I was reading the recap Shawn Collins did of his trip to SMX on day one and a comment he made within it got my attention:
Some interesting revelations in the duplicate content session, such as Google’s Joachim Kupke saying there is no duplicate content penalty and that Google is “working on something to help ID a site as the original provider of content.”
Now, this actually isn’t a new revelation. Google has been giving explanations about how duplicate content doesn’t really cause a penalty for years now. When that statement was first made, webmasters were up in arms, and those with clients knowledgeable enough to attend conferences and read official Google blogs were receiving phone calls in droves. And it left those of us, who’d known this all along, with “some splaining to do.”
The problem is it really boils down to semantics to an extent. Let’s take a look at some hypothetical examples.
Example 1
Domain A writes a kick ass page on “rainbow widgets.” So kick ass, that domain B and C copy the content and reprint it.
Now, someone does a search for “rainbow widgets” and this kick ass article ranks at number three for the term. However, it is domain B that is considered the “original provider” of the content because their domain is older and more linked to, so it is domain B’s version of the article that shows at number three. The true original, on domain A, never shows for any search terms the article is relevant for, because anytime that article is deemed the “best” result, it is domain B’s version that appears.
I highly doubt domain A, the creator of the content, cares if it is called a “penalty” or “filtering to show the original.” Either way, they’re getting screwed due to duplicate content issues.
Example 2
An e-commerce site uses a datafeed provided by the manufacturer, that they give to all of their retailers, much like those I described when I talked about affiliate datafeeds recently. They publish the information without adding anything unique to it. The problem is, they are a newer merchant and the competitors using the very same datafeed have been around for years and have strong backlink profiles. Someone does a search for “red widgets for blue walls” and even though our new e-commerce merchant has a page for it, he never shows for the term because the stronger e-commerce sites are considered the “original.” They also experience a crawl slow down on their site because Google deems a lot of their internal pages “unimportant” because they are duplicates.
They don’t have a “penalty” but they can’t get traffic on long tail keywords directly to their product pages because they are always “filtered” for being duplicates of others by Google. As with example 1, they’re getting screwed due to duplicate content.
Issues, penalties and filtering…. oh my!
Whether you want to call them duplicate content “issues”, duplicate content “penalties” or “duplicate content filtering”, the adverse effects on your site and your rankings are still the same.
I typically say “issues” when referring to duplicate content, but “penalty” is something most clients understand at first shot. A penalty is bad. We understand a penalty is a problem. We’re willing to do anything to avoid a penalty. And I’d guess that is why a lot of people still refer to the issues duplicate content can bring on as one. Either way, don’t take Google saying “there is no penalty for duplicate content” as a sign that duplicate content “can’t hurt you.” It can.
About the Author
Rae Hoffman is the CEO and Co-Founder of Outspoken Media as well as the author of the often controversial Sugarrae Blog.
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{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
This is a topic I have not been too crazy about, simply because I’ve been the “Domain A” for a very long time. At nearly every conf. I’ve been to I’ve heard the ramblings and complaints with issues related to scraped content that outranks ones own, and unfortunately, googles seemingly minimal concern regarding the matter.
Content is ripped from the source, from rss feeds, from feedburner, and who knows where else. It’s like having friggin termites in your home, you know it’s bad and then one day you go and really take a look to find all your shit is showing up everywhere else but on your domain.
If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck it’s a duck. Just because Google says it’s not doesn’t mean that something fowl isn’t occurring.
I’ve also been “Domain A” for quite a while, as Google indexes my content on the sites of scumbag scrap sites first.
I have a daily bout of Google rage when I get my Google alerts for blogs and my newest post is showing for “Domain B” there and not for me.
So it’s an issue, penalty, filtering thing or whatever… do you know of a way to get Google to correct it?
You are talking about an inherent weakness in the Google algo, it’s foundation on links, and the way it assigns trust – it does this automatically via an algo.
I mean Wikipedia is the top of just about every information search on the planet, and this a directory that is created with little authoratative control.
Beacause of this as a pubisher, you can write the best stuff in the world, but if someone steals it and publishes it on stronger website, Google will assign that placement or position.
Over time it will correct itself.
As a webpublisher have a solid TOC and send out nasty letters – but don’t expect any comeback, and automate it as much as possible.
Best discussion yet on “duplicate content penalites.” Does this mean that SEO’s that advise your RSS to be Do Follow are just asking to be scraped? I was working in Yahoo pipes for a RSS mashup, but willit do any good SEO wise as no follow links? or is that 2 separate issues?
You may not be aware, but there is a big fight going on this very issue in the surreal land of Real Estate listings, the MLS and the Originating Brokers- the Domain A’s. Google has been called a “scraper” by the Minneapolis MLS, and the listing that appeared on the web, above the originating Domain A broker,left that broker complaining and prevailing at the local level. Domain B was requested to make those pages “no index,nofollow” with the threat of losing their MLS access if she did not comply. She did, and its being reviewed this month I think at the national level.
Google needs to do something about this.