A question on duplicate content

[kevE]

I'm wondering how SEs and Google in particular view a single data source being used on a number of sites. To be more specific, a supplier providing a list of product codes and descriptions to be used by various sites. The sites would be independant and other content would therefore be different but the product information would for a major part of any dynamic pages which could be seen as a duplication.

[EricTransue]

Kevin, my experience is that duplicate content only matters if the duplicate content is on the same site. For instance, if you have two pages that have very similar content on www.yoursite.com. I'm sure others will argue otherwise, but I have seen great rankings from 2 different pages of mine with the same content on two different sites. However, when I have had the same content on 2 different pages of the same site of mine, I only see one of them get ranked.

Hope that helps.

[articlemaster9]

Originally Posted by EricTransue

when I have had the same content on 2 different pages of the same site of mine, I only see one of them get ranked.

Hope that helps.

Thats simply because SE index'd only one page. It will only show that page which is indexed first and the second page is not indexed as it is duplicate of the first page.

[Tubby]

KevE. You say there will be a number of sites drawing data from a single source.

Does it matter how google treats multiple use of the same data? Presumably there will still be the need to create multiple sites.

Do not worry about google. concentrate on getting the sites drawing the content to concentrate on selling the items. . . Google quite often does not know its ass from its head. If the problems that concerns you actually happens (unlikely In my opinion) get back to WPW and let us have a second look.

Nobody can predict what might happen without a good close look at the sites and how they have used the supplied content.

My opinion
The sites would have to be extremely clumsily built to give you problems

[ctabuk]

Tubby as is so very often is the case, spot on here. I saw 5 top search results on Google, all different URL's but all carried virtually the same site description taken from various inner pages. Answer that one!! Actually I can, a lot of them were variations of wiki quotes on the subject matter. I do not support people zooming into wiki and cut and pasting info, but the problem is - it happens more and more. But, I think that is not professional practice. I am certainly not saying that it will do your site any favours. We just live in a cut and paste world.

[innominds]

You mean to say the site that enjoys the authority status will get benefited?

[ctabuk]

Well think about it. Google has come out and said, we are not that bothered about duplicate content - or could that be a Matt Cutts soundbite? I would not personally risk doing it (not without a great deal of editing and adding fresh content) but the word plagiarism seems not to be in the Google language.

[MediaPrecision]

A client of mine has a new site, it draws its description from open range. We have managed to surpass the competition so here is evendence that sites offering the same content as others can still rank highly. If you have duplcate content on your own site you can use the canonical tag to let the search engines which is the mater and which is duplicate.

<link rel="canonical" href="http://www.website.com/category/product-page">

[wige]

I personally don't think that the syndication of content will necessarily detract from your site's ability to rank. After all, data feeds and web services are constantly being created for the explicit purpose of making more data more portable to more sites. A great example is news sites. How many sites have pages built on the exact same AP news story syndicated from the AP feed? These pages all still show up in Google because they are surrounded by different links to related stories, different reader comments, different media and even different page layouts.

What Google is really working to eliminate is complete duplication, where a site is copied exactly, with the addition or replacement of a few ads on a caching proxy site. These are spam sites that try to make money off of plagerized web sites, and when they show up in the listings they reduce the overall user experience. Google does seem to be improving, but is far from perfect at detecting and eliminating these sites currently. It can be tricky to figure out through a completely automated process which is the proxy and which is the original site.

[kronikmedia]

It will be OK as long as your site also has some original content along with the syndicated content that you will use your website i.e form feeds, etc.. The full content on the web page or website should not be duplicate. Its perfectly fine to use part of the content regenreated form other data sources.

[deepsand]

Consider, for example, the number of sites that contain historically fixed and therefore identical content, content that is in the public domain, such as the US Constitution, the Magna Carta, the US Declaration of Independence, the Gettysburg Address, countless literary works, song lyrics, etc., all of which rank quite well.

Were duplicate content universally ignored, with but one site alone being recognized as the legitimate provider of such, the SE's published indices would be greatly reduced in size.

[emps]

Originally Posted by kevE

I'm wondering how SEs and Google in particular view a single data source being used on a number of sites. To be more specific, a supplier providing a list of product codes and descriptions to be used by various sites. The sites would be independant and other content would therefore be different but the product information would for a major part of any dynamic pages which could be seen as a duplication.

As could be the instances of marketing networks offering same promotional brand material to its publishers (affiliates),in which case these duplicated contents, text,image,links,banners, copywritten descriptions,java, html code snippets,would be pasted on hundreds to thousands of websites.

To use these to advantage without any negative reaction from SE's, subtlety would be required. Inserted in content that is relevant and useful with descretion,meaning dont overdo publishing the page advertising using these various forms. I have experienced
no adverse ranking or penalisation in the past from Google etc,using common sense in the issue. i believe if the content generally is useful and rates ranking well,the other dupe stuff is ignored.

[logico]

Dont worry duplicate is a myth...You should worry abt duplicate content, especially same titles in same websites

[ChiefLee]

You know, just this week I submitted the same press release to about two dozen press release distribution sites. By Friday, I was already finding about 10 of them in the SERPs when I searched for our company name. Same content on different sites. Many showing up in SERPs.

If you've got enough other unique content around the duplicate content, you can still get them all in the SERPs.

I think Google's comments about duplicate content have really been overblown and misinterpreted.

[innominds]

Originally Posted by logico

Dont worry duplicate is a myth.

Can you tell me Where is it mentioned? It's not a myth most of the webmasters suffer from this problem.

[spodan]

you can add between head and body <link rel="canonical" href="" />
then you hasnt double connten

[danlefree]

Originally Posted by spodan

you can add between head and body <link rel="canonical" href="" />
then you hasnt double connten

Actually, you would want to add the link tag inside the head tags.

[eagag]

Using AI algorithm that can detect similarity and can flag your page as duplicate after certain level of similarity with other indexed content

[angilina]

Originally Posted by kevE

I'm wondering how SEs and Google in particular view a single data source being used on a number of sites. To be more specific, a supplier providing a list of product codes and descriptions to be used by various sites. The sites would be independant and other content would therefore be different but the product information would for a major part of any dynamic pages which could be seen as a duplication.

I think that if the duplicate content is only some codes etc, and that there is other unique content on pages, then this is not a big problem. Google do not like to see too many exact copies of pages across the internet.

If your site is taking this content and adding it in the site for the benefits of the users, then I guess it is ok and this is not duplicate content issue.

[jasonvthomas]

Some duplicate content is fine along with original content. The template that you will be posting it into would also be differrent, just keep the titles seperate and the body can be same if its an article.

[bijan814]

usually the most popular website with the most links becomes first even if they have duplicate content.
Lets a PR7 website uses duplicate content from a PR1 website. Google will use the PR7 content first