Giveaway outreach - duplicate content?
-
I'm thinking of hosting a giveaway, and promoting this to bloggers. Thinking of how to go about this, I've run into a sort of a road block. I'm thinking the best way would be to attach a flyer detailing the giveaway so that bloggers have easy access to the information. However, I fear that a lot of them will just copy + paste from the flyer straight to a blog post - which will create a lot of duplicate content.
Anybody in the community willing to share their experiences and how they were able to go around the duplicate content issue?
-
Alice,
Most bloggers are not going to put a cross domain rel canonical tag on their page for you. I feel that would severely limit the effectiveness of the campaign by excluding those bloggers.
However, putting the rel canonical tag on your page isn't going to hurt, and could be one more signal that you are the authoritative version of the content. Other signals would be that your page gets indexed first, and that the other pages are linking to you. There is a lot of duplicate content on the web, and Google isn't going to penalize every site with a little bit of content that can be found elsewhere. If they did that every news site from the New York Times to Boise Weekly would be penalized. Duplicate content is a real issue, especially when it comprises the bulk of your content strategy, but I don't think you have much to worry about in this particular case.
The PDF or image version of the flyer is a great idea. I'd go with that and instruct the participants to explain the contest in their own words.
You could even provide a share box below the flyer where they can copy the code to paste the flyer onto their site. You would want the href link to your page to be within that code so the flyer they paste links to your page. If you do this Google will have little doubt as to which page is the original source. Just don't get fancy with the anchor text.
-
Thanks. The pdf is a good idea. But wouldn't you have to ask these blog owners to put a canonical on THEIR page pointing to mine?
-
This is a good question and I think we'd need more info, but I'd first put a canonical tag on your page showing you as the original author and I'd format your flier as a PDF or image, making it slightly more work to copy. Of course, all of these have get-arounds, but they do make it more difficult for someone looking to simply copy the material.
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
-
What else still works (other than awesome content)
Hey guys, I'm sorta at my wits end here. I know that some link building methods (such as private blog networks) used to work before the latest Google update (Penguin 2.1), but I have evidence that it's not working any more. At least not with the private blog networks that I used. So, my question is if there's a sure fire way to quickly and efficiently build back links nowadays? Do private blog networks still work for you? If so, which ones? If not, what do you use instead?
Link Building | | VinceWicks0 -
About Duplicate Content
if i share our blog to multiple document sharing site in form of pdf.it is spamming or not..?..if yes what is the drawback?
Link Building | | afycon0 -
Press Releases - duplicate content
Does anybody know if Google makes allowances for duplicate content from press releases? If you submit a press release to a press release distribution service, does it have to be different? Any help would be much appreciated.
Link Building | | AAttias0 -
Link Building: Just Great Content, Blog Comments, and Guest Blog Posts?
I love SEOMoz. It has motivated me to dive way more into SEO. I know all the shoulds. But what fascinates me about SEO is that shoulds don't always match up to what works. I'm looking at Open Site Explorer, specifically my site. I see a lot of links I got naturally. By having awesome content. So is there any point in emailing people asking htem to add my link? Or do I spend my time writing awesome content, sharing it on social media, and hoping someone comes across it and shares it? I know blog commenting, when relevant, can bring me new visitors. I'm sure it helps SEO too. Maybe I just need to reach out and write guest blog posts for grabbing some links? Its just as Google wants it! OMG, how white hat. Is that it? or should I be even more active? I.E. emailing people and saying "hey, I have this awesome website, your readers would find it useful" sort of thing? Love to hear your opinion!
Link Building | | endlessrange0 -
Great Content
Hello fellow Mozzers! I'm still new to the SEO game and have been doing lots of reading and research about SEO. From what I've learned nowadays it all comes down to great content and links that come from it. I have to admit I'm a visual learner, I need to see it to understand and learn better. I was hoping that someone can provide some examples of GREAT Content (whether its a blog post, page, article, etc...) I know EGOL is one of the most valuabe SEOMoz users and by reading his forum responses he always advises to write great content to build links... Hoping EGOL and other SEOMoz users would be so kind to share an example or two of what they think is great content. One more question (related). Since all the Google updates this year in regards to links and content, I've read numerous times on this Q&A forum that great content gets links, and that submitting articles to directories or buying links doesn't work anymore or at least not something that a whitehat SEO should implement for a long term strategy, does that mean that if you publish great content on your site that is informative, unique and valuable it will get you links without submitting to directories or buying links? Is it really that simple? Thank you in advance! Igor
Link Building | | igor.pinchevskiy0 -
Duplicate Free Press Release Submission
I know that free press release sites don't always do the best job at getting ones relates out there, but I had a thought. What if I were to submit the same release to say, ten free press release sites? Would that it at least give me ten backlinks from those sites alone? They'd be good backlinks since I'll be able to have the desired anchor text. Is that just another version of article spinning, or is it a good strategy for getting the release out there as much as possible? I'd value any of your opinions.
Link Building | | UnderRugSwept0 -
How Do You Monitor & Deal With Plagiarism Of Your Content?
Hi everyone - hope you can help. I have an e commerce store with lots of products. I write unique, original content for all of the products we sell. I must be doing a good job because I repeatedly find my content being used in blogs, word press sites, and pay per posts which then link back to competitors. I have the standard free copyscape logo pasted a the bottom of each page - hasn't deterred anyone. I'm now thinking about using some sort of a cookie based software and installing the code on each page so that when they lift my content and use it, it will send a link back to that page on my site. I have called numerous plagiarizers in the past and threatened to sue using the "Digital Millennium Copyright Act" phrase in the course of my conversation. It's tiresome. It's work. I am thinking after many years of frustration, that if I can't beat them I might as well try using this type of cookie based script/software approach to at least garner a link out it. And if the abuser catches it then maybe he'll stop mid stream and think twice about using...I mean copying my content. Is using this type of cookie/link back to us script a good or a bad idea? How do you all prevent your unique, original content from being used? And finally, if I'm looking at this from a positive link building standpoint (meaning, maybe I'm looking at it from the wrong angle), what is the best practice for garnering a link from this type of ongoing occurrence?
Link Building | | dmedirect_sbcglobal.net0 -
Duplicate content when uploading articles on other websites
Hi, We regularly write articles on our website and then submit them to different websites with link backs or sometimes without link backs. If google crawls these websites and our website, will it penalise us for duplicate content? Does it make a difference if we put link back to our site or not? If Google sees it as duplicate content, what should we do as a solution? Thanks
Link Building | | Essentia0