Risks with sharing my original content with other sites
-
We write our own unique content to our blog a few times a week. The content is written by professionals (doctors and such) and carries a bit of authority.
We periodically get requests from other websites who want to post our content on their blog. We also find that some people will just go ahead and use our exact content (often with a link attribution), without asking permission.
Is there any risk of us not getting credit for being the original source of the content if others use it in its entirety?Are there other risks?
And more importantly, what should we do to make sure we're getting the SEO credit we deserve?
Some ideas which have been discussed that may or may not have credence:
- Only let others use the exact content well after we've been crawled, so we'll be seen as the first publisher
- Only let people cite the introductory paragraph, with a link allowing them to read more at our site (with good anchor text)
- Require people to summarize our story, with a link for the full story
Any thoughts would be appreciated.
Thanks!
-
Additional to the above points, I would suggest adding Canonical tag to the articles. For major articles you can also use Google Webmaster tools to request Google to fetch and index a page, you have a limited number of these requests, so used them wisely.
-
Sounds like Sage advice!
-
This is what we do, to try to make sure we get credit for our own stories, and it seems to be working:
Connect your G+ profile to your articles.
Add your own profile page to your site.
Link the G+ profile to your own profile page.
google will know that you are real and you are claiming ownership of the content.
It is too soon to tell if this is the answer, but it is what google says and it is what we are doing.
Here is a short video I made for our writers, to explain how to do it.
-
What are your objectives?
If you have "a message to get out" then you should be sharing your content eveywhere with everybody.
If you are trying to make money and develop a reputation for your site then ask yourself these questions....
- what will happen to my income if ten other sites have each of my articles in the Google index?
- who will get the social sharing for all of my hard work?
- why are these people asking to use my content instead of linking to it or tweeting about it?
The only option that you list that I would do is... "Only let people cite the introductory paragraph sentence, with a link allowing them to read more at our site (with good anchor text)"
Only let others use the exact content well after we've been crawled, so we'll be seen as the first publisher.
You publish first and then an authoritative site publishes.... they will outrank you. They will receive your traffic. They will receive your links, likes, tweets, etc. Thanks!
-
All the 3 options are okay. You have to keep in mind, that with the nature of the Internet, you are not really going to be able to control which one of the 3 technique people/other website owners you, so essentially you can't know what people decide to do.
Another oppurtunity would be to implement something like www.repost.us (I saw that discussed here a couple days ago) and when I took a look at it, it looked interesting. Check it out.
I hope that helps. And yes, the most important aspect would be to make sure the content you are adding should be seen by Google on your website/blog 1st. If you are using WordPress or something like that, I would suggest using a plugin to publish and ping to Google an updated XML sitemap as soon as a new article is added. That should so it for you.
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
-
Nofollow links can hurt site rankings ?
can irrelevant nofollow links hurt site rankings? our website is about selling perfumes ... https://janraber.com/
Link Building | | hiseo770 -
How to safeguard against negative SEO for new sites?
Hi Mozers!! I have a question. The ugly tools for blog commenting etc are still out there, my question is what if your competitor notices you that you are new to the business and they start building 20,000+ backlinks to your new site, and they too with one exact match anchor text that you are targeting. I know we can disavow tool, but I guess that would be too late? What are your thoughts? What will be the solution the above case scenario?
Link Building | | TheSEOGuy10 -
Backlinks from archived content? SEO penalty?
I'm curious, if I go to webmasters and suggest a change to an article in their archives (convincing them that the new link offers more value to their readers), how would Google look at that? It seems to me that if a two-year-old article all of a sudden gets a new link, it might look fishy, and might even bring penalties with it. Thoughts?
Link Building | | JABacchetta0 -
Is it safe to submit the same article to multiple sites?
Hello, I am just getting into SEO and I need some guidance with article submissions. I have read in many different places that submitting articles to other sites (EzineArticles, Digg, Etc.) is a great way to build links back to your site. My question is, can I submit articles already posted on our site to these sites or is it best to write new articles?
Link Building | | ScottReinmuth9 -
How do you optimize your site for surrounding areas?
For example, If I am optimizing a site for a dentist in West Palm Beach, Florida (the primary city) how do I ensure I am also optimizing my site for the smaller cities/towns that are part of West Palm Beach like Royal Palm Beach, Wellington etc.? If I am using "West Palm Beach" in my site and page titles etc., how do I also rank for the smaller cities? What are the basic tactics in terms of on-site and linking? For instance, lets say I offer Botox in West Palm Beach...how do I also optimize for Wellington, Royal Palm Beach and other local cities? Do I really have to create unique Botox content for each city? Thanks!
Link Building | | RickyShockley0 -
Client Content Strategy (or lack of)
Hey everyone, I just finished pitching a client for some SEO work. He said he does not want to write any type of content. He also said his industry is so unique that he does not want anyone else writing content for him either. His site has about 25 pages of total content now. I am going to get all of his onpage seo good to go but what would you do? Just build links? I really prefer to have some sort of content strategy in place but find it can be challenging with clients.
Link Building | | BigStereo0 -
Linking to root domain or specific sub-site
Hello, When optimizing for multiple keywords, should I try to get links back to the root domain of the company I work with, or would it be better to link back to sub-sites specific to the keyword I am optimizing for? Does 'getting the root up' help all keywords I work with? Cheers, Mike
Link Building | | Malarowski0 -
Any good content sites with good quality links?
I have some content which is still relevant and interesting but not really suitable for my current websites. I have been thinking of using this on an article site to generate some links back to my sites, but I am wary about this due to Google's targeting of content sites. I currently have good PR's on Squidoo and Hubpages which link back and work quite well. Can anyone suggest any others or any ideas how to use this content for SEO purposes? Is using it for article submissions to get links short sited?
Link Building | | JohnW-UK0