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Having two sets of ad copy does effectively solve the Google issue, but it creates two non-Google issues, both of which are potentially costly.  For example:

1. I have to write new copy for them which costs time and money, and even then they may still not use it, which creates enforcement issues.

2. If it's substantially different copy (and possibly inferior, because let's face it, it's hard to write two sets of good compelling copy on the same item), then it may not convert as well, which means they sell less... and we sell less

I'm not saying you can't solve my original problem with this method.  I'm just saying that there are some very real costs to take into consideration

Hey guys, thanks for all the fast responses!

I thought I remembered reading something about a technical method for demonstrating to Google that your version of content is the original version.  Is there a way to do that?

And yeah, we could ask them to change their behavior (or require it), but there are costs to both and I'm wondering if there's a more effective solution (such as the possibly mythical one above).

We write our own product descriptions for merchandise we sell on our website.  However, we also work with drop-shippers, and some of them simply take our content and post it on their site (same photos, exact ad copy, etc...).  I'm concerned that we'll loose the value of our content because Google will consider it duplicated.

We don't want the value of our content undermined... What's the best practice for avoiding any problems with Google?

Thanks,

Adam

Personally, I think unique visits are more relevant then visits.  If you go back to the example I used in my original question, if 1 person visits my site 100 times before making their purchase, it makes sense to me that my conversion rate is measured as 100%, and it doesn't make sense that the conversion rate was 1%.  Now that's my opinion, however I don't want to measure my conversion rates that way if the industry measures it a completely different way.

Though after I re-read your response I'm beginning to think that you're saying something very similar to Kevin Budzynski, which is that you can measure two different things if you look at visits and unique visits.  That's a good point.  I'll have to think about this more - but I suppose my other question continues to stand, which is, is there an industry standard?

We are planning to measure both for pretty much that reason.  Yet, that doesn't tell me which (if either) is an industry standard in ecommerce.  Understanding the industry standard is important if I want to understand how my conversion rates stack up against other merchants in the industry.

When you measure conversion rates, is the equation:

1. conversion rate = visits/conversions

or

2. conversion rate = unique visits/conversions

I ask because it can actually make a pretty big difference in the conversion rate.  For example, if you visit my ecommerce website 100 times before buying something (and assuming you're my only visitor), then my conversion rate is 100% _if I'm determining conversion rates by unique visits/conversions.  _However, it's only 1% _if I'm determining conversion rates by visits/conversions.  _Wow!

Now this is clearly an extreme example, but it should serve to illustrate the point that in more reasonable cases, the way the data is measured can have a potentially significant impact on the conversion rate.

Is there an industry standard for this?

Am I missing something really basic?

Also, here's a little bit of context for the question:

I run an ecommerce website powered by the Magento CMS and I'm trying to measure my conversion rate in Google Analytics for individual products.  Google Analytics shows me my site wide conversion rate, but apparently I have to do some customization in order to measure conversion rates on the product level.  That's fine, but I want to make sure I'm measuring my product conversions in a standard way.

Thanks for any and all help!

Adam