Could duplicate content be helpful to the original source?
-
Greetings Mozzers,
I'm wondering if duplicate content could potentially function as a "link" in Google's eyes. Since they know I have content first and then someone else just uses it, Google could maybe think of that as a recommendation that the content is good?
Reason I ask is, when I first starting going after a keyword for a company I wanted to go after two (2) separate regions, let's say "San Antonio" and "Dallas". My non-region based keyword started to rank for "San Antonio Keyword" because the content on the San Antonio page was too closely related. So i'm wondering if maybe having that content so close/duplicate may have boosted the original page because it was kind of like a recommendation?
Thoughts, Information, Clarification, any and all are welcome and appreciated!
-
Thanks for some insight
-
I think what's happened here is Google has recognized that you have multiple pages with very similar content and disregarded all but one version and that version is ranking. It's probably been chosen because of how it fits in your site structure in compared to other pages with the similar content but there are other potential reasons i.e. inbound links.
Duplicate content can function as a link but only when it's published on a third party website in the form of a citation. For the citation to be counted the third party website in question would have to be authoritative and reputable (to filter out sites with scraped content).
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
-
Strange google search - help me mozzers
Hey Mozzers How Are You All? Hope You Are Doing Well. 🙂 I need your help. I have been having a very bad experience with Google. 😞 Do you know what is "Google Dance"? Somewhere I have heard about this. I don't have even clearance about Google Dance. BTW, the problem is that i have an adult video site about a porns tar. I was ranking at 3-6 position on a "particular keyword" on google. But about 20 days ago when i searched my "keyword term", I could not find it anywhere even on page 50 in Google search. 😄 My heartbeat was gone faster. As i was getting 25k visitors from google of that keyword. 🙂 Then i looked at my webmaster tools to check "manual spam action". There was no issue with spam or anything related to it. Then i checked my google analytics i was getting visitors from google but not from the 'particular keyword'. I was sure it was not "google hit or penalized". I could not find the exact reason why did it happen. I checked my sites everything seems to be fine. Then i did "fetch as google" and the strange thing was happened, my site pop up again in google on "that keyword". But this not the end. From that day my search keyword was getting vanish within 24 hours or more in google. And i do google fetch and it again comes to search results. 😄 I tried moz tools. no such issue. Though i cannot sort out the whole matter. What’s wrong going with google. Its an adult site, otherwise I would provide my site url and the keyword. By the way, I have attached some screenshots. I am waiting for your help. Thanks to all. 🙂 gyKIRVW
Competitive Research | | raja290 -
Can deceptive ads help sites to rank? Pogosticking effect involved...
Hello,
Competitive Research | | fablau
I have a question for you. I have noticed that many music sites that appear in the first top results for keywords our users search for, include all the same ads that deceive people by inviting them to "Download" or get the "Full Album" of what people may be search for. Look at the following websites that are often displayed at the first spots for keywords like "Christmas Sheet Music" (just an example): [....] They all have, most of the times, the same ads. Look at the following screenshots taken from the sites above (the ads are at the top of the page): http://www.virtualsheetmusic.com/storage/google/Shot1.jpg
http://www.virtualsheetmusic.com/storage/google/Shot2.jpg Those deceptive ads could engage users more than legitimate websites not showing those ads or not showing ads at all, making Google think that people are more engaged on those website showing those deceptive ads. If it is quality that Google is looking for, shouldn't they do something to avoid having sites ranking well just because of some deceptive ads that take users into action, but without any useful result? I am eager to know your ideas on this issue. Thanks! Fab.0 -
Information Overload! Please can someone help me simply, with this specific example?
