Using content from other sites without duplicate content penalties?
-
Hi there,
I am setting up a website, where i believe it would substantially benefit users experience if i setup a database of information on artists. I am torn because to feasibly do this correctly, i would have content that is built from multiple sources, but has no real unique content. It would have parts from Wikipedia, parts from other websites etc. All would be sourced of-course. My concern is that if i do this, am i risking in devaluing my website because of this. Is there a way i can handle this without taking a hit?
-
You are very welcome Boris.
-
Thanks Dana,
I am glad to hear that. That makes my idea feasible, and my users will benefit from this. Thanks again.
-
Interesting question Boris. There is a blogging tool out there called "Storify" (http://www.storify.com) that uses this concept to help bloggers write posts. I think the reason it works is that it makes it easy to pull things from sources all over the Web and weave them together into a unique story.
I think if you draw from other sites, it's perfectly okay, especially if you give citations to your sources and weave them together in a unique way. For example, if you are the only person who has put together a database on artists like the one you are subscribing, you are effectively compiling existing content in a new and unique way that could be very valuable to users.
I always like to include stories of my own experience. I have a small site I built that has a blog. One of the very first blog posts I wrote was simply a "Top 20 You Tube Videos" for music that was closely related to the overall topic of the Website. Although it includes 20 YouTube videos that I didn't make, this page gets the highest traffic and has the highest page authority of any of my internal pages. I
I think there's a big difference between copying other content and trying to pass it off as your own, versus compiling information, citing your sources and putting it all in one place in a way that your users find useful and interesting.
My only advice on top of that would be to spend some effort at weaving these things together in a way that is uniquely your own.
Hope that helps!
Dana
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
-
Changing top level navigation between site sections
We've got an internal proposal to change our top level nav depending on the section of the site. For example, on our homepage it might read: Products, Library, About with relevant links dropping down below. As we have varied products, the drop down underneath it would include the various families. When arriving on the product family page the top-level nav would change to represent more specific offerings. For example: xxx.com 1. Products; 2. Library; 3. About xxx.com/xxx 1. Product family 1; 2. Product family 2; 3. Product family 3; 4. Library; 5. About What are the SEO/UX implications of this? It seems confusing but allows more specific navigation via the main nav depending on the section of the site. Also it seems that an alternating TLN might not be too Google-friendly.
Web Design | | gwelch0 -
How would a redesign, content update and URL change affect ranking?
Hi guys, I have a question that I suspect there is no simple true or false answer to, but perhaps someone has done the same thing as we're pondering wether or not to do? We're taking over an existing site that ranks very well on all the important keywords and is obviously very well liked by Google. The site is today hosted on a sub-domain (xxx.domain.com). When taking over, we'll have to redesign the site and recreate most of the content on the site (unique). The site structure, URLs, incoming links etc. will remain exactly the same. Since we are recreating the site, we also have the opportunity to move the site off the sub-domain and on to the main domain (domain.com/xxx - 85/100 Moz rank) and do a 301 Permanent Redirect on all old URLs. Our long-time experience is that content on the main domain, ranks way better than the sub-domain. The big question is wether or not Google will punish us for both changing the content and the location of the site at the same time? Cheers!
Web Design | | mattbs
Matt0 -
Is switching from a very old HTML table site to HTML5 going to make a big difference
Hello, My site owner has been having calls that our old HTML site needs to switch to HTML5. Is it really worth the ubgrade from an archaic HTML site? Please explain. Bob
Web Design | | BobGW0 -
Pagerank and SERP rankings downhill after site update
Our site underwent a major update in September 2012. We put the entire site in WordPress and did away with our static pages. Then, in February 2013, we moved our shopping cart pages from a subdomain to our main domain (in WordPress). In both cases, we had to implement a massive 301 redirect through htaccess as most of our URLs changed with the update. Our site consists of the shopping cart (WooCommerce), blog, and supporting pages. We noticed traffic starting to drop around the last week of November (2012) and it has steadily declined ever since. None of our shop pages have a pagerank with virtually all them showing a gray bar with question mark. Only the shop homepage has some pagerank -- that too from 4 previously to 2 now. Some of the words we used to rank very well for before, we don't even show in the first five pages anymore. At first, we thought it was a temporary situation that would self correct over time, but it doesn't seem to get better at all. All said, we have lost over 80% of our traffic from Google organic. Upon repeated reviews, the 301 redirects seem to be done correctly and we don't see any serious mistakes that could cause such a huge drop. So the question is are we missing something? Are we not looking at the right places? Any ideas where we might start looking? We're simply looking for ideas and a fresh perspective.
Web Design | | bizmanuals0 -
Need help with image resizing (re: slow site)
I'm trying to figure out why I'm having speed issues with my site, and using google speed test to help me knock out some of the issues. One of issues deals with image resizing. I have a responsive design and so even though on the home page the normal width is 580 of the blog area, the full post can go up to 1170. So I size all of my images to 1170 wide and let CSS resize them depending on the size of the browser. (The images on the most recent post are a little bigger than this because I was testing something.) I was wondering what the best practice was in regard to what I'm trying to do. Also feel free to check out my site and let me know of any other feedback / advice you have. Thanks !:)
Web Design | | NoahsDad0 -
Minimising duplicate content
From a minimising duplicate content perspective is it best to create all blog posts with a single tag so google doesn't think the same post being returned via a different tag search is duplicate content. I.e. the urls below return the same blog post; or doesn't it matter. for example http://www.ukholidayplaces.co.uk/blog/?tag=/stay+in+Margate http://www.ukholidayplaces.co.uk/blog/?tag=/Margate+on+a+budget are the same posts... thanks
Web Design | | JonAcourt0 -
Should I use the google mod_pagespeed in my apache server?
Anyone already use it? There is some speed benefit? http://code.google.com/speed/page-speed/docs/module.html
Web Design | | Naghirniac0 -
Content position on page
I am in a limo service industry where people are not looking for great content or product description, all they want is a nice Lincoln Town car and a competitive price. Because I need to get more pictures in front of my customers rather than more content I am not sure if by not having the content high up in the page will affect my rankings. We are transitioning to a new template where we have more control over the layout of the website but because of the slider that we have on the homepage the content needs to go further down. We could insert some content in each of the slides but the page would start looking too "busy". We want the customers to see very clearly what we offer. They see the picture, click for more info and book the service. How important still is to have your keywords in the first hundred words on a certain webpage? Can we get away with having the content read by search engines after 3 - 4 slides and their description (about 20 words total) ?
Web Design | | echo10
