Will linking to very similar (or duplicate content) hurt SEO
-
One of my clients started working with a traditional PR company to get media placements and they've placed articles on some very excellent and relevant sites. However, the article's content is nearly identical on each site. We would like to link my client's site to these articles, but will the duplicate content hurt SEO? Because there are some very minor variations within these articles, will that be enough of a difference where we don't need to be concerned if we did link our site to each article?
-
Yea, sorry I misspoke there. What I meant is that I was thinking of reaching out to these various sources and asking them to link to our site where it was mentioned in the article. I was just concerned whether links from many very similar (or duplicate) articles would do more harm than good. I think I go my answer, which is that it probably won't build much positive benefit, and there is a risk of negative effects, so I will avoid this tactic.
-
This could get you in trouble, even if the articles are not identical, but fairly identical. It's like those crappy spun articles people were (or still are) using for building contextual links. Most of the won't get indexed and if you have too many of them. The main problem is if those similar articles are also posted on your website. If yes, it could hurt you, if not, there's no risk but just as max pointed out, the backlinks will have no value.
-
Yes, linking from duplicate content means potentially loosing SEO value.
google could detect those articles as duplicate and do not include some in the index, result the backlink will bring no value to you.
if google do not detect those articles as duplicate you should still ask yourself if it's really what you want to be linked from extremely similar articles. Because that's a signal, the content of the article where the link is placed, google will use to choose the keywords you will be ranked for. Same article content same keywords you are feeding google.
-
you say "We would like to link my client's site to these articles"
How do you mean? Please explain a little more
-
I guess if it really is duplicated content its not recommended. If its very similar content but not duplicated it shouldn't hurt your SEO
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
-
Spam links - what would you do?
Hello, A few months back our website was hacked which we noticed quickly and got fixed. However, there still is a lot of dodgy backlinks, linking to the spam pages. They come up in Webmaster Tools, Moz and SEM rush. According to the Moz Spam tool, a few of them have been given 7 flags which Moz suggests gives a 30% chance of being penalised by Google. The website has great rankings (position 1-3 in most targeted keywords) so I am scared of doing something that will harm the rankings, however I also aware that Google may do an update which could take these spam links into account. I have no experience of using the disavow tool but from reading up about it, it should only be used as a last resort. So my question is - what would you do?
Link Building | | N2Digital0 -
Links from my Own Blog to my Own Website and Link Scheme
Hi There, I use my own blog to give advices and offer information related to my business service. Of course in terms of SEO my blog is useful not only to expand my brand presence but also to acquire long-tail traffic. I use to insert a maximum of one link with a relative matching anchor text in every article of my blog pointing to my own webpage. Said that, the questions are as follows: Am I involuntarily participating in a Link Scheme with my blog? And If so, how many links can I send to my own webpage ? Shall I limit the number of links to a minimum? Thanks a lot for your advices.
Link Building | | Midleton0 -
Why Links from Top Level Domains doesn't Pass Link Equity?
Hello, I have a doubt about Equity-Passing links report of OpensiteExplorer.org According to Sam Weber http://moz.com/community/users/432678 links which pass value from one page to another including followed 301 and Meta refresh links are under Equity-Passing links. I am surprising after looking at the links report generated by opensiteexplorer.org. Most of the article and directory links which have low DA and PA are under Equity-Passing links. Whereas websites like EzineArticle or Articlebase which have good DA and PA are not found in either Equity-passing links or under only nofollow category. Please suggest me if the report of Opensiteexplorer is not good enough or the links from the site like Ezine Article doesn’t pass the link equity. Thanks.
Link Building | | TopLeagueTechnologies0 -
Forum signature links and SEO
Regarding this article on forum signature links, is this good advice? http://searchtempo.com/forum-signature-links-and-seo/ Doesn't Google suggest a nofollow on these types of forum links? On a related matter, is it a good practice to add a Google Plus link in forum signatures? Best,
Link Building | | ChristopherGlaeser
Christopher0 -
What is a good ratio of total links to linking root domains?
Is 100 total links for every linking domain too high? I suppose I could also look at ratios of sites that are doing well in the rankings.
Link Building | | ProjectLabs0 -
Which way of Link Building is best for seo and long term results
Hi - Have started off with a Automotive site - www.mycarhelpline.com based in India 15 months back Have achieved close to daily visitors of 2500+ in numbers Have made do follow links through - Article submission in high pr directories, couple of press releases, high pr forum submission, directory submission with high pr (though yet to get link from yahoo, botw n dmoz) and couple pf backlinks in high other pr sites Need to know - Best way to create backlinks - is article writing the best way to create backlinks - as against paid directories and paid press releases. I Can target 350 articles in high pr article directories for 6 mo - Ezine, Selfgrowth, Articledashboard n others How can i achieve my target of 10,000 daily visitors. What link bulding strategy do i need to adopt - as am finding difficult to explore sites where i can build backlinks except articles There are other Auto sites - heard of getting 40K unique visitors on daily basis Pl suggest . thnx
Link Building | | Modi0 -
SEO companies
So prior to joining SEOmoz I have tried a few seo companies and had somewhat decent results. All of these companies did things like: directory submissions
Link Building | | shiftins
social bookmarking
social profiles
blog comments
article syndication
press release and so forth. These things that they were doing worked and improved the rankings of my websites in the serps. After some time and research I figured out that all this stuff was easy to do and that I could do these things myself. After joining SEOmoz I come to find that these types of links are not considered high quality because they are easy to acquire. Some of you may even say that they are the basis of a spammy link profile. My question is why would you not want to do these things if they work and all of your competition is using these strategies, including big name brand companies?0 -
Link Building: No linked to content in industry
Hello, I'm doing link buidling for a small ecommerce niche. There's no resource content in the niche (looking at OSE Top Content) that has attracted backlinks (on any sites) How should this effect what resource content I should create. Thanks!
Link Building | | BobGW0
