Sometimes I write a post for another site and then post the first 1/3rd on my site to help promote it. Is this a bad idea?
-
Sometimes I write a post for another site and then post the first 1/3rd on my site to help promote it. Is this a bad idea? When I do that should I be adding a canonical link to the original post? Should I have /make sure the 3rd party site does something? Is there anything else I should do?
Thanks in advance.
-
Leaving it as is is fine, although you can also properly rel=canonical it to the full post on the other domain if you or the publishing site want you to. I would probably do that.
Technically, it is considered duplicate content but google doesn't actually penalize for "duplicate" content per se. In cases such as yours, google just doesn't assign any ranking strength to the duplicate version--that is not the same as a penalty. So, if it is indexed first on the other site and/or that other site is a stronger site, or there is no intent to make money through monetizing copied content, google will just assign the value for that content to that other site.
https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2013/04/5-common-mistakes-with-relcanonical.html : We recommend the following best practices for using rel=canonical:
One test is to imagine you don’t understand the language of the content—if you placed the duplicate side-by-side with the canonical, does a very large percentage of the words of the duplicate page appear on the canonical page? If you need to speak the language to understand that the pages are similar; for example, if they’re only topically similar but not extremely close in exact words, the canonical designation might be disregarded by search engines.
- A large portion of the duplicate page’s content should be present on the canonical version.
https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/66359?hl=en Duplicate content on a site is not grounds for action on that site unless it appears that the intent of the duplicate content is to be deceptive and manipulate search engine results. If your site suffers from duplicate content issues, and you don't follow the advice listed above, we do a good job of choosing a version of the content to show in our search results.
“Duplicate content generally refers to substantive blocks of content within or across domains that either completely match other content or are appreciably similar. Mostly, this is not deceptive in origin…..” Google Webmaster Guidelines
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
-
Official Site label in Bing SERPs
A colleague noticed a few major brands have labels like "official site" in their Bing listings and they also seem to get a "Customer Service phone number" included as their rich snippet under the meta title. My guess was they possibly have schema mark-up on the page, but I was wondering if anyone else knows how else they could have landed this extra snippet? Thanks in advance! mveXoj7
Branding | | ATShock0 -
Niche sites migration into one authority site
I have multiple websites within the health niche. All 3 sites are about different topics: protein powder, superfoods, and sustainable products. I am thinking about migrating those 3 sites into 1 big site, to establish more authority and for branding purposes. But since those domains are exact match domains, and those exact keywords are pretty high volume, I'm not sure if it's a good idea. Will this be a good idea from a traffic/conversion/seo standpoint? Or should I make a header on top where people can 'switch' between those 3 sites? Or just leave them seperate?
Branding | | mrdjdevil0 -
Getting Traffic to a New Website - Looking for Ideas
I am working with a company that is launching a brand new website (for a new business they are creating). I am wondering what things people have done to try to start building traffic and/or awareness for the site.
Branding | | TopFloor0 -
Ideas for highly specific digital marketing?
I have a client that wants to get highly specific with their digital marketing (SEO, Paid, and Social). In their business each sale is big enough that we've even been talked about creating specific targeting campaigns around one decision maker within a company. I can't share too much more information, so I'm hoping that makes sense. My question is this: What are some ideas for getting hyper focused with digital marketing? Most of my ideas for this utilize paid advertising but we've come up with a few social and organic ideas as well. I just wanted to open a discussion to see what my Moz friends thought on the topic. Thanks in advance.
Branding | | HashtagJeff0 -
Tips For Promoting Content & Contacting Journalists
Hey, After months of working hard we have some great content on our website, and now seem to be getting into a flow of releasing content consistently. I think it's now time to shift a bit of focus onto getting more eyes lookng at it, and importantly the right eyes. Has anyone got any tips or advice? Kind Regards
Branding | | JonathanRolande0 -
Is having two websites that sell most of the same products a good idea?
Hi - Please read this in full before you answer. I currently own a website that sells kitchen cabinets and bathroom vanities that match the kitchens. This website has been operational since Arpil 2009 and we have built good rankings over the past 3 years. The site is operated on the Volusion platform (my mistake from the beginning, but we're kind of stuck now). We are in the process of designing a new website on the Magento platform - everything will be 100% different from look, speed, the way our customers shop, content, product skus, etc. The original plan was to keep the same domain but implement 301 redirects for subpages (subpage urls would have to change) and shut down the Volusion site and transfer the domain name to the Magento site. Our current website does make money right now and we would hate to lose rankings (even if only temporarily) during the switch or have something go wrong. What I am now thinking is keeping our current website on Volusion where it is currently making money and having the new Magento site have a new name/domain. The sites would sell most of the same products (the Magento site would sell more types of vanities and accessories though). The two sites would have different email addresses, phone numbers, and mailing addresses. Is it a bad idea to try and rank two websites selling pretty much the same thing? We have competitors out there that sell the same products as us, I would just prefer to compete with myself rather then someone else. Another issue is our name, one of our competitors names is extremely close to ours and we rank for pretty much all of the same keywords and customers get us mixed up all the time. This other site would have a different name (one that makes more sense). I want to make a decision that will not come back and bite us later. I know there are a lot of bigger sites that operate tons of niche sites, and of these website could eventually be similar to that. I really appreciate your help and guidance! Thanks
Branding | | tyler7560 -
Is duplicating video across several sites a bad thing?
Hi, We have a fairly successful YouTube Channel where we create unique and helpful videos that are related to our core business activity. When we create these videos would you consider it a bad thing to not only post them on YouTube but also a couple of the smaller sites such as Metacafe and Dailymotion? Sending to multiple sites would possibly achieve more total views but would this kind of duplication potentially be harmful to the overall success of the video and have a knock on effect when it comes to how it ranks in Google? Thanks for your help.
Branding | | ChrisHolgate0 -
+1 url or group?
For seo reasons is it better to have: +1's on your profile on google+ +1's on the website +1 button I believe both are different, getting a +1 on your site does not add to the number on your profile and vise versa? Any advice much appreciated.
Branding | | pauledwards0