Questions about duplicate photo content?
-
I know that Google is a mystery, so I am not sure if there are answers to these questions, but I'm going to ask anyway! I recently realized that Google is not happy with duplicate photo content. I'm a photographer and have sold many photos in the past (but retained the rights for) that I am now using on my site. My recent revelations means that I'm now taking down all of these photos. So I've been reverse image searching all of my photos to see if I let anyone else use it first, and in the course of this I found out that there are many of my photos being used by other sites on the web. So my questions are:
With photos that I used first and others have stolen, If I edit these photos (to add copyright info) and then re-upload them, will the sites that are using these images then get credit for using the original image first?
If I have a photo on another one of my own sites and I take it down, can I safely use that photo on my main site, or will Google retain the knowledge that it's been used somewhere else first?
If I sold a photo and it's being used on another site, can I safely use a different photo from the same series that is almost exactly the same? I am unclear what data from the photo Google is matching, and if they can tell the difference between photos that were taken a few seconds apart.
-
I do now see where he did also claim visa versa that using originals wont help either.
why would matt or rand mention it? they don't work for google they will not know everything.
But he also said to the best of his knowledge, at that time, and that in the future that may change and it was 2 years ago. So I would still try to get original images if you can.
-
I don't know where you get the idea that Google is not happy with duplicate photo content but there no such thing as that. If there is, Matt or Rand should have already mentioned it. But there is none, and at the very least I already provided you an evidence to support my claim. Would you rather rely on other presumptions?
FYI, even duplicate content has its own stand on Google. You see, contents and photos are meant to be shared, so as long as you're not doing spammy things on the web, Google has no reason to punish you. Cheer up!
-
But that video is two years old and he says that using duplicate photo content is a good idea for a future quality signal. So I'm not sure that it's still relevant. But I guess we can't prove it one way or the other!
-
But they may reward you for unique images.
-
I think you might want to read this: https://www.plagiarismtoday.com/2013/07/29/google-we-dont-penalize-duplicate-images/.
-
Why do you think Google doesn't penalize for duplicate photo content? It seems like it would be a great way to find scrapers and those with low-value content.
-
Hi Lina,
I understand your trouble Lina but worry not because Google doesn't penalize duplicate photo content. On the other hand, you can optimize so it can be found easily by adding short but concise meta tag title and meta description.
You don't need to edit the Photos, but you're free to add copyright info. However, I don't think it is necessary for the photos you sold.
It is also not necessary to take down existing photos from one of your sites. But if it were me, I would add a referral link (stating that they can access more photos: or original version of:) to your main site. Not only your audience will take notice of your main site but it will also improve your main site's ranking in search results.
True, Google can tell the difference between photos that were taken a few seconds apart, but there is no reason it should be a big issue. Photos were meant to be shared from the start.
Uhmm I'm getting the image of you wanting to gather audience for your main site immediately. Regarding this, you might try Google Adwords for getting audience faster.
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
-
Site architecture, inner link strategy and duplicate or thin content HELP :)
Ok, can I just say I love that Moz exists! I am still very new to this whole website stuff. I've had a site for about 2 years that I have re-designed several times. It has been published this entire time as I made changes but I am now ready to create amazing content for my niche. Trouble is my target audience is in a very focused niche and my site is really only about 1 topic - life insurance for military families. I'm a military spouse who happens to be an experience life insurance agent offering plans to active duty service members, their spouses as well as veterans and retirees. So really I have 3 niches within a niche. I'm REALLY struggling on how to set up my site architecture. My site is basically fresh so it's a good time to get it hammered down as best as possible with my limited knowledge. Might I also add this is a very competitive space. My competitors are big, established brands who offer life insurance along with unaffiliated, informational sites like military.com or the va benefits site. The people in my niche rarely actually search for life insurance because they think they are all set by the military. When they do search it's very short which is common as this niche lives in a world of acronyms. I'm going to have to get real creative to see if there are any long tail keywords I can use as supporting posts but I think my best route is to attempt to rank for the short one to three keyword phrases this niche looks for while searching. Given my expertise on the subject I am able to write long 1000-5000 content on the matter that will also point out some considerations my competitors dont really cover. My challenge is I cant see how this can be broken into sub topics without having thin supporting content. It's my understanding that I should create these in order to inner link and have a shot at ranking. In thinking about my topic I feel like the supporting posts can only be so long. Furthermore, my three niches within my small overall niche search for short but different keywords. Seems I am struggling to put it all into words. Let me stop here with a question - is it bad to have one category in a website? If not I feel like this would solve my dilemma in making a good site map and content plan. it is possible to split my main topic into 3 categories. I heard somewhere you shouldn't inner link posts from different categories. Problem is if I dont it's not ideal for the user experience as the topics really arent that different. Example a military member might be researching his/her own life insurance and be curious about his spouses coverage. In order to satisfy this user's experience and increase the time on my site I should link to where they can find more dept on their spouses coverage which would be in a different category. Is this still acceptable since it's really not a different subject?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | insuretheheroes.com0 -
Duplicate content hidden behind tabs
Just looking at an ecommerce website and they've hidden their product page's duplicate content behind tabs on the product pages - not on purpose, I might add. Is this a legitimate way to hide duplicate content, now that Google has lowered the importance and crawlability of content hidden behind tabs? Is this a legitimate tactic to tackle duplicate content? Your thoughts would be welcome. Thanks, Luke
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | McTaggart0 -
SEO effect of content duplication across hub of sites
Hello, I have a question about a website I have been asked to work on. It is for a real estate company which is part of a larger company. Along with several other (rival) companies it has a website of property listings which receives a feed of properties from a central hub site - so lots of potential for page, title and meta content duplication (if if isn't already occuring) across the whole network of sites. In early investigation I don't see any of these sites ranking very well at all in Google for expected search phrases. Before I start working on things that might improve their rankings, I wanted to ask some questions from you guys: 1. How would such duplication (if it is occuring) effect the SEO rankings of such sites individually, or the whole network/hub collectively? 2. Is it possible to tell if such a site has been "burnt" for SEO purposes, especially if or from any duplication? 3. If such a site or the network has been totally burnt, are there any approaches or remedies that can be made to improve the site's SEO rankings significantly, or is the only/best option to start again from scratch with a brand new site, ensuring the use of new meta descriptions and unique content? Thanks in advance, Graham
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | gmwhite9991 -
Duplicate content for hotel websites - the usual nightmare? is there any solution other than producing unique content?
