Posted by: Wendy Montes de Oca
August 18, 2009
Issue #739

SEO and Content Syndication:
Debunking The Duplicate Content Myth

Recently a consulting client of mine asked me if I agreed with a colleague of his about Google disliking duplicate content and to reduce or refrain the amount of content he syndicates (distributes) on the Web.

I think there’s a huge misunderstanding out there about how to distribute your content without hurting your website in the eyes of search engines.

If you publish content, you should have the first, original content on your website. No doubt. However, you can "repurpose" it and strategically distribute it on the Web, and this will not hurt your search engine/Google SEO efforts.

This is something I refer to in my SONAR Content Distribution Model TM and has helped my clients’ quantifiably increase traffic rank, traffic visits, leads and sales.

SONAR is a cost effective, yet powerful, method of repurposing and synchronizing content (albeit text, audio, video) distribution into various, targeted channels. And it allows companies, publishers, entrepreneurs … basically anyone with content on their website … the ability to ultimately turn traffic into sales.

SONAR represents the following online distribution platforms:

• S Syndicate partners, content syndication networks, and user generate content sites
• O Online press releases
• N Network (social) communities
• A Article directories
• R Relevant posts to blogs, forums, and bulletin boards

SONAR Case study: My synchronized content distribution technique helped increase traffic ranking and visits to a alternative health website by 3,160% and 81.5% respectively in only three months. And in four months, traffic visits increased to an investment website by nearly 80% as well as an increase its traffic ranking by nearly 150 percent. Plus, the traffic to this investment site was monetized for an ROI of 221%.

So not only was the website’s SEO/SEM efforts NOT hurt by content syndication, it actually improved exponentially with rank, visits and sales.

The key is to repurpose the content. To tweak an original article on your website with minor changes (for example the headline, intro paragraph, closing, etc.) and then syndicate on other different websites.

Google tries to look for the best version …where the content originated … the first, primary source (usually your website) and typically the site that gets the "search engine credit" so to speak via the higher ranking in the organic results listing.

In Google’s view, duplicate content is more hurtful for a site if it’s posted in more than one place on that SAME DOMAIN (not via syndication on other websites such as through online press releases, article directories, etc.).

For example, if you have two pages on your site with virtually the same content, in most cases, Google notices this and ignores one of those Web pages. You will not get both of those listings in the search engine organic results … just one of them.

Keep in mind, Google will decide your pages are duplicate if ONLY your (page titles and Meta descriptions) are the same. So make sure each Web page on your site has unique, relevant tags with targeted keywords.

Now if you’re concerned about Web pages on your website and its text "printer friendly version" hurting your website’s SEO … simply block the search engines from spidering the print friendly version.

When you think about it … syndicating content is the SEO model of social sites (like Digg, Drop Jack, StumpleUpon, etc.) and article directories.

So make sure you understand the power of your content and how to syndicate it the right way before you hit the brakes on any SEO/SEM efforts …

… Because that’s what will actually hurt your site … doing nothing and not leveraging your content.

Wendy Montes de Oca, MBA
Guest Contributor
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11 Comments »

1. Comment by Derek Fisch — August 18, 2009 @ 9:53 am

   Thanks Wendy!
   This is a subject that I come up against all the time when I’m talking to people about distributing their content. Explaining what is good and bad for SEO takes time - I’m just going to send them to this article from now on.

2. Comment by Glen Kohlenberg — August 18, 2009 @ 10:15 am

   Thanks Wendy so if I read you right I can take some of my blog post 300-500 words and change up the headline and first paragraph plus change my tag words and submit to say ezine articles?

   I will check out the Sonar lead also.

   Thank you,

   Glen
   http://www.contractorblabblog.com

3. Comment by Kris Keimig — August 18, 2009 @ 10:32 am

   Great article Wendy… and duplicate content (to this day) still seems to create hot spots clients can’t stop itching.

   I do have a few thoughts (and would love your feedback).

