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
-
Why is Google appending a different website's brand name to the end of SERP title?
I've recently been shown some SERP results where Google is appending a different website's brand name to the end of the SERP title. It's actually rewriting the brand's name to that of the other website. (This is obviously not ideal.) Why would this be? The other website doesn't even stock the same product, so there shouldn't be any confusion there. But even if it did, many websites stock the same products. Just confusing...
Branding | | Ria_1 -
Doubleclick how to get static banner ADs
Doubleclick how to get static banner ADs. Its been a week and all my attempts have failed Until last week i have been using adsense and now got a direct AD space sold and tried to add a static image banner in Double click so in specific pages it shows just this clients AD banner and not ADsense banners. But what ever i do i can see just Adsense banners. What settings can i change in Doubleclick that tells to show just my Static AD and not adsense Thank you
Branding | | bsharath0 -
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 -
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 -
The Franchise Challenge: How should I handle 200 franchisee websites?
Hi all.. this is not a question about how this can be done but which is better for SEO. Franchises make up 8% of the USA small business market. This is no small potatoes. But everything about Google seems designed for the unique, stand-alone business (Places, Analytics, Adwords, Duplicate Content Rules, etc.) ... I think about this issue a lot so wanted to put it to the community. Imagine a franchisor with 200 locations. This company licenses its brand and business operations system - that's what a franchise is. So each local franchisee starts out with a "content ready" website template which they are required to use for brand compliance. (Each local franchisee has a Google Place page and a Local Website in their territory.)Assuming each solution has the same number of local citations around 50% duplicate content on its services pages (e.g. branding text)... which of the following does Google like best? A single, customized CMS (e.g. Drupal) which places each franchisee site in a subfolder of the TLD. Highly duplicated services pages are given canonical pointers to the main site's version.
Branding | | scottclark
domain.com/location A single, customized CMS (e.g. Drupal) which places each franchisee in a subdomain of the TLD. Highly duplicated services pages are given canonical pointers to the main site's version. location.domain.com A multi-manager dashboard (e.g. ManageWP) which operates an individual Wordpress installs on a single server (dedicated self-install server, sites share IPs)
_localdomain.com _ A multi-manager dashboard which operates an individual Wordpress install on multiple, diverse servers (e.g. shared hosting on diverse hosts.)
localdomain.com I know that the best case would be for each franchisee individually to be so motivated to set up their own site and properly use brand elements, get links, etc. but this is impractical (trust me.)~~~~~~(*update 4/4/13 - I have written a blog post which describes what I think is the ideal franchise web marketing & SEO program and would welcome additional comments!)0 -
Best Way To Get Twitter Followers
What does the forum think the best way to get Twitter Followers is? I'm talking from the perspective from a fairly unknown brand where there's no obvious reason for someone to follow.
Branding | | PeterAlexLeigh0 -
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