duplicate content, or bollox?

I've been doing a lot of research for articles I am writing for my blog.

One thing I keep encountering is outright duplicate content, I'm not talking the odd paragraph here and there but complete articles borrowed from [usually] newspapers\BBC and Wikipedia, with nothing added or taken away, also some even quote the source.

Here's the rub, a lot of these pages are ranking on first page of Google for the main keyword.

There goes muggings me, spending days trying to cobble together the real facts and making an original quality article and I can't get on the2ndpageogf google haha.

So, is duplicate content bad for SEO a load of bollox?

I also just come across a site that duplicates another site page for page and it still beats me, where's the incentive to make quality content?

You may find some interesting information in this thread http://www.blackhatworld.com/seo/parasites-pwn-leeching-from-authority-sites.702089/ dublicated content is a no go, that said, I have several direct copied citations that rank very well in Google So I guess there is no general rule that dublicated content is not ranking but if you want to be sure to rank well, make the articles unique and useful for the reader.

The new Yoast for WordPress has actually some new information available on how you can rank a certain page better than just with keywords and all the well known stuff.

"also some even quote the source" Can be described as referencing, if the article / report is copied in full and used as part of your own content.
But it obviously has to be done in moderation and context.

Thanks Ruthsam, I 'll read that link. I use Yoast free version, haven't noticed anything new lately, will look into that too. thanks.

RuthSam said:

You may find some interesting information in this thread http://www.blackhatworld.com/seo/parasites-pwn-leeching-from-authority-sites.702089/ dublicated content is a no go, that said, I have several direct copied citations that rank very well in Google So I guess there is no general rule that dublicated content is not ranking but if you want to be sure to rank well, make the articles unique and useful for the reader.

The new Yoast for WordPress has actually some new information available on how you can rank a certain page better than just with keywords and all the well known stuff.

Click to expand...

Thanks for yourreply MisterF.
The particular site I was thinking of that quotes the sources actually does it in every single post, last one I saw used 3 BBC new stories in full, no photos. When you reference a source it is not usual to use the whole article surely. I said "some even quote the source" meaning they are telling google its duplicate, yet still rank well!

MisterF said:

"also some even quote the source" Can be described as referencing, if the article / report is copied in full and used as part of your own content.
But it obviously has to be done in moderation and context.

Click to expand...

Are the sites you are referring to syndication or news sites? If they are allowed to syndicate news such as from Associated Press, then they are not really regarded as duplicate by Google. I also fail to understand the logic but that happens all the time.

I think you should spin in someways. Complete duplicating is not a right way and google also ignore it sometime.

pronstar said:

I've been doing a lot of research for articles I am writing for my blog.

One thing I keep encountering is outright duplicate content, I'm not talking the odd paragraph here and there but complete articles borrowed from [usually] newspapers\BBC and Wikipedia, with nothing added or taken away, also some even quote the source.

Here's the rub, a lot of these pages are ranking on first page of Google for the main keyword.

There goes muggings me, spending days trying to cobble together the real facts and making an original quality article and I can't get on the2ndpageogf google haha.

So, is duplicate content bad for SEO a load of bollox?

I also just come across a site that duplicates another site page for page and it still beats me, where's the incentive to make quality content?

Click to expand...

Duplicate content is always bad, there are ways around getting dinged but I wouldnt advise using those methods. they catch up to you in the end my dear.
If you want to, pay someone to create a killer article and then re-use your own content, make a video from it, create info graphics, do audio podcast and then cut it into little bite sized chunks and paraphrase the thing over again with different headlines. Thats a strategy that I've used and works really well. Google can get as advanced as they want, no artificial ai will ever be able to beat the human mind when it comes to paraphrasing content. As long as its not easily detectable, you should be good. Long story short, stay away from verbatim duplicated content

Are you talking about syndicated content or duplicate content? Syndicated content pushed to different news channels can get away with "duplicate" content all the time and still rank like a boss! And then there's some regular sites that post duplicate content regularly, and some of them are even lucky enough to rank unfairly for a while (sometimes for a lonnnng while).

It's not fair when you're trying your best to pump out original, quality content, but there are just no hard and fast rules when it comes to Google and SEO.

But overall, as far as duplicate content is concerned, I've seen that and read that Google tends to favor the domain with the highest authority when (and if) they decide to filter a piece of duplicate content. So even if you published an original article first and then a site with more authority than yours publishes it, then Google will tend to rank their version over yours. This is why it's best to request and make sure a site uses a rel=canonical tag if you give them permission to republish your article; this way Google will know that the original version that should get the primary ranking credit is the original version that lives on your site.

Here's an older yet still relevant article by Neil Patel that elaborates further on the subject of duplicated content and the importance of the rel=canonical tag: https://www.quicksprout.com/2014/11/03/should-you-repost-your-blog-content-on-other-websites/

Nice tip about rel=canonical tag, thanks for this.


[QUOTE="

But overall, as far as duplicate content is concerned, I've seen that and read that Google tends to favor the domain with the highest authority when (and if) they decide to filter a piece of duplicate content. So even if you published an original article first and then a site with more authority than yours publishes it, then Google will tend to rank their version over yours. This is why it's best to request and make sure a site uses a rel=canonical tag if you give them permission to republish your article; this way Google will know that the original version that should get the primary ranking credit is the original version that lives on your site.

Here's an older yet still relevant article by Neil Patel that elaborates further on the subject of duplicated content and the importance of the rel=canonical tag: https://www.quicksprout.com/2014/11/03/should-you-repost-your-blog-content-on-other-websites/[/QUOTE]

no, these are original articles written by some poor schmuck like me lol

TheSEOWizard said:

Are the sites you are referring to syndication or news sites? If they are allowed to syndicate news such as from Associated Press, then they are not really regarded as duplicate by Google. I also fail to understand the logic but that happens all the time.

Click to expand...

Duplicate content is bad. It will eventually catch up with you if you use it.