Modifying Content to Avoid Duplicate Content Issues
-
We are planning to leverage specific posts from a US-based blog for our own Canadian blog (with permission, of course) but are aware that this can cause duplicate content issues.
We're willing to re-write as much or as little as we must from the initial blog posts to avoid duplicate content issues but I have no idea just how much we will need to re-write. Is there some guideline for this (e.g., 25% of content must be re-written)? I've been unable to find anything.
Thank you in advance!
-
You definitely have the right approach. It's amazing how many people think they ought to rank for content even when it is duplicated on other sites. By adding some value to the content and making it more or less unique will only pay dividends.
-
Sounds like you and your team have just the right attitude towards this. I'm sure it'll be a great success!
Have a good weekend!
-
Thanks Tom for the very helpful reply.
The tools are great! I'm currently writing guidelines for the copywriters and in that document, I need to provide a guide on how much copy will need to be updated. The tools would work well as a 'check' to make sure the copyrwriters have updated enough of the content but I'm unsure what direction I should be giving upfront.
The video with Rand is really useful though (especially #4)! This will be helpful with internal discussions around how there is no 'magic' percentage number.
Thank you,
Emma
-
Thanks. We've positioned this as an SEO opportunity for a client, with the caveat that we would need to solve for the canonical issues. So yes, we do want to help our own rankings.
Currently will be targeting different keywords (essentially products) and different links as well. We can definitely change the blog titles, header titles, updating the main copy to be more 'Canadian' and focus on a slightly different angle. Current content would be considered 'lifestyle' content so the main idea should remain but everything else is fair game for us to change, if need be.
-
I'm presuming that because you are willing to largely re-write this content that you actually want to rank for it yourselves. As such a sizeable re-write would be required especially the blog titles, and you may even want to to target different keywords and long tail keywords. All the while bear in mind that quality and uniqueness is essential.
Alternatively, you could just use the content from the US-based blog directly on your Canadian blog but specify the US blog URL as the canonical version. This would avoid any duplication issue and yet give you some useful content on your site, even if you would never rank for it in SERPs.
-
Well, there are a number of tools that will give you a rough idea of how 'unique' the copy is, such as PlagSpotter, Plagium and of course Copyscape.
Some people may argue that if it passes Copyscape it will be unique enough, but I don't think this is necessarily true.
If you watch this really useful Whiteboard Friday from Rand in January, you'll see the need for each bit of your content to have unique value, in order to help it rank and pull in organic traffic. To my mind, I feel that the content needs to a new take on things where it can be and to appeal to your specific demographic, which of course differs between Canadians and Americans.
If I were you, I'd try and rewrite as much as possible. I'm sure things just can't be changed, but try and create the content in a different style and approach to before in order add a unique value. At the very least, you will be able to A/B test the difference in response between your US and Canadian blogs and you might find that you've come up with copy and content that produces a better response, or one that's more akin to what you're looking for.
Hope this helps.
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
-
How important is exact keyword match in content for SEO in 2018?
Is it necessary to have the exact keyword which you are trying to rank for within the first sentence of the content on your web page? For example if we are selling men's shoes, is it ok to have have the meta title and h1 on page say men's shoes and just talk about shoes within the first sentence of the content on the page. Is it obvious to search engines that this page is selling men's shoes even if you don't have the word men's shoes in that first sentence or is it necessary to have the exact keywords which you are trying to rank for written there?
Content Development | | whiteonlySEO0 -
Duplicate Content In Webmaster Tools
In wordpress on some of our blogs when we have gone to publish them wordpress has shortened the url. In Google webmaster tools the orignal url is coming up as a 404 error. This url is not indexed in Google. Is this something to worry about and can this be avoided? Thank you in advance.
Content Development | | Palmbourne0 -
Duplicate Content
Hi All, I am doing work for a rug company that acts as a third party. They have close to 4,000+ products. Each rug belongs to a collection. The collection has one main description that is the same throughout every rug in the collection. Ex. One Collection has 15 rugs, all with the same description. Should I take the time and change every single description? I think the answer is yes but I wanted another opinion. Thanks
Content Development | | Mike.NW0 -
Recommendations Content / Copywriter
We are based in the UK & have used alot of content / copywriters & so far have struggled to find someone we feel meets our needs? Can anyone recommend a content writing company or freelancer? Thanks
Content Development | | webguru20140 -
Is it possible to aggregate news content?
Currently all of our content is produced internally, but I would like to expirement with aggregating 50% of our content from external publishers. The content wouldn't be full articles, but instead the excepts with a link back to the source. Is there a way to aggregate content without being penalized? We are using wordpress.
Content Development | | ejovi0 -
Content: Best Blogs Article
Hello, For an Ecommerce site, I think a good way to get known is to write a "Best X Blogs" article, where X is a topic in your industry, and then letting the people you link to know about the article. I got the idea from a Mozinar. My question is, how close does the X from above have to be in your niche? For example, if your product is running shoes can you write a "best athlete blogs" article? I'm worried about them reading the article, then leaving. In some smaller niches the topics closest to the product don't have much in the way of blogs out there. So how close to your niche does the Best X Blogs topic have to be?
Content Development | | BobGW0 -
How much content is needed
I have two clients whose websites have landing pages that feature a number of product links. In order to meet SEO/Google best practices, do I need to have additional content on these specific pages or will the links suffice? (Getpaper is an ecommerce; inpak is not) Any thoughts would be appreciated. http://www.getpaper.com/find-paper/inkjet-plotter-paper/color-bond-21-lb http://www.inpaksystems.com/bag-closing/bag-sewing
Content Development | | TopFloor0 -
How to deal with an media press content?
We have a company that create content and send as media press. We would like to use this content in our blog. We made it using RSS and having in our blog the same content. So right now we have some concern about duplicate content. How do you guys deal with deal? Would we be penalized by duplicated content?
Content Development | | kauelinden0