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It's no secret that content is important for Search Engine Optimisation. A stream of fresh website content tells Google your website is up-to-date and therefore relevant. By having lots of content on particular subjects, it can see your website is attention worthy. When the phrase "Content is King" was coined, webmasters realised you needed more than a simple five page website which contained a few paragraphs of copy. It was the websites with hundreds of pages that were ranking far higher that showed the way. In order to stay in the race, some webmasters have looked for shortcuts. This could be from repetition of content throughout a website, or at worst, taking content from a competitor. Some believe they are getting away with using duplicate content, but what are the real consequences? Can I be penalised for duplicate content?Joachim Kupke, Software Engineer of Google's Indexing Team mentioned Google has infrastructure setup for content duplication elimination. It monitors:
If Google's infrastructure sees that a website is using duplicating content in order to manipulate rankings for decieve users, the ranking of the website will be negatively effected. It may even result in removal from Google's index entirely. When is duplicate content not duplicate content?Google specifically rules out a few examples of duplicate content that is above-board. These are:
Unintentionally, webmasters can have a lot of duplicate content where text is often repeated unnecessarily. This, for example, may be a company introduction or a copyright statement. Google recommends having a brief summary than links to a dedicated page instead. Could you perhaps consolidate some pages into one, or expand pages to avoid unnecessary duplication? For printer-only pages and similar, consider the use of the no-index tag for the duplicate content links. This will mean only the original page is indexed by search engines. If you own an online shop that has many web pages that include the same content, there is a method called 'canonicalization' where you can choose your preferred page to be indexed by Google, avoiding any problems. Should I syndicate content?Syndicating content is a good way of increasing visitors to your website, but is there a pitfall with it being technically duplicate content? As mentioned above, Google can work out which content was posted where first. However, Google may choose to rank one website's content higher in a way you weren't expecting. To get round this, ensure websites which host your syndicated content link back to the original. My rankings have dropped, is it due to duplicate content?If you think your website has been penalised due to duplicate content, you can submit your website for reconsideration by Google. However, it is vital you have addressed all issues before submitting your website. Checking all of Google's Guidelines is a worthwhile activity too.
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