Hi Guys I am asking a lot of questions lately, so I am very grateful of the community support. Hopefully I can start giving back soon. I am getting myself tied up in knots with SEO on my site. I have read so many articles, and many contradictory opinions that I can't workout which path to go down. So could you look at this specific example and give me a brutally honest kick in the right direction? If you do a search on google (UK) for "Vogue Magazine Subscription" you will see one of our main competitors in position 7,8,9 for Teen Vogue, Luomo Vogue and Italian Vogue. We come in at position 4 page 2 (UniqueMagazines). Why is it that our competitor ranks higher than us, for what is really an unrelated search? I mean, yes Teen Vogue, Italian and Luomo are relevant to those keywords, but surely our page is more relevant? Is it because the competitor has a slightly higher domain authority? We are working on generating content to drive back links, and so get authority. I have looked into so much, generating content, updating internal link architecture, creating back links. What in this specific example should I be looking at? I have analysed our back link profile, it's ok. I did some work on internal links, as our site ranked first for Italian Vogue, which seemed to be due to more links internally pointing at the italian version. What metrics should I be looking at to determine what makes our competitor rank higher? Many thanks if you can help Paul
Competitive Research | | TheUniqueSEO0 -
Help! New site won't rank locally but should...
any help would be greatly appreciated... picked up a new client, a used car dealer in New Jersey. Have a VERY spammy site before, tons of keyword stuffing and lots of dupe content. also had a horrible design. (www.coopscars.com) We updated the design and the content, made it relevant and unique, fixed title tags, etc. Now he's not ranking for anything locally other than his business name. He's got a decent number of links, we've added relevant citations, his social signals are much stronger than they were... We do lots of SEO for car dealers, and we know that he should be ranking SOMEWHERE at this point - not saying he should be page 1, but he should at least be somewhere in the top 5... and yes, bing/yahoo are different, but he ranks over there... one page 1 for "used cars south river" - so why completely non-existant on Google? just as a test, he put up a free website at www.coopscars.net just last week - and it's already ranking for several local terms. I'm completely confused here - i'm not a noob, I know the tactics we've used on him work for other dealers. Thinking there's got to be something that's blocking him, especially since there aren't but maybe 15-20 car dealers to compete against locally and he still doesn't show up... thought i'd come over here and see if anyone has any ideas...
Competitive Research | | Greg_Gifford0 -
Free tools to find country of origin of backlinks/urls
Hey are there any free tools out there which can allow me to insert a large list of urls, and it determines the country of origin of the domain. I know the paid version of majestic does, but i was wondering if theres any free tools? Cheers, Chris
Competitive Research | | monster990 -
Someone help me with these results?
I've been using SEOMOZ for several months now. I've been working on cleaning up my onpage SEO for a while now. I have much less errors then my competition and my competitive link analysis is better than the #1 and the same as the #2 google result for "Kayak Fishing" in Google US. Can anyone offer any more advice on how I can get rank better? My site yakangler.com is currently ranked #52 on Google US. My SEO Report overview: http://awesomescreenshot.com/044ekugfc One of the competition overview: http://awesomescreenshot.com/0f6ekvg89 Looking at the link analysis will the difference in links make that much of a difference? http://awesomescreenshot.com/03cekwo55
Competitive Research | | mr_w0 -
Working through the slides on my first seo project, I'm trying to determine the most popular content on competition sites.
From the video, I understand I should be looking for unique opportunities. But is there a baseline for product qualification, ie., a min. PA,LRD, Inbound LInks, social shares, etc. I guess I'm asking what I should be looking for in the data provided on each competing site? What determines THE most popular and unique product?
Competitive Research | | AhmadS0 -
Static Html Pages V/s Wordpress - For open content pages?
Hi there. I am worried a bit about static html pages or wordpress as an instance to write down open page content for our website. We are a product based website - primarily Saas based product. But with time we have seen that if we write more content people will be able to find us better,. Earlier our blog resided on blog.example.com now we are moving it to example.com/blog/ Issues - I really want to know that I need to generate lots of fresh content so I am using wordpress as the blog medium and content generation medium too. Basically the wordpress instance will be a content generated pages. I can also have static html page based content but then our content writers will always have to take the help of develoeprs to publish it to our sites. Whats the best way to go about this keeping SEO really crucial in mind? Thanks for your time and help!
Competitive Research | | shanky10