Duplicate Page Content Question

[DanAsadorian]

This article was published on fastcompany.com on March 19th.  http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/164/designing-facebook

It did not receive much traffic, so it was re-posted on Co.Design today (March 27th) where it has received significantly more traffic.

http://www.fastcodesign.com/1669366/facebook-agrees-the-secret-to-its-future-success-is-design

My question is if google will dock us for reprinting/reusing content on another site (even if it is a sister site within the same company). If they do frown on that, is there a proper way to attribute the content to the source material/site (fastcompany.com)?

[AmieMarse]

That's a great way to find blog ideas and kudos to you for doing the hard work of guest posting

Syndication has its place... look at AP news for example.

Spinning is a whole other issue and is absolutely duplicate content and should be shamed.

[blacey]

Usually I write unique content based around the services I offer (or to answer a question posed to me on Twitter) and post that on guest blogs as unique content with a backlink to my site, I don't know why but the thought of taking one of my articles and posting the whole thing onto another site as it is (with no modification) seems wrong.

I know there are a lot of people out there who write a good post and then spin the content for other sites with a backlink but technically that should still be classified as duplicate content in a way, or should it?

[AmieMarse]

Hey Ben

Yup, you can do that to help the search crawlers know where the original piece came from. Keep in mind that this will not necessarily keep the syndicated copy from ranking. For example, most of my B2Community posts rank better on their site than mine because of their DA. That's because the rel="canonical" is a suggestion, not a directive for noindex.

The only way to truly make sure that the stuff you syndicate will not outrank the original is to put in a meta robots "noindex" tag in the head of the content pages.

If your stuff is getting syndicated though.. there isn't much you can do. Personally, I get enough traffic from my syndicated stuff that it is more than worth it to ride their coattails. If you don't find syndication mutually beneficial you can always contact the site directly and request a noindex tag. Keep in mind this will probably mean they will drop syndicating your stuff altogether.

Hope that helps

[blacey]

Amie, is the attribution link just a normal link using rel="canonical" or is there something more to it?

[AlanMosley]

Yes you can, you need to put the tag in the copy pointing to the original

[DanAsadorian]

Can you use canonical tags for things that are not part of your own website? Technically fastcompany.com and fastcodesign.com are different sites.

[AmieMarse]

Great question You can always syndicate content... just be sure to provide an attribution link. For example, my company gets a lot of traffic via Business2Community because they syndicate our blog on a regular basis. I have attached their standard attribution link.

I know that duplicate content is scary but just follow these two rules:

1 - Give credit where it is due

2 - Make sure Google can spot an attribution link

Remember that content creators want you to share their stuff, and obviously you guys want to share your own stuff. Don't assume that Google is going to check to see the relationship, make it obvious. Just a simple "This piece was syndicated with permission from X" will do the trick. Be sure to link to the piece itself Of course, it's doubly nice if you use the direct link and a main link too

Hope that helps!

attributionlink.jpg

[AlanMosley]

Yes they will see it as duplicate content.

Yes you can attribute credit to one version or the other, that is using a canonical tag