Guest blogging & duplicate content
-
This feels like a question I should know the answer to and I'm a tad embarrassed to ask, but the part of my brain that gets tripped up by somewhat simple things sometimes, is begging to ask just to confirm my understanding. I want to make sure I have it right it prior to giving advice.
When one guest blogs I assume that it is critical to create content that is original and unique to that one instance of the guest blog. That means, do not also put that post on your own blog and do not submit it to any other blogs for inclusion. This is both for duplicate content issues and also to respect and not put in jeopardy for duplicated content, the blog owner you are guesting for. Is this correct?
Are there any scenarios in which there might be a deviation of this "rule"? Like some use of canonicals or anything else?
-
My cat's cuter than your cat. (or he used to be before he died)
-
Thank you everyone. So glad my un-embarrassed part convinced my embarrassed part to just dive in and ask the question. This was all a lot of help. And because I'm in a bit of that cycle you describe, Philip, I have some second-line questions now.
Tom, I just love that the part in my question that was most poignant to you was the concern I have towards the hosting blogger. Seems to me if the generosity is extended by an invitation or acceptance, it's important to consider whatever consequences there could potentially be created by our actions. That stuck out in your response.
Also Tom, you bring up something else that I've been "confused" about: syndicated content. Here I go again with the potentially embarrassing questions:
- What is the difference between duplicated content vs syndicated content?
- Why is syndicated not considered duplicated?
- And then there's....for instance, the old, now dangerous practice of article submissions which creates duplicated content if that same content or article is on your website. How is that not considered syndicated? Does it simply rely on the basic intent of the site you are submitting the article to?
One more: please tell me if I'm getting this correctly and which would be best. If one were to guest blog and believe the content would be especially relevant to their own followers it's OK to post the same post on their own blog but best to noindex OR rel=cononical it passing up potential juice for yourself, but still getting to offer up the content.
Using snippets makes sense. I've been doing those across the board for my own blog and have occasionally wondered if any of that could be considered duplicate content if I use a quote from the blog post or if I repeat the same snippet...does any of that matter?
Once again, Thank You. I love getting help and really appreciate it.
-
Hi Philip
Stumbleupon is a content syndicator not a content hoster so it has no issues with duplicate content (much like Reddit and the now il-fated Digg).
Cheers
-
I've been confused about seemingly simple things too and the more you think on them, the more confused you get - it's a horrid cycle sometimes.
What I've been wondering about is Stumble Upon etc. If one does put up content here, and other reputable places, does this become duplicate with what's on the original site? It seems like it would to me, but I'm not certain.
-
Depends on how cute the cat is.
-
Tom's point is spot on.
Syndication is a great traffic driver, no doubt - but it also means that the content usually worth a little less. Also implementing the canonical tag can be away around this but it will mean that the "copy" of the content will never get a chance to rank, though it will still drive some traffic.
The answer is always original content across the board - if you must repost on your own website use the canonical to point to the other site - show the love.
off topic: i was once asked "if i add a picture of a cute cat to any post would it become unique content?" ... answers on a post card to "sill questions here"
-
I agree with Tom on this point. I'd create a short snippet, and just link back to the original article. That way the traffic still flows through you, in case you have Ads on your site.
The only exemption to this for me would be if the content would be so amazing for my community of followers. In that case I might accept the content, and just no-indexing it. That way people in your RSS feeds can get it, and not have to jump over to another site, but you won't run into issues with Google.
-
Hi Gina
You're pretty much spot on in your answer. It's more syndicated content rather than duplicate if its put across multiple domains - but syndicated content would be heavily devalued by Google as well (to the point that it would pass little to no value on the additional sites it appears - which I believe is the Google argument behind press release services like PRWeb etc.)
But you're secondary point is more poignant with me, as it is more of a courtesy to your blogger connections not to replicate the content across other domains. Similarly, you're missing out on the chance of writing specifically for that audience, which would increase the engagement and through traffic to your site as a result. You should definitely take advantage of that.
A slight deviation is that I'll include a short snippet of the post when sharing it on social media. It's nice to give a quick flavour and an eye catching quote to use when sharing and I'm sure the webmaster would appreciate both the social signal and potential increase in traffic.
In summary, I wouldn't go so far as to say you could be outright penalised for doing this (although definitely wouldn't rule it out), but I would say that your syndicated content will have little to no SEO value, while it potentially irk your blogging connections.
Hope this helps!
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
-
Should I submit the same blog post on Linkedin as an article with permalink?
Hello All, I just want to know that is it the right way in SEO to submit the same blog post as an article on Linkedin or other social sites or article sites.