Hiya Mozzers I often work for hotels. A common scenario is the hotel / resort has worked with their Property Management System to distribute their booking availability around the web... to third party booking sites - with the inventory goes duplicate page descriptions sent to these "partner" websites. I was just checking duplication on a room description - 20 loads of duplicate descriptions for that page alone - there are 200 rooms - so I'm probably looking at 4,000 loads of duplicate content that need rewriting to prevent duplicate content penalties, which will cost a huge amount of money. Is there any other solution? Perhaps ask booking sites to block relevant pages from search engines?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | McTaggart0 -
Duplicate Page Content - Shopify
Moz reports that there are 1,600+ pages on my site (Sportiqe.com) that qualify as Duplicate Page Content. The website sells licensed apparel, causing shirts to go into multiple categories (ie - LA Lakers shirts would be categorized in three areas: Men's Shirts, LA Lakers Shirts and NBA Shirts)It looks like "tags" are the primary cause behind the duplicate content issues: // Collection Tags_Example: : http://www.sportiqe.com/collections/la-clippers-shirts (Preferred URL): http://www.sportiqe.com/collections/la-clippers-shirts/la-clippers (URL w/ tag): http://sportiqe.com/collections/la-clippers-shirts/la-clippers (URL w/ tag, w/o the www.): http://sportiqe.com/collections/all-products/clippers (Different collection, w/ tag and same content)// Blog Tags_Example: : http://www.sportiqe.com/blogs/sportiqe/7902801-dispatch-is-back: http://www.sportiqe.com/blogs/sportiqe/tagged/elias-fundWould it make sense to do 301 redirects for the collection tags and use the Parameter Tool in Webmaster Tools to exclude blog post tags from their crawl? Or, is there a possible solution with the rel=cannonical tag?Appreciate any insight from fellow Shopify users and the Moz community.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | farmiloe0 -
Moving some content to a new domain - best practices to avoid duplicate content?
Hi We are setting up a new domain to focus on a specific product and want to use some of the content from the original domain on the new site and remove it from the original. The content is appropriate for the new domain and will be irrelevant for the original domain and we want to avoid creating completely new content. There will be a link between the two domains. What is the best practice for this to avoid duplicate content and a potential Panda penalty?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Citybase0 -
Duplicate Content
Hi everyone, I have a TLD in the UK with a .co.uk and also the same site in Ireland (.ie). The only differences are the prices and different banners maybe. The .ie site pulls all of the content from the .co.uk domain. Is this classed as content duplication? I've had problems in the past in which Google struggles to index the website. At the moment the site appears completely fine in the UK SERPs but for Ireland I just have the Title and domain appearing in the SERPs, with no extended title or description because of the confusion I caused Google last time. Does anybody know a fix for this? Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | royb0 -
Help With Preferred Domain Settings, 301 and Duplicate Content
I've seen some good threads developed on this topic in the Q&A archives, but feel this topic deserves a fresh perspective as many of the discussion were almost 4 years old. My webmaster tools preferred domain setting is currently non www. I didn't set the preferred domain this way, it was like this when I first started using WM tools. However, I have built the majority of my links with the www, which I've always viewed as part of the web address. When I put my site into an SEO Moz campaign it recognized the www version as a subdomain which I thought was strange, but now I realize it's due to the www vs. non www preferred domain distinction. A look at site:mysite.com shows that Google is indexing both the www and non www version of the site. My site appears healthy in terms of traffic, but my sense is that a few technical SEO items are holding me back from a breakthrough. QUESTION to the SEOmoz community: What the hell should I do? Change the preferred domain settings? 301 redirect from non www domain to the www domain? Google suggests this: "Once you've set your preferred domain, you may want to use a 301 redirect to redirect traffic from your non-preferred domain, so that other search engines and visitors know which version you prefer." Any insight would be greatly appreciated.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JSOC1