   Having been in the search marketing profession since 2000 (and having a wife who is an instructional designer), here’s my additional $0.02:

   1) You might want to provide an example as to WHY Google has a stance against duplicate content (and where people have been penalized). Might be a little too “weedsie” for people but I also think hearing how spammers have abused duplicate to gain ranking could help users understand why THEY won’t be punished.

   2) You may want to give a few examples on how to ensure YOUR content is seen (by Google) as the ORIGINAL content. Ex: By using rel=”canonical”(http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2009/02/specify-your-canonical.html) or by making sure their content is in Google’s index first (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&rlz=1I7GGIH_en&tbs=qdr%3Ad&q=%22SEO+and+Content+Syndication%3A+Debunking+The+Duplicate+Content+Myth%22&aq=f&oq=&aqi=)

   Hope that’s worthwhile - thanks.

4. Comment by Fred Black — August 18, 2009 @ 10:47 am

   Yes – you are correct. It’s unusual to find someone who actually understands the duplicate content myth. Unscrupulous people have made money selling programs to “scramble” your articles so that you can distribute “unique” copies. It’s not necessary. In fact, I used to sell a helper program that worked with one of these “scrambler” programs until I figured out through my own testing that it was not necessary.

   Google can generally determine the original source of the content.

   It comes down to this: if you post content on web site “B” that originated on web site “A”, web site “B” does not receive any positive or negative movement in their Google rankings. Web site “A” does not get penalized either.

   If web site “B” includes a link back to the original content on web site “A” (as they should, and without a nofollow tag), then web site “A” will receive some benefit in their Google rankings from the link.

5. Comment by David Hurley — August 18, 2009 @ 11:41 am

   Thanks Wendy,

   I like the term “repurposing” better than the misleading “rewriting”. Until a few months ago I was using SubmitYourArticle to distribute my articles to directories and “repurposing” is basically what SubmitYourArticle offer with their Article Leverage service.

   I also quite often use relevant and well written syndicated articles on my website and blog and have not noticed any harm to my rankings.

6. Comment by Noel — August 18, 2009 @ 11:40 pm

   That was a precise clarification indeed!

7. Comment by Noel — August 18, 2009 @ 11:44 pm

   I hadn’t realized that the term, ‘duplicate content’ was loosely used.

8. Comment by David Scott Lynn — August 19, 2009 @ 12:18 am

   So does anyone have any thoughts about using/not using SubmitYourArticle for publishing articles?

   Thanks,
   David

9. Comment by Wendy Montes de Oca, MBA — August 19, 2009 @ 10:53 am

   Hi Folks,
   Glad you found the article useful.

   Re: SubmitYourArticle.com — this is not a popular site, as far as Alexa ranking. Some of the more high traffic sites include:
   -ezinearticles.com
   -goarticles.com
   -amazines.com
   -buzzle.com
   -articlebase.com
   -articlesfactory.com

   Also, for more information about SONAR Content Distribution Model TM visit http://www.precisionmarketingmedia.com/sonar.html.

   @Glen — yes, basically that’s it.
   @Kris — Matt Cutts (head Google guy) has spoken about Google and duplicate content at several industry events, most recently, the SES conference.

10. Comment by Gerrald Hendrix — August 19, 2009 @ 12:23 pm

    Thanks for setting us straight. Everybody has a different spin on this topic, and they all seem to be reliable sources. This just makes more sense.

11. Comment by ROCKandREVIEW.com — April 8, 2010 @ 10:23 am

    Thanks so much for this article, we’ve been worried about duplicated content issues on our music news and review site.
    For the past six months we’ve done everything possible to provide good content. Some articles we post far in advance of other sites still find their way below other sites, so we dove into this duplicate content thing. We had no idea how big the problem was at first, and didn’t realize that most blog engines set you up from failure at the get-go. We’ve since changed up our music site based upon this information. simple things like removing archives and indexes and alternative ways to get to the same page, for instance redirecting all versions of the same domain (non-www to www) to the main domain.

    However after doing so much work, we still wondered if syndicating our content via RSS, music article directories or PR agencies was hurting us. Your answer makes logical sense and we appreciate your willingness to help!