Branding | | DenorL0 -
Hosted content vs Dedicated website (for large piece of content)
There is one question that keep bugging us and for which we are looking for a logical answer – to put it short, in which context(s) is it preferable to publish original content on a company website vs on a dedicated external platform with its own URL? To give a little more details: we an education company that provides languages course abroad and that functions like a specialised travel agency. Each trip is very specific – it depends on people's language level, objectives, budget, etc. – so we provide tailor-made advice for each of our students. Our site is not an e-commerce site, and a typical call-to-action is a request for a 1-to-1 interview with one of our agents, or a quote request for a language trip project. The top conversion for us is an enrolment for a language course abroad. We have a corporate websites structure where we have 1 website per locale where we operate, which means 14 websites in 7 different languages. We produce smaller pieces of content for these websites in a dedicated section – the rest of the website being mostly a presentation of our products, services and destinations – but here we intend to create a very large Quiz which will be based on multiple audio files. The content will be translated into multiple languages (likely 10 different languages) and will require some rather heavy development. We intend to add sections for scoreboards, stats, a log-in section (probably Facebook), etc. This sounds to us like something we should host on a specific URL, but then how can we make the most of the SEO benefits that we will (hopefully) get with such content? We plan to have an about section where we explain a little bit who we are, where we will probably link back to our corporate websites, but of course we want our project to live for itself and to be as far from commercial as possible – while still making the most of the SEO benefits. How can we do this in the most subtle / logical way? Would it be better to host our Quiz on our corporate domains? Thanks in advance for your advice. Maëlle
Branding | | ESL_Education0 -
Blog SEO strategy
Hi Moz community, we are looking for some advice on our blog/SEO strategy. I hope to find some people who faced similar challenges in the past. Wishlist currently has one blog (http://blog.enjoywishlist.com/), which has two main focus points. One main focus is to portray and encourage a lifestyle that is conducive with our product offering. The main driver behind the content we post is for SEO optimization for our B2C clients. The other focus for our blog is to target current and potential clients on the B2B side of things. That content is much more driven by a target audience and different topics. It is hard to address two audience in one blog and we are working with the idea of separating the blog into two different host domains. Along with the blogs we will also move the landing pages for B2C and B2B into different domains and link these as appropriate. The challenge we face is understanding if it would benefit us to host these two blogs on different domains. We are also wondering if it would help our hurt our SEO to take the content related to our corporate blog and move it to the new domain? Advice appreciated! Thanks Andreas
Branding | | AndreasD1 -
Advising clients on Blogs, twitter and social
I am looking to put a crib/cheat sheet together for clients about writing content, blogs and twitter and other social. I want this to be SHORT - SHARP and to the point. Any advise is appreciate. This is what I have so far.... Blogs - Tell the world what your company is doing, whats new, also link it to the news - BE INTERESTING - Educate don't just say "we offer this services its great" - make it relevant BUT do not be obvious - ask yourself would you read this blog find it interesting - read it again - what did you learn? Twitter - Treat like a micro blog with a personality - use it to great a company personality do not just link to your site when you do a blog post - comment on news events - BE INTERESTING - BE FUN - Make people want to engage with you - we recently tweeted this:- eg:- Something pointless for the weekend - See fun video link. Social - Again use it to create a company personality - be fun but do not just copy and paste the same content - judge your audience. Feel free to help.... watch?v=isZNJjPsaMI
Branding | | JohnW-UK0 -
Rebranding & Minimizing SEO impact
Hello everyone, One of my clients is undergoing a major rebrand, which will require some substantial changes to their domain / URL structure. Primarily, we're going to: Move from a high-ish DA site to a low DA site Change the subdomain URL structure (more on that below) Update the content (copy, design, structure) on www. site to match the new brand The content on the subdomains should remain the same 301 redirect all pages from old site to new site where applicable The current site architecture makes great use of subdomains, which are also going to be changing in terms of name. So, we're moving from oldsubdomain.olddomain.com to newsubdomain.newdomain.com (and not oldsubdomian.olddomain.com to oldsubdomain.olddomain.com). The content / structure of these pages is going to change minimally. We understand that we're going to take an SEO hit overall, but are there things we can do to minimize this hit? Anyway we can 'estimate' the hit? Anyway we can educate our client to as to what to expect beyond (it is going to be bad…). Please let me know. Thanks!
Branding | | 10SL0 -
Duplicate Content Question
I have a question about duplicate content. We have our mission statement on our home page, a few paragraphs. When I searched Copyscape the only pages that came back were sites like Google Plus, Manta, Linkedin, AngieLists ect. All of them have the same exact copy. Would this be something that is hurting us for duplicate content??
Branding | | chuck-layton
It is our mission statement so we kind of want to be the same across those sites. Any input would be great. Thanks, Scott0 -
One writer, multiple brands - optimizing rel=author across several blogs
Our company has a few different brands, each with their own domain and site. These are not microsites intended to drive traffic to a main site; they all have independent e-commerce functions, full product lines, etc. Imagine we run Plumbing Widgets Inc, Kitchen Remodeling Company, and Springfield Countertops. It's not immediately obvious to surfers that one parent company operates all of these brands, and we're fine with that. Considering that it enables us to own a lot of SERP real estate for some money KWs, we're more than fine with it. We'd like to create a blog for each of these sites/brands. Here's where it gets tricky. After doing some reading, I am persuaded that using rel=author will help us with SERP CTR and possibly rankings themselves. I am going to be writing all of the blog content, at least to start. I don't think I want to rel=author myself on all of these discrete blogs, do I? And surface the fact that one person is the head writer for the blogs of all these brands? Creating blogging pseudonyms doesn't seem like a good idea, since part of the value of rel=author is genuine social engagement, and creating social personas that seem genuine is probably more trouble than it's worth. (Not to mention icky and dishonest.) Should I choose a customer service rep or manager for each brand and use their names and social identities (with their permission, obviously)? It seems like that would involve challenges of its own. I've ghostwritten for one business owner before, but this is on a larger, more complex scale. Any insights are appreciated!
Branding | | CMC-SD0 -
Use blog.domain.com or socialbrand.com?
I've got a little bit of a dilemma. A company I'm working for has an ecommerce site that is moving to Volusion. It is impossible to add "domain.com/blog" so I am forced to use a subdomain in order to keep consistency. We are starting a push in Social media and have secured shorter handles for the brand to use on the different networks. One of the main goals originally for developing a blog is to build trust but since the domain names are so big (26 characters) and the ecommerce sites already have a good amount of trust building factors in them I am beginning to question my original plan. My question is this: If I go with a shorter brand recognized domain name to develop the blog on which is different than the ecommerce domain (keyword matched) will I loose too much trust and ranking opportunity because of the difference in domains. I know there isn't a golden bullet for this question but i would love to get you your take on it.
Branding | | BenRWoodard0