Reposting my articles on other blogs - good or bad?
-
Hi there!
Our blog is full of really good articles on consumer finance topics. Recently we established contact with some local media and even government agencies who said they will be happy to repost our articles on their sites.
Question: is it ok to repost our articles as they are and link back to us, or shall we rewrite them to make them 100% original?
The media doesn't insist on original content, but I'd like to get SEO benefit from it (the sites are really good). If original content gives us more SEO value, we're happy to do it
Please advise.
P.S. Using rel=canonicals is not an option (it's government websites and some old school media - they are very not tech savvy).
-
Hi Tom,
I wonder if I might question you on this point you raised:
"If Google notices that you're syndicating content with dofollow links to your site within them, it will think that the only reason you're doing so is to pass more PageRank to your site."
Is content syndication therefore an absolute no-no these days? I'm aware of many of the best practices for syndicating content such as getting the content partner to specify the originator as canonical version or getting a link back to your original version in order that your article is not usurped in SERPs, but is it really the case that syndicated content with dofollow links to our own site would lead to some sort of penalty?
Our quality content is used by many sites (quite often sites with high authority) and these sites will link back to us. Are you suggesting this could lead to some sort of penalty or even a site-wide penalty?
Thanks in advance.
-
I agree with the others. 'Remarketing' is the way to go. If you have a loose idea, try and think of the multiple routes you could go down, or what different examples you could use to make a point.
I'd suggest reviewing old content. It's probably out of date anyway, so it's a perfect excuse to make it relevant oncemore and use hand it over to a another website you use.
If there is an opportunity to relate your content to what's going on in the news (i.e. up to the minute relevancy), it's good for indexing, sharing and hits.
-
Generally, I'd say as original as you can make it.
But I'd definitely take on Doug's advice as well and see if you can incorporate your content into an article that directly serves each blog. If you can accommodate it to their target audience, that would be fantastic.
Invariably, I often find it easier to write something completely new rather than rewrite something multiple times, so I think if you can take the general meat of your content and serve it specifically for each blog, I think you're going to see more than just SEO strength, but genuine, positive user engagement and probably traffic.
-
Thanks for your suggestions, Tom!
I suspected Google might not like it, but didn't think it was that serious.
To what extent do you think we should rewrite our original articles? Is tweaking couple paragraphs enough, or should it be a complete 100% rewrite?
-
I'd echo Tom's response. Allowing your content to reported does expose you to risk.
Chances are these outlets have much stronger sites. How much traffic is landing on your blog articles? Is there a likelihood that you might start competing against your own content in the SERPS?
I would look at the the publications concerned and try to understand what matters to their readership, what kind of demographic do they have and then rewrite you articles (or create new content) specifically targeted to their audience.
If you've got a nice library of old blog posts then it might be worth creating an ebook of the very best content and using that as a link building or lean-gen asset.
-
Hi there
It will take a bit more time, but rewriting the content to be unique would be so, so worth it.
If Google notices that you're syndicating content with dofollow links to your site within them, it will think that the only reason you're doing so is to pass more PageRank to your site. It won't think that you're offering as much worth to the other blog and subsequent referrals if you're regurgitating what has been said.
Now, the obvious exception to this rule are Press Releases through sites like PRWeb. This is a well-known anomaly in the industry (some say it passes juice, Matt Cutts tries to say it doesn't), but it's so far down the line now that it seems unlikely that Google is going to penalise your site for it. The worse that would happen would be not passing any SEO value.
It is not safe to assume that this would be the case for sending your articles to these other blogs - it may very well penalise you.
By rewriting the content, you negate any risk of this and also ensure that the uniqueness will most likely pass the SEO benefits from the separate blogs.
To me, it's a matter of risk management, and all signs seem to point towards rewriting the content. It's a bit of an annoyance, but a small price to pay considering the benefits. It's also a great compliment to what you've written before, which has obviously proven to be very valuable, so congratulations on that!
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
-
Why do bots spam my wordpress blog comments?
anyone with a wordpress blog knows what i am talking about. but why do they do this? my theory is that it is for backlinks, but aren't all wordpress comment links nofollow? i am just curious as to what these robots think they are gaining by flooding my blog comments section. Thanks, Ryan
Link Building | | RyanMeighan2 -
Effects of a bad link linking to a image
i am getting a lot of links from wallpapers sites.. One person has created 1000's of similar sites that are linking back to my images. My guess is images do not pass link value positive or negative. But I am not sure what the potential effects would be. Does anyone know who linking to images might effect SEO especially when there coming from horribly low quality auto generated sites.
Link Building | | KentH0 -
When optimizing for a keyword, what would be a good ratio for keyword diversity?
We all have primary keywords that we are optimizing for. For instance one of mine is "Video Conferencing Systems." I've read that you should have about 5-10 different keywords you should optimize for, however, would you want to create more links with your primary keyword than your other keywords or spread them out evenly and optimize for the primary keyword on in the actual content of the page?
Link Building | | ChrysalisSEO0 -
Guest Blogging. Is it a good thing?
Hi, We are looking into guest blogging to get links out there to our site. Is there any pitfalls to avoid? Any good advice to share? Is it actually a good thing to do? We have seen some site that offer to help for example http://guestblogged.com are these good or a con? All advice welcomed. Thanks Andrew
Link Building | | Studio330 -
Blogging for backlinks
I have a real estate website. I would like to start blogging on blogs not related to real estate. I like reading web design, html, css, php, word press etc... blogs. I want to start talking to the bloggers using my real name (not keyword anchor text) on their blog. I'd like to have authentic conversations; however, will this confuse google about my site? If I am using my name as anchor text on sites about webdesign and linking back to a real estate website, what will that do to the SEO? It's also important to consider one other detail. I have determined through link building in real estate related fields that it's really hard to find good domains/page rank when compared to the fields above. I could get a dozen great links in 10 minutes on the above subjets AND be legitimately engaging in conversation with my name, not keywords... Does the invention of "author rank" make this more viable?
Link Building | | JML11790 -
Good guest blogging communities?
Besides My Blog Guest, does anyone know of any good guest blogging communities? The aforementioned, based on my few weeks of use, seems like a great community for guest blogging. Curious if any similar sites exist.
Link Building | | Greg_Gifford0 -
Blog commenting
When commenting on blogs and the only link you can have is your author name (Ex. Commented by Mike), what are you gonna have, a name, the name of your company or the keyword that you are trying to rank for? Thanks!
Link Building | | echo10 -
What to do about bad backlinks hurting authority?
My site has many backlinks from 208.109.47.246/* and go.diaodou.com/* which have low authority. The 208.109.47.246 I believe is my godaddy IP and I don't know why I have the diadou links. Is there anything I can do about these links other than building other more reputable links? Could switching hosts or going to a dedicated IP solve the 208.109.47.246 issue? Here is a look at the links- http://www.opensiteexplorer.org/www.mueslifusion.com%252F/a!links Thanks,
Link Building | | iszalinski
Ian0