Duplicate Content - Myths or Mythunderstandings?

[mjtaylor]

A few weeks ago, WPN published an article titled Google Busts the Duplicate Content Myth and I have seen a couple of comments lately which indicate some folks seem to think duplicate content is no longer an issue.

I started to wonder: is it really no longer an issue or are there certain types of duplicate content that don’t matter and some that still do?

My understanding is that there is no penalty, per se, for duplicate content, Google simply chooses one page to return in SERPs, depending on the searched term. So, product pages are not an issue.

But if I have a page that’s scraped, it appears that Google gives less weight to the original publication than to links. So if the scraped page gets more links than my page, my original page is thrown into the supplemental index and I must take the time to make a formal complaint … or rewrite my content.

I’d like to hear what our current members are experiencing with duplicate content issues.

Also wanted to share this page I ran across for those who want to do a little more technical explorations of how search engines deal with duplicate content: Google Process for Detecting Near Duplicate Content.

To Original Ideas!

MJ

[mjtaylor]

No one has any feedback on duplicate content?

[SuperMan]

I have some feedback.

I have abandoned the idea of duplicate content for a long time now after reading some feedback from many webmasters. I personally dont feel that there is any penalty applied for duplicate content, but Google will only index 1 copy ... and yes its true that copy doesnt necessarily have to be the first out there.

It is important to pay attention to the supplemental index and to identify which pages lie there. I would rework the content on those pages to get them indexed. If you have 200 pages on your site, your goal is to have 200 pages indexed in Google with 0 pages in the supplemental.

I simply don't worry about duplicate content and a penaly around it - I feel this is a myth.

[Doc]

No one has any feedback on duplicate content?

Hi, MJ-

While I've never (yet) had it happen to me, I know that some folks seem to get scraped with frustrating regularity. If my writing style improves enough to make me a target, I'll worry about it then.

However, from what statements I have seen from Google, it doesn't seem to be a major issue with them, certainly not in terms of penalization. That seems to just be one more of the myths that simply refuse to die.

My assessment is the same as yours.

[Ace]

According to me Google treats content from News, Blog and Websites differently, If you have copied news with slight or no modification then even you came on TOP beating original news source and same is the case with Blog post but if you have copied content on website then Google will retain the original website on TOP.

[Doc]

According to me Google treats content from News, Blog and Websites differently, If you have copied news with slight or no modification then even you came on TOP beating original news source and same is the case with Blog post but if you have copied content on website then Google will retain the original website on TOP.

Interesting theory, Ace. Did you do any testing to determine that, or is it just from casual observation? It would seem to me to be difficult for Google to reliably differentiate between blogs and webpages, since all blogs aren't at xxx.wordpress or xxx.blogspot.

[mjtaylor]

According to me Google treats content from News, Blog and Websites differently, If you have copied news with slight or no modification then even you came on TOP beating original news source and same is the case with Blog post but if you have copied content on website then Google will retain the original website on TOP.

Huh? This paragraph doesn't make sense to me. Could you please restate that?

In what case are you saying Google keeps the original indexed? I've had copy scraped and lost indexing of the original page.

[Ace]

Interesting theory, Ace. Did you do any testing to determine that, or is it just from casual observation? It would seem to me to be difficult for Google to reliably differentiate between blogs and webpages, since all blogs aren't at xxx.wordpress or xxx.blogspot.

Yes, I had done a detailed testing on content from Blog, Website and News, Later came to know that Google has different Ranking Algorithm for News which don't bother about duplicate content.

[Ace]

In what case are you saying Google keeps the original indexed? I've had copy scraped and lost indexing of the original page.

Are you sure that your page lost indexing because someone has copied your content ? As their may be some other reasons behind it. Because I have never seen any such case, Google always respect the original content and cannot de-index it, if your content is not a part of news website or blog post. I hope this is clear to you?