Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Does posting an article on multiple sites hurt seo?
-
A client of mine creates thought leadership articles and pitches multiple sites to host the article on their site to reach different audiences.
The sites that pick it up are places such as AdAge and MarketingProfs and we do get link juice from these sources most of the time.
Does having the same article on these sites as well as your own hurt your SEO efforts in any way? Could it be recognized as duplicate content?
I know the links are great just wondering if there is any other side effects especially when there are no links provided!
Thank you!
-
It depends. If the article goes on your site first it gets indexed and all the credit. If someone takes it for their own usage and does not link back to you it can hurt them. If they syndicate your article and trackback to the original, AKA the first one indexed they will not be punished.
-
There is a larger issue at play here.
Submitting the same article to multiple outlets is a sure way of pissing off editors and destroying relationships. It could be seen as less than exemplary conduct. I speak as a former editor.
If your client is a thought leader, the best bet is to submit one article to one outlet. Which is not to say you can't write another article for another publication that is a variation on the theme.
I work with thought leaders in several fields. Guest blogging is a hugely effective technique. The outlets are thrilled to get a free article from a leading expert that is far more authoritative than what they usually publish.
But you must insist on a link back or there is no SEO benefit. (There may be a marketing and branding benefit.) Often the link back can be done in the author's note. Even better is getting it in the text in a natural way. And you have to be relentless is ensuring the links actually appear. Not infrequently, you have to follow up post-publication.
My strategy is to time the guest blogging activity to coincide with the release of research or an e-book. We target 5-7 leading publications. Each gets an original and unique article that focusses on one aspect of the material. The articles on the third-party sites point back to the full version on our own site.
Just to be clear: we're not talking about cutting and pasting. We're talking about an original article customized to the third-party site and its audience that may have go through several drafts.
It's quite a bit of work, but it pays off. Big time.
These days, I call myself a web strategist. But sometimes I also act as a content strategist. I really think this is the future of our industry, post Panda and Penguin.
-
If the text is exactly the same in each article then yes, Google looks for large chunks of duplicate text. Usually the way to do this would be to rewrite the article for each site.
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
-
Do long UTM codes hurt SEO?
Since most UTM codes/URLs are longer than 70ish characters, is this hurting my SEO? If it is, how can I solve the problem while still using a UTM code? Thanks!
Technical SEO | | Cassie_Ransom0 -
Best Web-site Structure/ SEO Strategy for an online travel agency?
Dear Experts! I need your help with pointing me in the right direction. So far I have found scattered tips around the Internet but it's hard to make a full picture with all these bits and pieces of information without a professional advice. My primary goal is to understand how I should build my online travel agency web-site’s (https://qualistay.com) structure, so that I target my keywords on correct pages and do not create a duplicate content. In my particular case I have very similar properties in similar locations in Tenerife. Many of them are located in the same villa or apartment complex, thus, it is very hard to come up with the unique description for each of them. Not speaking of amenities and pricing blocks, which are standard and almost identical (I don’t know if Google sees it as a duplicate content). From what I have read so far, it’s better to target archive pages rather than every single property. At the moment my archive pages are: all properties (includes all property types and locations), a page for each location (includes all property types). Does it make sense adding archive pages by property type in addition OR in stead of the location ones if I, for instance, target separate keywords like 'villas costa adeje' and 'apartments costa adeje'? At the moment, the title of the respective archive page "Properties to rent in costa adeje: villas, apartments" in principle targets both keywords... Does using the same keyword in a single property listing cannibalize archive page ranking it is linking back to? Or not, unless Google specifically identifies this as a duplicate content, which one can see in Google Search Console under HTML Improvements and/or archive page has more incoming links than a single property? If targeting only archive pages, how should I optimize them in such a way that they stay user-friendly. I have created (though, not yet fully optimized) descriptions for each archive page just below the main header. But I have them partially hidden (collapsible) using a JS in order to keep visitors’ focus on the properties. I know that Google does not rank hidden content high, at least at the moment, but since there is a new algorithm Mobile First coming up in the near future, they promise not to punish mobile sites for a collapsible content and will use mobile version to rate desktop one. Does this mean I should not worry about hidden content anymore or should I move the descirption to the bottom of the page and make it fully visible? Your feedback will be highly appreciated! Thank you! Dmitry
Technical SEO | | qualistay1 -
One robots.txt file for multiple sites?
I have 2 sites hosted with Blue Host and was told to put the robots.txt in the root folder and just use the one robots.txt for both sites. Is this right? It seems wrong. I want to block certain things on one site. Thanks for the help, Rena
Technical SEO | | renalynd270 -
Does my "spam" site affect my other sites on the same IP?
I have a link directory called Liberty Resource Directory. It's the main site on my dedicated IP, all my other sites are Addon domains on top of it. While exploring the new MOZ spam ranking I saw that LRD (Liberty Resource Directory) has a spam score of 9/17 and that Google penalizes 71% of sites with a similar score. Fair enough, thin content, bunch of follow links (there's over 2,000 links by now), no problem. That site isn't for Google, it's for me. Question, does that site (and linking to my own sites on it) negatively affect my other sites on the same IP? If so, by how much? Does a simple noindex fix that potential issues? Bonus: How does one go about going through hundreds of pages with thousands of links, built with raw, plain text HTML to change things to nofollow? =/
Technical SEO | | eglove0 -
Do quizzes hurt your site? Thin content?
We did a 10 question quiz awhile back relating to something we were sponsoring, and it had a decent response. However, considering quizzes just aren't that long, does that contribute to making the site's content thin? Obviously, it's not a major problem at the moment, but if we did more of them would this be an issue? If there's no real issue, I'd prefer not to no-index them, but I'd love some feedback to help make the decision. Thanks, Ruben
Technical SEO | | KempRugeLawGroup0 -
Mobile site ranking instead of/as well as desktop site in desktop SERPS
I have just noticed that the mobile version of my site is sometimes ranking in the desktop serps either instead of as well as the desktop site. It is not something that I have noticed in the past as it doesn't happen with the keywords that I track, which are highly competitive. It is happening for results that include our brand name, e.g '[brand name][search term]'. The mobile site is served with mobile optimised content from another URL. e.g wwww.domain.com/productpage redirects to m.domain.com/productpage for mobile. Sometimes I am only seen the mobile URL in the desktop SERPS, other times I am seeing both the desktop and mobile URL for the same product. My understanding is that the mobile URL should not be ranking at all in desktop SERPS, could we be being penalised for either bad redirects or duplicate content? Any ideas as to how I could further diagnose and solve the problem if you do believe that it could be harming rankings?
Technical SEO | | pugh0 -
What is the best way to find missing alt tags on my site (site wide - not page by page)?
I am looking to find all the missing alt tags on my site at once. I have a FF extension that use to do it page by page, but my site is huge and that will take forever. Thanks!!
Technical SEO | | franchisesolutions1 -
Google.ca is showing our US site instead of our Canada Site
When our Canadian users who search on google.ca for our brand (e.g. Travelocity, Travelocity hotels, etc.), the first few results our from our US site (travelocity.com) rather than our Canadian site (travelocity.ca). In Google Webmaster Tools, we've adjusted the geotargeting settings to focus on the appropriate locale, but the wrong country TLD is still coming up at the top via google.ca. What's the best way to ensure our Canadian site comes up instead of the US site on google.ca? Thanks, Tory Smith
Technical SEO | | travelocitysearch
Travelocity0