{"id":1430,"date":"2016-10-03T10:20:16","date_gmt":"2016-10-03T10:20:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.searchenginewatch.com\/2016\/10\/03\/guide-to-google-ranking-factors-part-5-duplicate-content-and-syndication\/"},"modified":"2020-02-25T17:17:28","modified_gmt":"2020-02-25T17:17:28","slug":"guide-to-google-ranking-factors-part-5-duplicate-content-and-syndication","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/2016\/10\/03\/guide-to-google-ranking-factors-part-5-duplicate-content-and-syndication\/","title":{"rendered":"Guide to Google ranking factors \u2013 Part 5: duplicate content and syndication"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last week we published the fourth instalment of our complete guide to Google ranking factors<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

It concentrated on \u2018content freshness<\/a>\u2019 and the practical ways you can ensure your webpages are recognised by Google<\/a> as being relevant and up-to-date.<\/p>\n

This week we continue diving into on-page content<\/a> factors, with duplicate content<\/a> and syndication.<\/p>\n

What is duplicate content?<\/h2>\n

Duplicate content<\/a> refers to a webpage\u2019s content<\/a> that appears in more than one place on the internet.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s say you write an article on all the animals discovered and named after Frank Zappa. Then someone else copies and pastes your exact text into a new webpage on their own website. Then you\u2019re both going to have duplicate content<\/a> issues. As well as a big \u2018falling out\u2019 over multiple emails.<\/p>\n

Duplicate content<\/a> isn\u2019t necessarily a bad or wrong thing, apart from in the above example where it\u2019s just straight up theft.<\/p>\n

Google<\/a> won\u2019t penalise duplicate content. Instead it will decide which version of the duplicate post should appear in search results and ignore the other.<\/p>\n

Chances are Google won\u2019t care which came first, it\u2019s more likely to care which site has the highest authority.<\/p>\n

There is technically an in-built safety net here. A high-profile site will theoretically never indulge in outright stealing other smaller site\u2019s articles. It\u2019s just not worth the damage.<\/p>\n

Conversely many large sites are constantly scraped of their content to be republished elsewhere. Our own SEW articles are ripped off more than 10 times each by different scraper sites, but it never affects our rankings because those sites are of such poor quality they\u2019re ignored by Google.<\/p>\n

However there are perfectly acceptable ways of dealing with duplicate content in a \u2018white hat\u2019 manner.<\/p>\n

How to manage duplicate content<\/h2>\n

1)<\/strong> Obvious one to start\u2026 do not copy another site\u2019s content without asking permission first<\/strong>. It\u2019s bad for you, the site you\u2019re copying from and the reader too.<\/p>\n

2)<\/strong> If you\u2019re using segments or quotes from another webpage in reference to your article, then give them credit and a link<\/strong> back to the original source.<\/p>\n

3)<\/strong> If you have duplicate content on your own site, set up a 301 redirect<\/a><\/strong> so Google only indexes your preferred page.<\/p>\n

4)<\/strong> Ensure that Google is only indexing your preferred domain<\/strong>, i.e. either with the www prefix or without it: http:\/\/www.example.com or http:\/\/example.com. Google may treat the www and non-www versions of your domain as separate sites with separate pages, thus harming your visibility.<\/p>\n

You can set your preference in Search Console<\/a>.<\/p>\n

5)<\/strong> You may experience duplicate content issues if you use a separate mobile version of your site. Using a mobile responsive website<\/strong> instead will solve the problem.<\/p>\n

6)<\/strong> Before you accept posts from guest writers, double-check they haven\u2019t been published elsewhere<\/strong>. Bloggers probably aren\u2019t acting unscrupulously if they have been previously published, they may just not understand that this can cause search visibility problems.<\/p>\n

However, if you have permission from the original author and website, there are \u2018safe\u2019 ways of publishing duplicate content that will benefit you, the author, the original website and Google happy.<\/p>\n

Content syndication<\/h2>\n

Content syndication is the term used for the tactical republishing of your original article on another third-party website. It\u2019s particularly useful if you\u2019re a smaller publisher or an up-and-coming writer who wants a larger audience.<\/p>\n

\"telegraph<\/p>\n

If content syndication is carried out correctly by the site republishing the content, there should be no reason why this will lead to duplicate content issues.<\/p>\n

Here are a few SEO friendly methods for content syndication\u2026<\/p>\n