own opinions.
- Will give you the chance to have your unique content shown to your visitors. You can talk about things you know, review products, suggest solutions to people's problems, create original sales pitches and so much more!
- Will provide the medium for you to start climbing those SE listings. The search engines love unique content and what better way to increase your (free) organic search engine traffic, than to provide quality UNIQUE content. You can tweak your content ensuring maximum relevance to the market you are targeting.
- Will allow you to provide a free service, product etc that you can offer to your visitors in return for their contact details and hey presto! In conjunction with your autoresponder, you are now building a list. Your own List! One that you can then use to start building a relationship with your subscribers.
- Will allow you to convert sales at a higher rate. Instead of using the same merchant sales pages, you can write your own copy and speak to people on a more personal level. You will be able to cover anything that you think is missing or might help in your effort to sell.
- Will give you the benefit of owning your own domain name. This is very important if you are an affiliate marketer and hope to get free traffic from Google. The Big G (Google) simply wont allow multiple listings of the same URL to be listed under the same search term. That means that if you are trying to sell a product that other people are also trying to sell using Google Adwords, and you are using your affiliate link to do so, you are in direct competition with everyone else - the only thing different is your affiliate ID number. The King of the search engines see's this as a big no-no!
This article aims to show you the main reasons, but there are even more than listed here. Statistics prove that having your own website that is optimized for target market keywords will convert to sales at a significantly higher rate than simply directing your traffic to a common merchant sales page.
Getting your own website is not as daunting as you may think! There are many free site building tools available, search for them and read some reviews if you're game enough to give it a go yourself.
Even better get your own professional website for free! You need to buy your own domain name and pay for hosting, but you can take advantage of an offer to provide you with your own site and pay nothing! (just like I did!) The Plug In Profit Site will provide you with a complete, fully functional website with pre-programmed business opportunities for FREE! If you want your own Website, you really must have a look at this! Good Luck!
Both Liane Bate & Kym Robinson are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.
Kym Robinson has sinced written about articles on various topics from About Branding, self improvement and motivation and Affiliate Programs. Kym Robinson is the Webmaster of Internet Business Education. Please visit to inform yourself about Internet Business and the Bonus of getting your own. Kym Robinson's top article generates over 135000 views. Bookmark Kym Robinson to your Favourites.
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