Interesting Dilemma: Making A (Good) Content Scrapper Rank

[DragonSearch]

Greetings Moz'ers!

I'm in the process of optimizing a non-profit's website that has an interesting dilemma: They lack the resources to create their own content so they search the web for videos, quotes, blogs, pictures, etc. to post on their website. As the "good guys" their cause is just but because they are essentially scrapping content from other sites they are considered "bad guys" in Google's eyes and are getting hit with duplicate content penalties.

What they are doing isn't much different than what the major news sites do - they just want to be a good resource center. The content that they are using is relevant to the cause and they give credit on everything they post by linking to where the content came from.

Any recommendations on how I can help them?

Thanks,

Jason

[DragonSearch]

Thanks Anthony!

You bring up some good points and getting volunteers involved is a great idea.

Cheers,

-Jason

[anthonydnelson]

It sounds like the non-profit is already stretched thin and creating 'amazing content' is not ever going to happen. In that case, I would just encourage them to add a bit of their own unique content to each post.

If they embed a video, write a paragraph explaining why they like or dislike it.

Take a few different quotes from a few different sites to make it your own unique set of quotes about a particular theme.

A site that offers little for unique content may not ever rank well for those posts, but it can still be useful and enjoyable for the visitors, which may be the ultimate goal. The site may only have potential to rank really well with its home page.

One final suggestion: People like to volunteer for non-profits. Perhaps they can look for volunteer bloggers who could put a bit more time into content creation.