Let’s face it, duplicate content on the web is inevitable.
Blog and website owners worry about the wrath of Google for duplicate content, and there had been much talk about the Google Duplicate Content Penalty.
Well, here’s the good news: there’s no such thing as a Google Duplicate Content Penalty!
Josh Garcia, in his post entitled “The Mystery of Google Duplicate Content Penalty” confirms this, and so does Google itself, in the Official Google Webmaster Central Blog.
Here’s what’s great about Josh: he delivers a straightforward answer to our worries about this issue, and always has awesome, insightful posts for his readers.
So there you have it folks, if your site has some duplicate content, don’t worry too for fear of being punished with the Google Duplicate Content Penalty.
What is this anyway?
It simply refers to the penalty that Google could possibly give you after identifying several webpages that have basically the same content. Others have even speculated that this can result to banning your blog or website from Google for a period of time or forever!
But Google has cleared the air by saying that “there is no such thing as a duplicate content penalty.” It’s a different thing when you plagiarize, of course. Duplicate content on a site is not necessarily ground for drastic action unless it appears that the intent of that content is deceptive and meant to manipulate search engine results.
What about the republishing of online articles, you may ask. Well, reprinting or republishing someone’s article on your site is not going to cause a Google Duplicate Content Penalty because again, there’s not such thing.
Moreover, as long as you give credit to the source and if the reprints are helpful to your site visitors and your overall mission, then it’s not a problem at all.
We all want to be flooded with traffic, to have plenty of comments to read, to be retweeted, bookmarked, and fanned on Facebook. The competition may be fierce out there, since everyone wants your attention, but any successful blogger will tell you that nothing beats sincere, engaging, original content.
With creative, interesting content, even if there IS such thing as the Google Duplicate Content Penalty, you have nothing to be afraid of.
Did you ever get confused with this duplicate content issue? What are your views on duplicate content on the web? I’d love to hear your thoughts. Please leave a comment, or if you want to read more posts regarding Google, let me know.
Also, don’t forget to share this post if you enjoyed it. Thanks!
To Your Success,
Elmar Sandyck
August 31st, 2010 at 10:05 pm
Thank you for clearing this up! I have recently started article marketing and this is really helpful information!
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admin Reply:
September 1st, 2010 at 9:44 am
Hi Stacy,
Thanks for your comment! Personally I struggled a lot with this issue myself, finding all kinds of opposite information. For this reason I studied the Google duplicate content issue, because I wanted to eliminate all doubt. Glad it is helpful for you!
Thanks for stopping by!
Elmar
P.S.
It’s a great blog you have!
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September 1st, 2010 at 11:38 am
A good design is worth a hundred words. That’s how they say. And it’s a truth, sometimes …
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September 2nd, 2010 at 6:55 pm
Hi Elmar,
This myth used to scare me to the point that I didn’t republish my blog posts as articles. Thanks to Josh and you I no longer have to worry about that.
Awesome post! Thanks!
Ilka
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admin Reply:
September 4th, 2010 at 12:59 am
Hi Ilka,
I had the same thing Ilka, for a long time I was scared of republishing blogposts too! Glad to hear I’m not the only one!
How are your holidays, do you enjoy the free time?
Talk soon,
Elmar
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September 21st, 2010 at 4:51 am
Hi Elmar, I’ve read Josh Garcia’s post about this too and it’s great that you reposted his ideas here.
You’re right, duplicate content IS inevitable and with article submission sites around, the chances of finding duplicate content is always high. I’m a writer, and you can’t help but “borrow ideas and present them originally. Good thing doesn’t Google doesn’t penalize duplicates!
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September 21st, 2010 at 6:11 am
Hey Elmar, I’m going to be honest with you — this is the first time I’ve learned about this penalty! Thanks for sharing about it here. Interesting!
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admin Reply:
September 22nd, 2010 at 3:26 pm
Hi Steve,
It’s good to know that you have learned something new from this post. Thanks for stopping by.
Elmar
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February 15th, 2011 at 2:43 pm
At this time of year and the way the world markets are; I hope that even more businesses start to realise that website marketing is a critical part of promoting a business online. I work as a website content creation consultant and have noticed (at last) that there are more and more companies begining to realise that SEO works. Enjoyed your article. I love my job and Google keeps me on my toes. I enjoyed your article, keep up the good work.
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admin Reply:
February 16th, 2011 at 4:05 pm
Hello Lee,
Yes you are right, a lot of people now see the value of SEO and true enough it really is effective in drawing visitors to your website.
Thanks so much for dropping by and I hope to see you around.
Elmar
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