I want to use some content that I sent out in a newsletter and post as a blog, but will this count as duplicate content?
-
I want to use some content that I sent out in a newsletter a while ago - adding it as a blog to my website.
The newsletter exists on a http://myemail.constantcontact.com URL and is being indexed by Google.
Will this count as duplicate content?
-
You've asked a great question, Wagada. The fact that the version of the content on Constant Contact's page has already been indexed does mean that you'll have a duplicate content challenge, but there are ways to address it.
The whole problem with duplicate content is not that it generates some kind of penalty, (it doesn't) it's just that search engines then have to decide which of the dupe pages they should point to in the search results.
The version you publish on your own site already has several things going for it, and you need to add additional signals to help the search engines prioritise your site's version. First, at least part of the rest of your site is probably already talking about the same topics, so there will be more relevance there than from the random topics on Constant Contact. Plus, if your newsletter is like most, it will be linking back to your site, giving the SEs another signal.
The biggest thing you can do to get your site's page considered as the canonical (primary) version is to get at least a few links pointing to it. Social media links can be very useful for this, especially from Google Plus, but a solid link or two from other sites will go a long way as well. Also, make sure your page does NOT link to the CC page - that way there's a clear authority signal that only travels one way.
For future reference, if you're going to publish newsletter content on your own site, there are a couple of steps to take in preparation.
- Publish the content on your own site a day or a couple of days in advance
- Use the Fetch and Render tool in GSC to help it get crawled and indexed before sending the newsletter (SEs take "first published" date into account when trying to ascertain which page to return in results.)
- Make sure it's strongly-linked internally - maybe even put a link to the newsletter content page on your homepage before sending the newsletter
- Get a few incoming links to the newly-published page before the newsletter goes out.
- Use the newly published page's address in the newsletter's preheader text link where it says "If not showing up well in your email, you can read this in your browser" so the dupe page actually links back to the page you want to be considered primary.
- Or best yet, do the above and also turn off the newsletter archive on Constant Contact altogether and make the prepublished page on your site the only version. This is the best, but obviously takes a bit more work and preparation to pre-publish. It also offers the massive benefit of delivering those newsletter viewers who do want to read in a browser to your own pages where you can induce further activity/conversions. Though it should be said that in the newsletters I've managed, very few people click the "view in browser" links anymore anyway.
Hope all that makes sense?
Paul
-
While a good solution if it were possible, unfortunately ESPs like Constant Contact don't give you any way to alter the content of the of their pages. And canonical tags must be in the or they'll be ignored.
-
Gaston is right, Great answer Gaston
-
hello,
Yeap, it will be duplicate content.
Add a canonical tag from that myemail site to the blog post and issue resolved.Hope it helps.
Best luck.
GR.
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
-
My Blog Post Not Appearing In Top - Covered every aspect of the topic
Hello Moz Team, hope everyone is doing well, I have question regarding mine blog post recently that I published: https://mobilemall.pk/blog/definition-of-cuboid-surface-area-volume-basic-properties/ My target keywords in this post are Cuboid Definition, Cuboid Surface Area, Cuboid Volume. I have considered and applied every good SEO practice, like H Tags, gave links to authority sites, featured image, other images, etc but my post is still not appearing in top 3, 5 or even 10 I have covered each and every aspect of the topic, Can anyone let me know what's the reason and any suggestion for me. Thanks!
Content Development | | JoeySolicitor1 -
Cornerstone Content?
Yoast keeps pestering me about Cornerstone Content. Is it really a ranking factor? Ryan
Content Development | | drdougweiss0 -
We used to sell links ...
We used to sell text links on our site WebDesign.org , I told about that via Twitter in public, Google penalized us and here’s the history of the issue in more detail. I write it here to ask if you guys know how to sort out this issue coz I’m not exactly sure at this point. Before I tackle the issue itself, here's some background. OUTBOUND LINKS ISSUE Jun 22, 2013 We received an Unnatural outbound links penalty (Manual spam action message in our Google Webmaster Tools account) from Google July 1, 2013 We nofollowed all homepage links and submitted a reconsideration request July 10, 2013 Google replied that we still violate their quality guidelines July 15, 2013 We removed links to low quality and irrelevant sites (such as Chinese stores, etc) and submitted another reconsideration request July 22, 2013 Manual Spam Action revoked INBOUND LINKS ISSUE November 8, 2013 We got a message from Google about Unnatural links to your site - impacts links (Message in our Google Webmaster Tools account) November 27, 2013 We Submitted a Disavow file with Deadly Risky links (found via generating a LinkDetox report) and submitted a reconsideration request December 15, 2013 Manual Action revoked (main keyword ranking got from 41 to 4) February 6, 014 And here's the actual issue: OUTBOUND LINKS ISSUE (Again) I told via Twitter in public that our site sells links. Matt Cutts noticed that and we got another Unnatural outbound links penalty (Manual action). Main keyword ranking decreased from 9 to 65. We removed all outbound links on the homepage and submitted a reconsideration request. April 15, 2014 Google replied that we still violate their quality guidelines. We nofollowd all outbound links with JavaScript (wrong move because Google did not take it as nofollowed) and submitted another reconsideration request. April 19, 2014 Google rejected our reconsideration request and said that we still violate their quality guidelines. April 23, 2014 We nofollowed properly this time (with PHP) and submitted another reconsideration request. May 4, 2014 Google replies that we still violate their quality guidelines. So, at this point I’m kinda lost in terms of what to do next because we've nofollowed all our outbound links (both paid and natural ones). What would you recommend?
Content Development | | VinceWicks0 -
How to Recover Blog Traffic
Hi Friends Recently we changed Blogger to Wordpress with same permalinks but Unfortunately our traffic Down to 90% .please suggest me to recover Traffic & Ranking In Search engine Our Blog : http://www.ibpsexamguru.in/ thanks in advance
Content Development | | jenisys0 -
How to solve copyright content ?
My website fill of copy paste content , how can i solve this problem?
Content Development | | engmtamous0 -
Having Blog and Forum for Store is Beneficial or Not
Hello ! I am building a cosmetic store. I have blog.storename.com , forum.storename.com. i started both to make my store content rich. On my blog we are personally reviewing cosmetic products. and forum user are sharing experience and problems related to beauty..... But i was reading this post http://www.seomoz.org/ugc/uncover-competitors-using-multiple-sites-for-multiple-first-page-rankings . it has this " Alright, Google dislikes pages, subdomains, and domains with substantially duplicated content. Got it. " Any way my content is not going to be dup at all. but Product which we are reviewing on blog. ll also be on our store for sale. and might be people sharing own experiences about same product on forum. do u think i should worry?
Content Development | | vinku0 -
Best strategy for content/articles. Individual pages or blog posts?
Hi all, Whilst adding content to one of my sites quite often I'm left deciding whether I should create an individual webpage for the content, or write it up as another blog post. More often I write it up as a static page so it fits in with the rest of my website more 'directly'. However I'm wondering if I'm missing out here as obviously I'm not taking advantage of the benefits of a blog, RSS, Tag Cloud, etc etc... Just wondering if others encounter the same quandary?
Content Development | | davebrown19750 -
Tagging Your Blog Posts - Useful?
Has anyone demonstrated measurable value from routinely tagging your posts? I am of the mindset that what is good for a user/reader is good for SEO and therefore the posts should be tagged. I wanted to see if anyone else had specific experience to the positive or negative.
Content Development | | SWKurt0