Duplicate Content is a Myth

Whenever I make a niche product store(aka BANS), I always buy a domain for the brand name of the product(e.g. brandname.com) plus 2-3 domains/sites that are fully optimized and act as mirrors/shadow domains. 90% of the traffic comes from the shadow domains.

Now the content of the brandname domain is 100% exactly the same as one of the shadow domains. I do not intend to really make alot from it since Im relying on the shadow domains, its just there for SE keyword representation.

The brandname domain didnt rank until after 2 months

I just run a search today and got totally surprised after seeing my brandname site SERPing (rank #4) for a very competitive keyword for my niche.

This is an effin amazing. Im not sure if google is getting dumber or what!

How about you, ever experience the same?

Are the mirrored domains on different IPs than the main domain?

During one of our research projects last year (so it may be inaccurate now) we discovered that time after time, duplicate content did not fare well in comparison to fresh content, even if the fresh content was just a slight reworking. The only exception was if the duplicate content was being hosted on the same IP address. Faux A|B splits showed that the statistical difference was significant enough to warrant spending time to create fresh content UNLESS all of the duplicate content were on the same IP. In cases where the content was being hosted on the same IP address the statistical difference was negligible.

It's awesome that you had those results, but I wouldn't be surprised if they disappeared after a little while. Sometimes it takes the algo a few weeks/months to work out the semantic similarities. Hopefully you're the exception to the rule though!

hosted on the same IP

snowwhite said:

hosted on the same IP

Click to expand...

I honestly bet that has A LOT to do with not getting the penalty. Since that is the case and you probably WON'T be penalized, congrats on the nice placement!

thanks dear