Will some duplicate content hurt my rankings?

tobyd · #1 (**permalink**) 07-25-2006, 08:08 PM

I'm just about finished with new section of my site found here: http://www.signspecialist.com/journal/ It is a journal / blog that will be used (a) as a sells pitch to potential customers and (b) for fresh content for the search engines to chew on. But, by the nature of the journal (displays of previous sign designs), some content (whole paragraphs) will be duplicated hundreds of times (once in each entry).

A few questions about this. 1. Will this duplicate content hurt my rankings overall? 2. Or will this just negate the advantage I'm seeking from this section of the site (fresh content for the search engines) 3. Or finally, will this section be a 'good thing' for business and the duplicate content, which is not spam, be overlooked by the search engines?

Any thoughts? Again, the section in question is found here: http://www.signspecialist.com/journal/

Toby Adams
www.signspecialist.com

steven bradley · #2 (**permalink**) 07-25-2006, 08:34 PM

tobyd, I don't think it will hurt it, especially if like your journal says you will be updating it daily with new designs. I'm hoping someone will confirm what I think here as I'm fairly new to this site, but I think some repetition isn't a bad thing. Take for example articles that are available to others for free providing you include the authors name - if duplicate content appears on different sites, providing it is minimal I believe works. One thing though you mention that some of the content will be duplicated hundreds of times.

Do you mean the sections - "Custom Street Signs: To order a similar ’street sign’ or your own custom design made to your specifications, check out our ’street sign’ ordering page."

If so, its not really needed at least not at the top of each article. Reference it at the top of the page and put anchor text for each one above the article- IE Street Signs or Truck Lettering. I can see what you are trying to do, but personally if its a journal that you are adding to daily anyway, why not just vary that text?

I think the Journal will work though, its a good way to display samples of your signs. I like it.

steven bradley · #3 (**permalink**) 07-25-2006, 08:41 PM

Actually, does anyone know if articles written and submitted to free article sites do have a negative effect on a site?

I mean I can see why people do it - its a good way for the site writing the content to get back links- generally relevant ones too. And for the person using the content, its a good way for them to have fresh content - but what happens if an article is so popular its plastered over say 500 sites. Do any of the search engines take notice? Is it purely a size thing? Google doesn't seem to like duplicate sites - IS there a point where articles become redundant?

A. Smith · #4 (**permalink**) 07-26-2006, 12:32 AM

Toby,
I know this is not answering your question, but I looked at your site and you have some really cool designs in your truck lettering. Sending you a PM when I decide what I want ;).

internet-marketing-cr · #5 (**permalink**) 07-26-2006, 11:48 AM

Hi tobyd,

There are different aspects that are factored by SE algorithms such as: number and quality of related inbound links, age of the website, quality and updating of content, etc, in order to give your website a placement in their serp's.

I don´t think duplicate content will hurt your rankings, neither is going o help, it is said that you won't rank well for dup content.

It all depends on what your goals are, if you have a brand new website you'll want to try to have as much original content as you can. The problem is when you have duplicate websites or duplicate url's. But if you want to boost your rankings try to have as much unique content as you can.

tobyd · #6 (**permalink**) 07-26-2006, 12:44 PM

Good information. We should be safe. The duplicate content, for the most part*, does not have any keywords at all. We feel the duplicate phrases are needed needed to show how we reply to each order. We have standard comments that preface the design layout. These standard comments are always the same - so the duplicate content worry. But, sense these phrases do not include any keywords for out sites we should be safe.

*After steven bradley mentioned it, it was true we had included a little tag line (sells pitch to the ordering pages) on EVERY entry. This might be viewed as keyword stuffing. We'll remove this before tying this section into the site.

Any other wisdom on this concern is welcome. Again, thanks for the good information.

jayadkins · #7 (**permalink**) 07-29-2006, 02:42 AM

I'm glad you asked this question because I have seen varying information about duplicate content. Some say it doesn't hurt the overall ranking and some say it does.

I've often wondered about that because in the past, I've placed syndicated content from other sites into sites I was building and I never noticed a problem with Google

**incrediblehelp** · #8 (**permalink**) 07-29-2006, 04:30 PM

Duplicate content copied from someone else and displayed one another website doesn't hurt. Google simply picks one to show and not the others. The problem is sometimes they pick the wrong website to list and not yours. Google is stupid sometimes.

Now if your duplicating content within the same website it is pretty unique on what could happen. I have seen it effect SERPs for some clients and sometimes not at all. Google would simply show one version of the content and not the other. In the case of my personal SEM blog I occasionally get duplicate pages picked up by Google because they will miscrawl/misread the permalink code in the htaccess file written by Word Press.

jayadkins · #9 (**permalink**) 08-01-2006, 10:32 AM

Thanks! A good little bit of knowledge to have.

Webnauts · #10 (**permalink**) 08-01-2006, 12:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by incrediblehelp

Google would simply show one version of the content and not the other.

Jaan are you sure? I thought that Google will grant PR only for the one page, and mainly the one crawled first. I never heard of any of them being de-indexed.

**incrediblehelp** · #11 (**permalink**) 08-01-2006, 12:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Webnauts

Quote:

Originally Posted by incrediblehelp

Google would simply show one version of the content and not the other.

Jaan are you sure? I thought that Google will grant PR only for the one page, and mainly the one crawled first. I never heard of any of them being de-indexed.

ugggh. They show one version higher than the other. It is not de-indexed. I am sure it is in their index or supplemental index somewhere, but most of the time the "secondary" version of of content will never show up in results, while the other verison will.