Block Quotes and Citations for duplicate content

[vforvinnie]

I've been reading about the proper use for block quotes and citations lately, and wanted to see if I was interpreting it the right way.  This is what I read:

http://www.pitstopmedia.com/sem/blockquote-cite-q-tags-seo

So basically my question is, if I wanted to reference Amazon or another stores product reviews, could I use the block quote and citation tags around their content so it doesn't look like duplicate content?  I think it would be great for my visitors, but also to the source as I am giving them credit.  It would also be a good source to link to on my products pages, as I am not competing with the manufacturer for sales.  I could also do this for product information right from the manufacturer.

I want to do this for a contact lens site.  I'd like to use Acuvue's reviews from their website, as well as some of their product descriptions.  Of course I have my own user reviews and content for each product on my website, but I think some official copy could do well.

Would this be the best method?  Is this how Rottentomatoes.com does it?  On every movie page they have 2-3 sentences from 50 or so reviews, and not much unique content of their own.

Cheers,

Vinnie

[vforvinnie]

Does anyone else have anything to add?  I'd love to see a few examples of pages that make use of the tags and how they are doing in the search engines.  I certainly understand if you don't want to share your specific pages though.

[vforvinnie]

Thanks for the input.  I agree with you about the strength of the site, as well as the pages.  I might give it a try on a small sample of pages and see if it helps conversions or impacts SEO at all.

Vinnie

[ChrisDyson]

There is no set hard and fast rules so this is simply my opinion.

Google is pretty lenient if the percentage of content you have copied is low compared to the rest of your page.

Duplication issues can also be overcome if you have other good SEO trust signals i.e. good back links, established domain, unique content etc. I assume this is why Rotten Tomatoes get away with duplication issues as they have an established brand.

As long as you are citing the original source and the duplicated content is not a large percentage of your page then you should be ok.