Duplicate Content is Costly – A Blogger Bedtime Story
From Veronika Nagy
Let me tell you a story of a well-intentioned young blogger who thought it would be “genius” to “syndicate” his content among a number of different platforms and mediums thinking it would help drive traffic to content that was both meaningful and valuable to those particular niches and communities.
The plan was well thought out, carefully crafted, and deployed swiftly over the span of just one weekend. By the end of the first week everything was going beautifully and he content was being published in more than 10 top-tier blogging networks.
But all was not well. Oh, no, not nearly.
Within 168 hours, though, this young ambitious blogger had completely disappeared off the information superhighway. He simply did not “exist” and Google, the judge, jury, and executioner, flexed it’s monstrous power over the frightened young blogger dude.
He learned a valuable lesson that day: Google hates duplicate content. Had he but known…!
Fast forward 8 years later.
The older, much wiser blogger, now has learned a thing or two about the Google Search Monster, and the apparent algorithms involved, and has learned to be it’s master (or to a certain degree). He now champions SEO strategy and likes to help others be “wise” about their engagement.
And yes, this story is about me.
You see, I want so desperately for your content to be indexed (strongly), searched, and viewed. Why? Because you have something valuable to say and to share. Just don’t do it by duplicating your content in more than one medium or platform!
I still see this done today. And it’s bad.
For example, Digital @ Leadership Network needs to seriously reconsider their strategy for blogging and how they are publishing content.
Check out the following screencaps of content that is 100% verbatim duplicate content from the author’s independent/invidual blogging site and cut and pasted into Digital’s blog network [First image is the author's and the second is it's publication on Digital Leadership Network]:
Google’s reaction to this type of stuff is bad. Take my story for example. What we see is near 100% duplicate content being published on the same day on entirely different mediums and platforms.
The effect is costly. In fact, some initial preliminary keyword searching for Digital Lead’s content plugs result in extremely poor SEO results.
The worst thing? Everyone related to the network has suffered. Because of Google’s indexing robots, they attach “relationships” between sites via links and this “relational capital” is then factored in the power and effectiveness of the results. The fallout is diluted brand and poor ranking.
With over 10 bloggers in the network, many whom have duplicated content, the result is a little short of devastating.
Now, to be quite fair, I’ve already identified a number of Christian blogging networks that have poorly passed this test; Digital is certainly not the only one.
I’m “calling out” Digital in love, because ultimately I want all of them, who are very valuable bloggers, to rank well in SEO and perform optimally for themselves, the ministries and organizations they serve, and the people whom they will serve through their blogs.
And, I want to offer my help. Ultimately we’re on the same team. Let’s make it the very best, shall we?
For starters, perhaps one could read Google’s take on what “duplicate” content is all about? Probably a good place to start.
Let me know, I’m here as a resource!
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19 Responses to “Duplicate Content is Costly – A Blogger Bedtime Story”
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what about "walled gardens" like facebook? I was under the impression that google didn't index anything on facebook except profiles. Am I wrong?
You are wrong.
you can declare google not to search.
John, you're a freakin' hero to me. I'm pretty new to it all, but I read your blog every day and I'm learning, growing and I'm really thankful for your work. Thanks man!
Dude, just spread the love man. pass it on. educate others. spread the gospel.
oh, and thank you for being a part of this community!
man, funny thing is that I had some guy comment (an essay) on my blog only to find that it was the same comment word for word on a different blog.
Sad thing is that I have done it twice before, written the content in two different blogs, hmmm
ha ha ha, the duplicate post was not intentional, although it's kind of funny – umm I think
google!
All good… there is hope!
Interesting post. My wife was just approached after winning a publicity package for her new book. The promo included a "press release" style blog blast. Many different bloggers taking the release and including it as a post.
I think duplicate content has its place when it can be used for a very specific project like this. Simply for a short period of time, without much interest in the posts being syndicated for the history of the web to see. Like everything else, I think it has its moments to shine and moments to be used incorrectly (as you have shown here in a good example).
I have customers that I have warned about this forever. It generally falls on deaf ears until their rankings start plummeting (and subsequent traffic as well). And then I have to say "told you so" amongst cries of "what can I do to get better rankings…". Makes me want to pull my hair out sometimes.
Wow nice discovery and excellent article. Liked the little story you had to tell about the Google monster! That was hilarious. I already knew what you were telling me but the way you told it made me read more and more until i reached the end. Here you go folks, a classic example of a entertaining blogger. Keep it up and pop by my blog sometime.
Thanks man! nice blog…!
Wow! Good info. Thanks! I've just started been asked this week, in fact, to expand my posting onto a few sites. I will be very careful not to double post but mainly point people to the other posts. THANKS.
Word. keep it real…!
Send 'em the post now. Save some hairs. …
hehe
i feel you on this though.
certainly. in wisdom, right?
Great post!!
Even I came to know about this the hard way. My blog had some popular posts with good amount of traffic.I thought that submitting them to some sites will help in increasing my traffic.
But instead , those pages disappeared from google results and were replaced by other sites' results where I had submitted those posts.
Experience is the best teacher!!
seriously! thanks for stopping by!