Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Copy/pasting the article from another website and referencing correctly not to get penalized
-
Hi all
I am looking at copy/pasting an article from another website which is very relevant to my business, is there a standard practise/best practise for SEO to do this and ensure Google doesn't think i am plagerizing content etc.. Link to source down the bottom? Using Quotations... making a page noindex or no follow etc?
-
rel=canonical is a good alternative to noindex. Both will prevent the article on your site from going into the index of Google or other search engines who honor rel=canonical. From what I have seen, noindex works quicker.
The advantage of rel=canonical is that much of the link value of the article with the rel=canonical will be transferred to the specified source article. I have used it on content that I own and have published on two domains. The copy that receives the benefit of rel=canonical ranks better than expected.
-
If the article is public domain then there is no legal problem with republishing it verbatim with attribution.
If you have written a unique summary of substantive length of a public domain article then there is no need to noindex, worry about duplicate content, or a potential Panda problem. That is best practice for reuse of public domain.
-
What is your opinion of doing everything you said but, skipping the no-index and pointing the canonical at the original publishers site?
-
Thanks for that, I've done my own summary of the article and how it relates to my business.
Just to be more specific so I know for future reference, the article is from an Australian Government body and a non profit organization who's goal is for this to be seen by as many people as possible, is this possibly the exception to the rule of contacting for permission?
Link to article:
http://www.nutritionaustralia.org/national/news/2015/05/new-look-healthy-eating-pyramid-help-tackle-nutrition-confusion -
is there a standard practise/best practise for SEO to do this and ensure Google doesn't think i am plagerizing content etc
The best practice is to contact the author of the content and obtain permission. That is the legal way to do it. Otherwise you are committing copyright infringement which can land you in court. If the owner files a DMCA with google (millions of pages get a DMCA each month) your page will be removed from the SERPs. If you get a few DMCAs filed against you, it is possible that your whole site will be removed from the SERPs.
If you start republishing a lot of articles, even with permission, without setting them to noindex, then google will see your site as a duplicate content site and will either filter your site from the SERPs or hit you with a Panda problem.
Even better practice is to write unique content for your website. Then nobody is going to take you to court, nobody will file DMCA, google will not filter you, and google will not Panda you. If you can do that repeatedly with excellent content that visitors love then you will be in a position to make buckets of money.
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
-
Endless Scrolling and prev/next
Hi, We have a new website on https://www.neakriti.gr We have asked for endless scrolling between our articles, so when we get at the end of one article, the next loads. Looking at the produced html code I saw the articles contain and to other articles. When I asked the development team why this happens, I got a reply that its needed for the endless scroll of the articles. But to my understanding "prev" and "next" is only used on pagination cases, and endless scroll between articles has nothing to do pagination. Here is an example article
Branding | | ioannis.anifantakis
https://www.neakriti.gr/article/ellada-nea/1524252/fthinoporinos-o-kairos-tin-tetarti-stin-kriti-deite-analutika-tin-prognosi/ If you "view html code" on that article you will see this "next", "prev" declarations to other articles. Can anyone please let me know if the declaration of "prev" and "next" articles should stay or if I should ask the development team to remove it? Thanks0 -
Organic Brand Clicks/Traffic Drop - Why?
Hi Moz Community, I've been reviewing Search Console and have been noticing that there has been a consistent drop in brand clicks. The overall number of keywords (especially for the top 2 pages) have been increasing, according to SEMRUSH, however, traffic and sales are still in decline. There are no algorithmic and manual penalties, in addition, paid search activity has been increasing in the leadup to Christmas. Has anyone experienced this and potentially advise how to diagnose and resolve this issue?
Branding | | rec1230 -
How to measure adwords campaing success on an non ecommerce/leads website
Hello,
Branding | | teconsite
We have a website of a furniture company that runs an Adwords campaign. This company has a lot of distributors. They have several objetives: people explore the online catalog people visit the distributor page (where they can find the nearest distributor in his/her area) people share the pictures and info in social media. (For example: pictures in pinterest) people watch videos new distributors contact them to be a new distributor and so on. As this is not an eccommerce website they can not buy We have created objectives in analytics to meassure those engament results.
My question is how to measure this in Google Adwords...
If I import GA objetives into adwords, I get conversions rates of 350% and even more, and the number of conversions is to high. For example. If one objetive is to visit Distributors page (the one where users can see a map and search for the nearest distributor), I find with a lot of conversions of this type. I was thinking in importing some objectives and giving them a value in $ and instead of evaluating conversion rates, evaluate ROAS. But I really would like to know, what you are doing with this kind of companies. How do you measure the campaign success when most of the objetives are measuring engagement. Please, could you give me any advice? Thank you!0 -
In the Google search results, the company name (with the drop down arrow) next to the result URL is incorrect. The company being displayed here is a company we acquired many years back. How do I adjust/fix this?
When I search any term for my organization, we are getting good results BUT the company name, next to the results URL is of an orgnization we acquired many years back and not the name of our company. The URL is correct page JUST the company name next to this URL is incorrect on the Google search results page. How do I go about changing so the company name next to the URL ?
Branding | | DigitalNTT0 -
Best Directories to Get Listed On?
Hello, I'm looking for a list of the best, most trusted, SEO friendly directories to list my company on. Can you guys please provide some directories that you have seen help increase your rankings and also drive targeted traffic? No Black Hat directories, only high quality ones. Thanks!
Branding | | Prime850 -
1 Website, 2 Business Names, 2 Locations
I took on a dentist office as an SEO client. They have 1 website, 2 business names and 2 locations. Each location has it's own business name. They are both within the same city as well. I'm not exactly sure where to start with them since they have 2 different business names. If it were 1 name with multiple locations I would just create a Contact Us page for each one, but is that the best thing to do when the location names are different? Should I create a different website for each location or is that smart because then they are competing against each other? Any help from the community on the direction I should take would be appreciated. Thanks in advance!
Branding | | SilhouetteBS0 -
How to get Google to link external review sites in Google Places
Hi, I have several company profiles in Google Places and Google Sites, I also have the same profiles for those companies in review sites like Yelp! and so on. I have seen that other sites have links on the bottom where Google points to those external review sites, but that doesn't happen for me yet, is there a way to tell Google that I have profiles on other review sites so they can link them or is it Google whenever they find them that will link them? Here's an example: http://maps.google.com/maps/place?cid=14126341780178539960&hl=en At the bottom you'll see that it says: Reviews from around the web Now this is one of mine: http://maps.google.com/maps/place?cid=12168877126282825032&hl=en Now how do I get that line at the bottom provided that I know there are reviews out there in other sites? Is there something I can do? Or is it all about Google doing it whenever they see fit? Thank you!
Branding | | tass0 -
Google Displays Domain / URL Above Description?
I am seeing a new SERP format from Google. (new for me at least) In the past the title tag would display as the first line of a listing, followed by description and domain / URL. Today I see the domain / URL as the second line. This is placing an emphasis on "Who". If you have a big brand or a great URL this might be helpful to your CTR. Are you seeing this? What do you think of it?
Branding | | EGOL0