Is there ever legitimate near duplicate content?

[mavrick]

Hey guys,

I’ve been reading the blogs and really appreciate all the great feedback.  It’s nice to see how supportive this community is to each other.  I’ve got a question about near duplicate content.

I’ve read a bunch of great post regarding what is duplicate content and how to fix it.  However, I’m looking at a scenario that is a little different from what I’ve read about.  I’m not sure if we’d get penalized by Google or not.  We are working with a group of small insurance agencies that have combined some of their back office work, and work together to sell the same products, but for the most part act as what they are, independent agencies.

So we now have 25 different little companies, in 25 different cities spread across the southeast, all selling the same thing.  Each agency has their own URL, each has their own Google local places registration, their own backlinks to their local chambers, own contact us and staff pages, etc.

However, we have created landing pages for each product line, with the hopes of attracting local searches.  While we vary each landing page a little per agency (the auto insurance page in CA talks about driving down the 101, while the auto insurance page in Georgia says welcome to the peach state) probably 75% of the land page content is the same from agency to agency.  There is only so much you can say about specific lines of insurance.  They have slightly different titles, slightly different headers, but the bulk of the page is the same.

So here is the question, will Google hit us with a penalty for having similar content across the 25 sites?  If so, how do you handle this?  We are trying to write create content, and unique content, but at the end of the day auto insurance in one city is pretty much the same as in another city.

Thanks in advance for your help.

[mavrick]

Thank you both for the feedback.  We've been in the insurance industry for about 15 years and know it pretty well.  It sounds like our best bet is to find out how many different ways we can talk about something as fascinating as crop insurance and auto insurance. 

On one hand, it’s nice to work with a client like this because we can focus on an area we know well.  On the other hand, it’s hard to say the same thing in several different voices and from different points of view.  Not impossible, but about the 25^th time it becomes a stretch…….

Let me ask the same question a little bit differently.  Our goal is not to see how little we can do and still get away good results, but I am looking for some guidance on where Google draws the line on similar content.  Does anyone have any real word experience with how similar two 250 word articles can be?  Does every sentence have to be different?  Every paragraph?  I’m not trying to be too nit picky here, just looking for some real world experience.

Anyone ever gotten slapped down on a similar project?

Thanks !

[mavrick]

Thank you both for the feedback.

[EGOL]

We are trying to write create content, and unique content, but at the end of the day auto insurance in one city is pretty much the same as in another city.

If I wanted to assure my success and if I knew as much about auto insurance as was required to be successful selling it then I would put in the time needed to create unique content for my website.

Instead of trying to weigh how little you can do to keep from getting whacked... put your mind on figuring out all of the things that you can do to assure you will kick ass.

[CaseyKluver]

Hi Adam,

75% of duplicate copy in a single piece of content is very high. You can never say for certain with Google, but most likely it will raise red flags.

When faced with similar situations in the past, we have contracted several different writers with different styles to come up with multiple pieces of content on each subject. This way each page will be unique and from different perspective, eliminating the chance for a penalty. You may be forced to pay a bit more hiring different writers for the job, but it will be worth it for the clients goals.