Sphinn - Demystifying the the "duplicate content penalty"

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Demystifying the the "duplicate content penalty" - Officially

Went Hot: September 14, 2008 - 2:00 pm
Posted By: JohnWeb 295 days ago
Topic Type: News Story (Jump to http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com)
Category: Google SEO

From the post, "Let's put this to bed once and for all, folks: There's no such thing as a "duplicate content penalty." At least, not in the way most people mean when they say that."

8 Comments

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Comments

from g1smd 294 days ago #

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No matter how many times you say it, you'll never get through to the "alt tag" (sic) and "dofollow" (sic) brigade.

from genuwine4532 294 days ago #

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There is so much garbage and misconception out there about Dupe Content. I hope people read this and finally GET OVER IT!!!! Thanks for the link.

from JohnHGohde 294 days ago # - show/hide this comment

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"So when people say that having this type of duplicate content can affect your site, it's not because you're likely to be penalized; it's simply due to the way that web sites and search engines work."

The same can be said about the Google Sandbox, and for most penalties in general. It is just how Google works.

Site scraping is now an accepted way of life on the Internet. There are at least two successful scrapes of Wikipedia, that resemble Category pages on a WordPress blog. Scrape a site in an acceptable manner while adding user feedback and you can run a successful duplicate content website in Google.

Google doesn't like duplicate content. Whether you call it a penalty, filter, or just part of their algorithms; that is just how search engines work. And, splitting hairs over whether it technically is what Google calls a penalty is just arguing over sematics.

Screwing websites over with a smile is just how PC Google public relations statements work.

from seogoogletips 292 days ago # - show/hide this comment

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This article did help make things a bit clearer, but I think JohnHGohde's comment here is the most valuable info we can take away. Thanks John

from hunteeer 292 days ago #

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I too am going to agree with JohnHGohde as well. The information contained in the Google article is consistant with the warnings and type of duplicate content issues we discuss with our clients. Hopefully others SE's are explaining it simularly.

I believe the article is very clear that the penalty is that if it is not unique content why would Google serve it up or attribute "credit" to a non-originating source. How would a full page of the same content results benifit Google users?

from Jill 292 days ago #

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seogoogletips, I disagree. The proper definitions (as I mentioned recently in my search engine land article) are very important.

There's enough confusion in SEO as is.