Are all duplicate contents bad?
-
We were badly hit by Panda back in January 2012. Unfortunately, it is only now that we are trying to recover back.
CASE 1:
We develop software products. We send out 500-1000 word description about the product to various download sites so that they can add to their product listing. So there are several hundred download sites with same content.How does Google view this? Did Google penalize us due to this reason?
CASE 2:
In the above case the product description does not match with any content on our website. However, there are several software download sites that copy and paste the content from our website as the product description. So in this case, the duplicate content match with our website.
How does Google view this? Did Google penalize us due to this reason?
Along with all the download sites, there are also software piracy & crack sites that have the duplicate content.
So, should I remove duplicate content only from the software piracy & crack sites or also from genuine download sites?
Does Google reject all kind of duplicate content? Or it depends on who hosts the duplicate content?
Confused Please help.
-
It is tricky. As Michael said it is important to get your content indexed first, which can help identify you as the source. Google doesn't always do a great job of that. Generally, I don't worry too much about Case 1, but in your case, it can be tougher. The problem is that many download sites can have very high authority and could start outranking you for these product descriptions. If that happens, it's unlikely you'd be penalized, but you could be filtered out or knocked down the rankings, which might feel like a penalty.
Here's the thing, with Case 1, though. If these download sites are simply outranking you, but you're distributing product, is it so awful? I think you have to look at the trade-off through the lens of your broader business goals.
Case 2 is tougher, since there's not a lot you can do about it, short of DMCA takedowns. You've got to hope Google sorts it out. Again, getting in front of it and getting your content in the index quickly is critical.
If you were hit by Panda, I'd take a hard look at anything on your own site that could be harming you. Are you spinning out variations of your own content? Are you creating potentially duplicate URLs? Are you indexing a ton of paginated content (internal searches, for example). You may find that the external duplicates are only part of your Panda problem - if you can clean up what you control, you'll be much better off. I have an extensive duplicate content write-up here:
-
For all new content it is important to get indexed fast. There is the scenario that if your site is crawled infrequently another site may get that copy indexed first and by default is viewed as theirs. So with any new content I would post on social media as quickly as possible - G+, Twitter etc to get noticed and to mark as yours. G+ author attribute will help.
-
Hi Gautam,
Good questions, it really hard to say what Google determines as duplicate content so this will just be my hunch on your issue. As I have experienced Google won't 'penalize' you as you're the owner of the content and you can't be the victim of other people stealing or copying your content. Also if you have provided these sites with your content. Mostly because you're often not in charge of the content management on somebodies elses site.
Hope this helps a bit!
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
-
Duplicate Content on Product Pages with Canonical Tags
Hi, I'm an SEO Intern for a third party wine delivery company and I'm trying to fix the following issue with the site regarding duplicate content on our product pages: Just to give you a picture of what I'm dealing with, the duplicate product pages that are being flagged have URLs that have different Geo-variations and Product-Key Variations. This is what Moz's Site Crawler is seeing as Duplicate content for the URL www.example.com/wines/dry-red/: www.example.com/wines/dry-red/_/N-g123456 www.example.com/wines/dry-red/_/N-g456789 www.example.com/wines/California/_/N-0 We have loads of product pages with dozens of duplicate content and I'm coming to the conclusion that its the product keys that are confusing google. So we had the web development team put the canonical tag on the pages but still they were being flagged by google. I checked the of the pages and found that all the pages that had 2 canonical tags I understand we should only have one canonical tag in the so I wanted to know if I could just easily remove the second canonical tag and will it solve the duplicate content issue we're currently having? Any suggestions? Thanks -Drew
Algorithm Updates | | drewstorys0 -
Is Having Content 'Above The Fold' Still Relevant for Website Design and SEO
Hey there, So I have a client who recently 're-skinned' their website and now there is little to no content above the fold. Likewise, I've noticed that since the transition to this new front-end design there has been a drop in rankings for a number of keywords related to one of the topics we are targeting. Is there any correlation here? Is having content 'above the fold' still a relevant factor in determining a websites' searchability? I appreciate you reading and look forward to hearing from all of you. Have a great day!
Algorithm Updates | | maxcarnage0 -
Google not crawling click to expand content - suggestions?
It seems like Google confirmed this week in a G+ hangout that content in click to expand content e.g. 'read more' dropdown and tabbed content scenarios will be discounted. The suggestion was if you have content it needs to be visible on page load. Here's more on it https://www.seroundtable.com/google-index-click-to-expand-19449.html and the actual hangout, circa 11 mins in https://plus.google.com/events/cjcubhctfdmckph433d00cro9as. From a UX and usability point of view having a lot of content that was otherwise tabbed or in click to expand divs can be terrible, especially on mobile. Does anyone have workable solutions or can think of examples of really great landing pages (i'm mostly thinking ecommerce) that also has a lot of visible content? Thanks Andy
Algorithm Updates | | AndyMacLean0 -
What to do with old, outdated and light content on a blog?
So there's a blog I recently took over - that over the past 2 years has great content. However, with their 800+ published posts. I'd say that 250-300 posts are light in content, that's nothing more than a small paragraph with no real specificity on what its about - more like general updates. Now what would best practice be; optimizing all of the posts or deleting the posts and 301'ing the URL to another post/the root?
Algorithm Updates | | simplycary0 -
How to content marketing: Should my blog posts link to my sales page?
Hi, I've been doing a weekly blog making sure that each blog post contains my money keywords in the text, sometimes in h2 tags etc. My blog posts never contain any links to my actual sales page. Should I link each blog post to my sale page or is it overdoing it? Will internal linking of all my blog posts to my sales page will improve its page authority or have any SEO benefits? What about using exact match anchor text on these internal links? I couldn't find any resource online about this matter. Thank you for your opinion and help! -Marc
Algorithm Updates | | marcandre0 -
Effect of Disavow the bad links
Hi, My website was effected in the recent google updates. I have a feeling that this was due to the bad links. I have analyzed all my existing links and either I am removing the bad links or disavow the links. 1. When can I see the effect / results of this activity.
Algorithm Updates | | adiez12341 -
How to build good content and choose right keywords.?
I have started building content for our website using the Wordpress tool. Now I wanted to know that I use GA and the Adwords keyword tool. I go in for exact matching keywords and have selected a few of them. How do I know if these keywords are actually the ones going to give me good traffic? How can I select good keywords and write content along them. I don't wish to over stuff articles with the keywords. How can I refrain from doing so. Any optimum limit through which I know how much of the keyword needs to occur how many times within an article? Please give some good insights as to how this is accomplished? Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | shanky11 -
Content below the fold and Panda Update
Hi I was at the linklove conference and I heard some worrying stories about the way content is formatted on a page being a factor in ehow has avoided being slapped. It was the first time I had heard the expression "below the fold..." I am producing some very sexy SERP's results and other sexier metrics are up too but I am concerened that thefurnituremarket.co.uk has a ton of images on the home page and the nice content is below all of them.. firstly is this content..."below the fold"? secondly I know the site is old but do you think when this panda update hits the UK... were will be penalised for the look of the site.. I know there was talk yesterday at the conference of coming up woth a tool to check this out... my gut says that this will be a factor... sooner rather than later hence I am looking at magento and how we can skin it to look nice and present products better.. I would be really interested to know what exactly is "below the fold" on the furnituremarket.co.uk and some thoughts on the whole ehow formatting issue..
Algorithm Updates | | robertrRSwalters0