Is this Unintentional Duplicate Content? Hmm...

Paul Southren · #1 (**permalink**) 04-24-2008, 06:45 PM

Hey folks,

This has started bugging me a while ago...

I actually came to this forum via a youtube clip Lisa was doing and she mentioned in passing duplicate content on the page the clip was linked to. Now, it's not something I've normally worried about, as my site is original content only...

At lest, so I thought at first...

But when I thought a little deeper, I realized that quite a few of my reviews have been transferred across to the main site from my forums (which are hosted seperately via proboards) - and an alarm bell started to ring. Technically, as these reviews are largely copied across word for word - then the SE's may see them as duplicate content!?!

So I'd like to get some opinions on this. I have been thinking to lock down the review section of my forum so that only registered members can read it, and am wondering if this would prevent the SE's from indexing it first and then penalizing my main site when the reviews come across there (I don't think the SE's are members of my site, though I have a user called 'google' hehe, so you never know

).

Anyway, opinions and suggestions would be appreciated as it is starting to bug the heck out of me ever since it twigged that I may be unwittingly exposing my site to SE penalties...

Thanks folks,

- Paul

Gigababbler · #2 (**permalink**) 04-24-2008, 07:31 PM

Hey, i read about you on sbi. You're the guy who made that sword site. Love your vids man.

Sorry if its off topic

Paul Southren · #3 (**permalink**) 04-24-2008, 08:06 PM

No worries.

I certainly do have a lot of fun with my site, that is for sure.

But this possible issue is worrying me a bit. Probably making a mountain out of a molehill, but the SE's are infamous for that kind of thing too of course.

Cheers,

- Paul

lisa · #4 (**permalink**) 04-24-2008, 08:29 PM

Hi Paul (love the Avatar!),

I don't think locking down your forum to only registered users will prevent the SE's from spidering it. Even though not everyone will post, the search engines could still follow the content unless you add a no-follow tag to your forum somehow.

May I ask what forum software you're using?

Do you typically get a lot of traffic to your reviews (on your site) from the search engines? And if so, how soon do you post the review to your forums? If it's much later, chances are your original site won't get ignored but the forums will.

Paul Southren · #5 (**permalink**) 04-24-2008, 08:52 PM

Hi Lisa,

The forum is powered by proboards. You can see it in action here: http://sbgswordforum.proboards70.com/index.cgi

The problem is, things are actually the other way around... Members post a review on the forum, and then later it is added to the main site with only minor alterations (such as my intro and a recommendation at the end to an affiliated vendor, if appropriate).

So you see the forum review comes first and the site, which copies it, is a duplicate - and I am concerned that it will penalize me for that if you know what I mean...

Thanks,

- Paul

Ulrich · #6 (**permalink**) 04-24-2008, 11:31 PM

Perhaps it is penalising you, it certainly is possible. The only way to solve this problem is to download MyBB, phpBB, SMF or any other forum software and install it on your domain so that Google see it coming from sword-buyers-guide.com no matter what.

lisa · #7 (**permalink**) 04-25-2008, 08:46 AM

Yes, I would definitely stay away from doing that, especially if it's on your main site. Those penalties are tricky and I just try to avoid duplicating content at all causes. You can always add a no-follow tag to your site so the search engines won't spider the page. Although if you were hoping to get SE traffic from that page then that squashes that. Of course, if you are duplicating content, chances are the SE's would ignore it anyway.

James · #8 (**permalink**) 04-25-2008, 11:50 AM

How does this all relate to articles a person writes and offers to people to circulate as promotion? Does this mean you should not have them on your own site as well?

Paul Southren · #9 (**permalink**) 04-25-2008, 06:33 PM

Thanks for the input - it was kind of as I suspected.. Which is pretty tricky as it is a model I have used to generate third party reviews for my site...

I'll have to go back to the drawing board on how to address it - perhaps actually deleting the forum review and starting 'review has been moved to [page]' might be one way? I'll have to have a play around with a few different methods me thinks...

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