Image Duplication
-
I'm feeling strong!
Ok, so can Google penalise a website which has "duplicated images" - coming from a completely independent website?
-
Gary,
I'm not even sure their algorithms can automatically detect duplicate images purely by the image visually. As a forensic audit professional I have not seen this. Where I would have concern is from a manual reviewer perspective. Google employs a large network of manual reviewers, so in that scenario it would be possible for detection of duplication of images.
Again though, what matters is context. If they are on a site where the majority of content is not those specific images, and if that site is a quality site that offers unique value to site visitors, this should not be a problem or a concern.
-
Hi Alan
How does Google sniff out a piece of photography which has been purchased from a stock website, to the same image taken from Google images and used for advertising? Same picture sourced ethically and unethically. At the moment I'm unable to give my client a straight answer.
-
stock images are just that - stock - used by many. So given all the other factors, it's not a problem in this instance.
-
Hi Alan
The images come from reputable sources like shutter stock, or corbis. Some images we've purchased on behalf of our client have been seen elsewhere, so my brain tells me it's duplicated material?
I know Google's policy it to have everything ethically, no cutting corners, but surely this is standard practice?
-
Google can penalize (American spelling) just about any site they want to for just about any reason. That's the unfortunate reality of Google's power.
However the bigger issue is what are the specific circumstances that might make it more likely Google would have a problem with a site like this?
Is the site dependent on images as a significant portion of content?
What volume is this (a few dozen images, hundreds, thousands)?
Are the images legitimately duplicated (is there a violation of copyright taking place)?
Is the site attempting to get their copy of those images ranked in the Google Images index?
These are just the first few questions that need to be answered to determine the potential for a problem.
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
-
Another Duplicate Content - eCommerce Question!
We are manufacturers of about 15 products and our website provides information about the products. We also offer them for sale on the site. Recently we partnered with a large eCommerce site that sells many of these types of products. They lifted descriptions from our site for theirs and are now selling our products. They have higher DA than us. Will this cause a ranking problem for us? Should we write unique descriptions for them? Thanks!
Technical SEO | | Chris6610 -
Does duplicate content not concern Rand?
Hello all, I'm a new SEOer and I'm currently trying to navigate the layman's minefield that is trying to understand duplicate content issues in as best I can. I'm working on a website at the moment where there's a duplicate content issue with blog archives/categories/tags etc. I was planning to beat this by implementing a noindex meta tag on those pages where there are duplicate content issues. Before I go ahead with this I thought: "Hey, these Moz guys seem to know what they're doing! What would Rand do?" Blogs on the website in question appear in full and in date order relating to the tag/category/what-have-you creating the duplicate content problem. Much like Rand's blog here at Moz - I thought I'd have a look at the source code to see how it was dealt with. My amateur eyes could find nothing to help answer this question: E.g. Both the following URLs appear in SERPs (using site:moz,com and very targeted keywords, but they're there): https://moz.com/rand/does-making-a-website-mobile-friendly-have-a-universally-positive-impact-on-mobile-traffic/ https://moz.com/rand/category/moz/ Both pages have a rel="canonical" pointing to themselves. I can understand why he wouldn't be fussed about the category not ranking, but the blog? Is this not having a negative effect? I'm just a little confused as there are so many conflicting "best practice" tips out there - and now after digging around in the source code on Rand's blog I'm more confused than ever! Any help much appreciated, Thanks
Technical SEO | | sbridle1 -
Can we use images from the internet of celebrities?
Hi, Can we use images from the internet of celebrities? We have a Indian celebrity website. Can we use images from other websites? Would that be legal? as 100's of sites use them? Should i have them no index ? or no follow pages? Thanks
Technical SEO | | jomin740 -
Tips and duplicate content
Hello, we have a search site that offers tips to help with search/find. These tips are organized on the site in xml format with commas... of course the search parameters are duplicated in the xml so that we have a number of tips for each search parameter. For example if the parameter is "dining room" we might have 35 pieces of advice - all less than a tweet long. My question - will I be penalized for keyword stuffing - how can I avoid this?
Technical SEO | | acraigi0 -
How can something be duplicate content of itself?
Just got the new crawl report, and I have a recurring issue that comes back around every month or so, which is that a bunch of pages are reported as duplicate content for themselves. Literally the same URL: http://awesomewidgetworld.com/promotions.shtml is reporting that http://awesomewidgetworld.com/promotions.shtml is both a duplicate title, and duplicate content. Well, I would hope so! It's the same URL! Is this a crawl error? Is it a site error? Has anyone seen this before? Do I need to give more information? P.S. awesomewidgetworld is not the actual site name.
Technical SEO | | BetAmerica0 -
Is there ever legitimate near duplicate content?
Hey guys, I’ve been reading the blogs and really appreciate all the great feedback. It’s nice to see how supportive this community is to each other. I’ve got a question about near duplicate content. I’ve read a bunch of great post regarding what is duplicate content and how to fix it. However, I’m looking at a scenario that is a little different from what I’ve read about. I’m not sure if we’d get penalized by Google or not. We are working with a group of small insurance agencies that have combined some of their back office work, and work together to sell the same products, but for the most part act as what they are, independent agencies. So we now have 25 different little companies, in 25 different cities spread across the southeast, all selling the same thing. Each agency has their own URL, each has their own Google local places registration, their own backlinks to their local chambers, own contact us and staff pages, etc. However, we have created landing pages for each product line, with the hopes of attracting local searches. While we vary each landing page a little per agency (the auto insurance page in CA talks about driving down the 101, while the auto insurance page in Georgia says welcome to the peach state) probably 75% of the land page content is the same from agency to agency. There is only so much you can say about specific lines of insurance. They have slightly different titles, slightly different headers, but the bulk of the page is the same. So here is the question, will Google hit us with a penalty for having similar content across the 25 sites? If so, how do you handle this? We are trying to write create content, and unique content, but at the end of the day auto insurance in one city is pretty much the same as in another city. Thanks in advance for your help.
Technical SEO | | mavrick0 -
Duplicate content, Original source?
Hi there, say i have two websites with identicle content. website a had content on before website b - so will be seen as the original source? If the content was intended for website b, would taking it off a then make the orinal source to google then go to website b? I want website b to get the value of the content but it was put on website a first - would taking it off website a then give website b the full power of the content? Any help of advice much appreciated. Kind Regards,
Technical SEO | | pauledwards0 -
Duplicate content connundrum
Hey Mozzers- I have a tricky situation with one of my clients. They're a reputable organization and have been mentioned in several major news articles. They want to create a Press page on their site with links to each article, but they want viewers to remain within the site and not be redirected to the press sites themselves. The other issue is some of the articles have been removed from the original press sites where they were first posted. I want to avoid duplicate content issues, but I don't see how to repost the articles within the client's site. I figure I have 3 options: 1. create PDFs (w/SEO-friendly URLs) with the articles embedded in them that open in a new window. 2. Post an image with screenshot of article on a unique URL w/brief content. 3. Copy and paste the article to a unique URL. If anyone has experience with this issue or any suggestions, I would greatly appreciate it. Jaime Brown
Technical SEO | | JamesBSEO0