Hi, I wanted to know if copying html and css is considered duplicate content? I mean basically copying the code of a site and changing all the words.
Purely speculation, but doubtful. Otherwise anyone who buys a prebuilt theme off of themeforest, etc. is boned.
Thanks for your reply. So Google doesn't examine the HTML and CSS? Wouldn't they know that 2 sites are similar in design?
I bet Google does examine everything. (If they didn't look at HTML, how would they know there's a link anywhere?) But I don't think they're trying to penalize sites that *look* similar. Think about all the Kinja sites. They're all separate, though part of a network, and as a result they all have essentially the same layout. Obviously they're not getting penalties. I think the duplicate content stuff has to do with plagiarizing someone else's work, not whether your site has the same appearance as another.
Google does examine every part of the code, how else can they determine if a website is responsive or not. I don't think that the code can be tagged as duplicate content. What about all those WP.com or blogger that rank easy (I know that this is a particular case), all those free theme, or as neverquitting said, theme forest.
