Difference between Syndication, Autoblogging, and Article Marketing
-
Rands slide deck titled 10 Steps to Effective SEO & Rankings from InfusionCon2011 on slide 82 recommends content syndication as a method for building traffic and links. How is this any different than article marketing? He gave an example of this using a screenshot of this search result for "headsmacking tip discussion."
All of those sites that have republished SEOmoz's content are essentially autoblogs that post ONLY content generated by other people for the purpose of generating ad clicks from their organic traffic. We know that Google has clearly taken a position against these types of sites that offer no value. We hear Matt Cutts say to stay away from article marketing because you're just creating lots of duplicate content.
Seems to me that "syndication" is just another form of article marketing that spreads duplicate content throughout the web. Can someone help me understand the difference?
By the way, the most interesting one I saw in those results was the syndicated article on businessweek.com!.
-
Yes, I know how each one of those methods work. What I was getting at was the fact that the links are all essentially the same in that they are generally on low quality pages and the end result is proliferating duplicate content throughout the web. The Autoblogging tools I'm familiar with utilize RSS feeds or other data feeds (that someone else has "syndicated") to publish content.
I suppose syndicating content would be effective if you're content is great and you are a well known blogger, like Rand!
-
This is a very excellent question, hopefully my answer makes sense for you.
Syndication would be one of two things, either submitting your RSS feed to RSS feed directories or getting your content posted on other websites. Either can help as they will undoubtedly link to the original source, giving you links.
Autoblogging is when a scraper or bot simply copies your content and reposts it automatically after you have published it. This usually links back to you as well.
Article marketing is submitting unique content, not existing content, to an article bank. They publish the resource and you include a link back to you in there.
Given Google's actions lately, I would say the trust metrics passed through these links is quite small. However, pagerank still passes and you can get pretty good anchor text, so it's never a bad thing.
On a side note, sites like articlesbase.com use canonical tags, so even though their content might be duplicated elsewhere, Google knows where the original is. That original passes link juice, the duplicates, not so much.
All of these are ways to get links back to your site, but I don't think any of them is particularly effective. But it's good to have a variety of links, so having backlinks like this, while they may not be very valuable, is good in the overall SEO picture.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Duplicate content warning: Same page but different urls???
Hi guys i have a friend of mine who has a site i noticed once tested with moz that there are 80 duplicate content warnings, for instance Page 1 is http://yourdigitalfile.com/signing-documents.html the warning page is http://www.yourdigitalfile.com/signing-documents.html another example Page 1 http://www.yourdigitalfile.com/ same second page http://yourdigitalfile.com i noticed that the whole website is like the nealry every page has another version in a different url?, any ideas why they dev would do this, also the pages that have received the warnings are not redirected to the newer pages you can go to either one??? thanks very much
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | ydf0 -
Is Syndicated (Duplicate) Content considered Fresh Content?
Hi all, I've been asking quite a bit of questions lately and sincerely appreciate your feedback. My co-workers & I have been discussing content as an avenue outside of SEO. There is a lot of syndicated content programs/plugins out there (in a lot of cases duplicate) - would this be considered fresh content on an individual domain? An example may clearly show what I'm after: domain1.com is a lawyer in Seattle.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | ColeLusby
domain2.com is a lawyer in New York. Both need content on their website relating to being a lawyer for Google to understand what the domain is about. Fresh content is also a factor within Google's algorithm (source: http://moz.com/blog/google-fresh-factor). Therefore, fresh content is needed on their domain. But what if that content is duplicate, does it still hold the same value? Question: Is fresh content (adding new / updating existing content) still considered "fresh" even if it's duplicate (across multiple domains). Purpose: domain1.com may benefit from a resource for his/her local clientale as the same would domain2.com. And both customers would be reading the "duplicate content" for the first time. Therefore, both lawyers will be seen as an authority & improve their website to rank well. We weren't interested in ranking the individual article and are aware of canonical URLs. We aren't implementing this as a strategy - just as a means to really understand content marketing outside of SEO. Conclusion: IF duplicate content is still considered fresh content on an individual domain, then couldn't duplicate content (that obviously won't rank) still help SEO across a domain? This may sound controversial & I desire an open-ended discussion with linked sources / case studies. This conversation may tie into another Q&A I posted: http://moz.com/community/q/does-duplicate-content-actually-penalize-a-domain. TLDR version: Is duplicate content (same article across multiple domains) considered fresh content on an individual domain? Thanks so much, Cole0 -
What could go wrong? SEO on mobile site is different than desktop site.
We have a desktop site that has been getting worked on over the year regarding improving SEO. Since the mobile site is separate, the business decided to not spend the time to keep it updated and just turned it off. So any mobile user that finds a link to us in search engines, goes to a desktop site that is not responsive. Now that we're hearing Google is going to start incorporating mobile user friendliness into rankings, the business wants to turn the mobile site back on while we spend months making the desktop site responsive. The mobile site basically has no SEO. The title tag is uniform across the site, etc. How much will it hurt us to turn on that SEO horrid mobile site? Or how much will it hurt us to not turn it on?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | CFSSEO0 -
Read article and share your views
HI All, Yesterday i was read one article,As per article he is saying link building is very important so please read and share your views. http://searchengineland.com/7-things-wish-cmos-knew-link-building-192705
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | dotlineseo0 -
Are multiple domains spammy if they're similar but different
A client currently has a domain of johnsmith.com (not actual site name, of course). I’m considering splitting this site into multiple domains, which will include brand name plus keyword, such as: Johnsmithlandclearing.com Johnsmithdirtwork.com Johnsmithdemolition.com Johnsmithtimercompany.com Johnsmithhydroseeding.com johnsmithtreeservice.com Each business is unique enough and will cross-link to the other. My questions are: 1) will Google consider cross-linking spammy? 2) what happens to johnsmith.com? Should it redirect to new site with the largest market share, or should it become an umbrella for all? 3) Any pitfalls foreseen? I've done a fair amount of due diligence and feel these separate domains are legit, but am paranoid that Google will not see it that way, or may change direction in the future.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | SteveMauldin0 -
Does having the same descrition for different products a bad thing the titles are all differnent but but they are the same product but with different designs on them does this count as duplicate content?
does having the same description for different products a bad thing the titles are all different but but they are the same product but with different designs on them does this count as duplicate content?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Casefun1 -
Duplicate Articles
We submit articles to a magazine which either get posted as text or in a flash container. Management would like to post it to our site as well. I'm sure this has been asked a million times but is this a bad thing to do? Do I need to a rel=canonical tag to the articles? Most of the articles posted to that other site do not contain a link back to our site.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | SirSud0 -
Links In Blog Posts: 1 Paragraph VS. Full Article
Hey guys, I've been using an article network to post unique articles (not spun). Been posting 1 paragraph articles with 1 text link. Just wondering what the main difference would be if I were to post a full article with 2 or 3 text links vs 1 paragraph with 1 text link, besides the fact that you get more links and save more time writing only 1 paragraph. Will the full article with 3 backlinks improve keyword ranks more or not by much? Cheers!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | upick-1623910