Duplicate Content Penalty??

bigtunafan · #1 (**permalink**) 05-18-2008, 09:30 AM

I have a question which has been bugging me. I am very much aware of duplicate content the penalty imposed by Google. My question is does Google penalize for submitting an article to multiple article directories and in return webmasters looking for quality content post those articles within their website with links pointing to the original authors website. Could someone please clarify or explain this to me please?

lisa · #2 (**permalink**) 05-18-2008, 10:07 AM

It's not so much that it will count against you. It just won't do much for your link popularity. Just make sure that the content you submit for the article sites is not the same as the content on your site because you don't want Google ignoring your site's content. That's the most important part.

bigtunafan · #3 (**permalink**) 05-18-2008, 03:15 PM

Thanks. Let me ask another question. If I have a 700 word article I am going to submit to multiple directories, what could I do (outside of writing 40 different versions of the same article) so that Google would not consider it duplicate content.

I am asking this for two reasons: (1) I am trying to establish a presence in my particular niche, (2) I am also wanting to get backlinks to pages.

For example I submitted an article (with 3 links to my site) to about 40 directories and noticed one of the pages I am focusing on went from not being found by Google to ranking 24th.

I hope I am making sense and you see where and what I am trying to accomplish.

lisa · #4 (**permalink**) 05-18-2008, 05:00 PM

To be honest, re-writing is really the best thing to make sure it's authentic. But I'm not sure the word "penalty" is the right word in this case. Let's say you don't change the article and use the same one for 700 sites. You won't get penalized because these articles are not on your site. The real issue is that they probably won't count as a quality inbound/backlink link because the content is all the same. So I wouldn't call that a penalty, it's just that the search engines will probably ignore that inbound link.

The people who are at risk for penalties are the people who use your article from these sites. They are the ones that will be using duplicate content. So you, the author will probably not get a penalty... but I'm wondering how much that will help you in the long-run.

Now, here's the issue I have... Is re-writing an article 40 times the best use of your time? Probably not. I honestly don't believe you'll get that big of a inbound link boost from submitting to multiple article sites. If I do use article sites, I usually just submit to ezinearticles.com and call it a day. But I personally wouldn't invest that much time into it... especially since Google and other engines are devaluing article sites. That's just my opinion from my experience.

You mentioned an article is now ranking #24 in Google. That's great. Just make sure when you track things like this you that that you evaluate the importance of the keyword phrase it's ranking for. I have some articles ranking #1 and #2 for various keywords but they are keywords that no one ever searches for (i.e., the article title, etc.)

bigtunafan · #5 (**permalink**) 05-18-2008, 05:12 PM

Very good points Lisa! I've been submitting articles to article directories using a program called Article Submitter. I guess I'm looking for exposure for the site and getting quality backlinks which leads to a higher PR for multiple pages. Don't know about you but it sure is hard getting another site to link to yours without reciprocating.

I think I will narrow down to 4 to 6 article directories and use another program I have to spin the same article. Tell me if I'm wrong, but if I spin the article to four different versions and then post them on 4 different AD's with a very high PR, that should help. Am I right and on the right track?

bigtunafan · #6 (**permalink**) 05-18-2008, 05:21 PM

One more thing I have been doing is taking the newsletter articles I send out on a weekly basis and I submit them to AD's and I will also revise them and place them on my blogs with links pointing to my site. Wonder if I'm doing the right thing????

lisa · #7 (**permalink**) 05-18-2008, 07:24 PM

To be honest, article marketing is dying. It's not nearly as effective as it once was. Sure it's OK to submit articles from time to time but I wouldn't let that take up much of your time and definitely wouldn't let it be your #1 marketing tactic. Think about the time it's taking you to re-write all your articles and see if the traffic results you are getting are worth it. If they are, then great... but my gut feeling is that the reward doesn't match the effort.

In the past year or so I've replaced article marketing with learning how to work the social networking sites more. Finding other sites (or blogs) in your niche, networking, writing guest articles for other webmasters is the way to go. Article marketing is quickly becoming a thing of the past.

It's OK to still submit articles from time to time but I'm not sure you want to re-write every newsletter article. What I would do is take the articles you feel are most important and re-work them but I'm not sure it's worth sitting down re-wording every article you write.

bigtunafan · #8 (**permalink**) 05-18-2008, 10:34 PM

Thank you Lisa for your valuable input. I do want to ask though about writing articles for other webmasters. This is something I would like to do however I don't know the proper approach and what sites to approach. Would you and could you give me some pointers?

lisa · #9 (**permalink**) 05-19-2008, 10:13 AM

I don't do it very often but what happens usually is I'll make a thoughtful post on a blog for example and the webmaster my visit my site and then contact me. We begin talking and then work out some kind of arrangement.

I will say though it does help when your site is already getting good traffic. I am having better luck now that my alexa rank is 22,000. But I used to do this even in the very beginning when my site was new. Networking is everything out here and you just have to find what works best for your situation. I don't really have a list or guidelines that I follow. Sometimes people contact me and sometimes I'll contact them.

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