I allow authority sites to republish my blog articles, which then outrank me
-
Hey everyone. This is my first question here, I apologize if it has been covered before.
I have a health and nutrition blog [authority nutrition] that has been up since December 1st, 2012.
I've managed to write quite a few viral articles which have given me a bunch of natural links and a domain authority of 49, which I think is pretty great for such a new site.
Haven't done any link building and everything is 100% white hat. Getting good rankings and good traffic already, so I can't complain.
My only (1st world) problem is that sometimes major authority sites (DA of 70-95) republish my content. I always say yes if they ask me first, but some of them just republish without even asking. My articles are always indexed on my blog before they get republished, but it doesn't seem to make a difference.
These sites always clearly link to the original URL, but they often tend to outrank me for the keywords I was targeting in the articles. They tend to rank in the top 5, but my original article is nowhere to be found.
I plan on continuing to allow these sites to republish as I get powerful links and good traffic from them, but it's a bit frustrating that I don't seem to get the credit as the original source. I've already set up Google Authorship, but it doesn't seem to help.
Is there anything I can do to make sure Google recognizes my article as the original and chooses to rank my site instead of the authority site that simply republished my article?
-
In reality this isn't a huge issue IF you either get them to provide a snippet of the content (first paragraph) with a link to your article to be able to read more OR you ask them to set your site's content page as canonical. This will show Google that your content is the original version.
The chances of getting another site to set up canonical tags just for you are quite frankly slim. Their sites are probably automated and not manually edited.
Personally I prefer to write something completely unique on the high profile site.
-
Have you found many willing to use a cross domain canonical tag?
-
Allowing them to republish your content is fine! If you see Moz’s blogs gets republished on several different sites... and same is the case with Mashable!
I believe what you really should do is to request them to use cross domain canonical and this will be a clear hint to Google that which is the original version of content and Google will rank the original version instead of the duplication one!
Hope this helps!
-
Great question. I, too, thought that setting up Google authorship was supposed to prevent this from happening. I have the same problem with both legitimate republishing and with scrapers who sometimes get ranked higher even when posting just part of my articles. Also, my Google plus blurbs and links to my articles get ranked in the #1 spot and my original article will end up on page 10. Google is whacky ...
-
Don't give another site permission to republish content that you've already published. In these instances, Google is going to pick one to serve it's users because it's duplicate content.
Instead, establish yourself as a guest blogger on the sites that are interested in your content and create something that's unique for them.
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
-
Tool to identify duplicated content on other sites
Hi does anyone know of a tool that could be used to identify if a site is using our content without permission? Thanks
Content Development | | turismodevino10 -
Breaking a Big Website into Multiple Unrelated Sites
I have a big cluttered website that I want to simplify. There is content for patients, researchers, therapists who are looking for grants, etc.. Would it be a bad ideas to turn these into 3 or more, completely different sites with each focused on their specific demographic? Or should I just figure out how to organize the one site better? Thanks for your help!!!
Content Development | | bosleypalmer0 -
How to promote your blog content
Hi there, we've been blogging for a while now. Some of our content ranks quit well, other posts don't seem to be ranking at all. The weird thing (I think it's weird...) is that we recently published a post and focussed on a phrase that competes with over 400 million indexed pages, and after 3 weeks we're on page 3, and for other posts with only 2.5 million indexed pages we rank past page 5 (ok, this post is already 1,5 year old, does this matter?). To give you some background info, we moved our blog in January in a new subdomain, and redirected the old url's, but didn't actively promote the old posts. Would promoting the old articles through social media help us boost the rankings for these articles (the articles are "best practices", "how-to's", ...). Where / how do you promote your content after you published it on your blog? I find it hard posting in LinkedIn groups related to finance while I have the "online marketing manager" title on my profile. Why would a finance professional read an article shared by a marketing dude? As LinkedIn's API doensn't allow to post into groups anymore, do you actually go through all your relevant groups every time you publish a new blog to share the article?
Content Development | | jorisbrabants1 -
Is Publishing Content from a Book to your Site Considered Duplicate Content?
It is a book we don't own, either. Would you need to somehow find the original and rel=canonical it? Or is this just all around bad to do? Thanks.
Content Development | | ThridHour0 -
How Does Traffic Reach My Blog?
I've posted a few articles on my website blog page, but one particular blog receives a lot more traffic than the others. How, where and why do people find that particulat article over the others? http://www.salesandinternetmarketing.com/saim/blog
Content Development | | lindsayjhopkins0 -
Can someone define what a low quality blog is supposed to look like?
I know the recent Google update devalued a lot of low quality blogs, but i'm having a hard time understanding what can be considered low quality? My site is www.247VirtualAssistant.com and it wa sitting in the top 3 for all my keywords(virtual assistant, virtual assistants etc etc). Last month everything tanked and now on the 2nd and 3rd page for my keywords. I'm thinking this is because of a lot of my links got devalued but with my limited SEO knowledge, i'm having a hard time identifiyng these. Please help!
Content Development | | Shajan0 -
Blog question
If i attempt to split the blog and main site, how can Google recognize they are both owned by the same person.
Content Development | | seoug_20050 -
Site structure question
I'm doing a site that will have many many pages.
Content Development | | OxzenMedia
Now I have heard that you get more seo value if its a lower tear so for example: site.com/product rather than site.com/brand/subbrand/product Is this correct? Should I structure my site like this? site.com/product
site.com/brand points to site.com/product (so all products are on the sub root.) Does that make sense?0