Duplicate Content is not a Negative Ranking Factor
Duplicate Content is not a Negative Ranking Factor - Apparently
I just came across this article this morning on my Google news feed and hope I have interpreted and understood it correctly.
Duplicate Content on Google
Many of us are often worried about how duplicate content will affect our ranking. I certainly am and have been for some time.
This has affected the way I do my research and how I link to products on my affiliate sites. But it often gives me cause to delay a post or an article while I sit there worrying about how whether my text will be the same or similar to someone elses, and how it's going to affect me. Worried that I may have used similar words and worried whether I have presented my article post in a different way.
Truth is, it is almost unavoidable to use the same words if we are talking about or describing a product or service.
Obviously one cannot simply copy the text from someone else's website because that is called plagiarism and is theft or stealing.
And I assume the google algorithm can identify whether it's one sentence that matches someone else's site or 5 paragraphs. And if one site was an exact copy of another site, then they may rank one site and drop the other. (My guess is based on the age of the website or some other factor. )
So it's always a good policy to generate fresh content in your own words because you definitely don't want to be the site that gets dropped and loses page rank. But it seems to me that even if a site with duplicated content does not get penalized directly, it will simply be lower in the rankings. And of course none of us want to be lower in the rankings, do we?
And as they point out in the article link above, our website footers and menus are duplicated throughout our pages. So while I'm still conscious and aware of duplicating any content, I feel that if I was thorough with my research and my writing, then I need not ever fear describing products or services in a similar way to someone else.
Recent Comments
21
I would agree. Writing a review about a product by 10 different people will result in 10 different opinions. But the meaning behind the reviews will be similar because they are all writing about the same product.
The police are well aware of this phenomenon - witness statements are notoriously vague and lacking details, even for people who are standing right next to an incident.
When we write our own words we will say them differently.
Alex
Hi Michael
An excellent topic. The site I have found most helpful in this regard is siteliner. It tells you many things including how much of your content is duplicated on your site. Most importantly it gives you a benchmark comparing your site with others for each metric. This will tell you whether you are less repetitive or more repetitive.
They say something like 15% duplicate content is normal depending of course.
Great topic and thanks for bringing this up.
Best regards
Andy
Hi Andy. Thanks for the comment and the info about siteliner. I had never heard of that before so will be sure to check it out.
Michael
See more comments
Hi Michael, thanks for this great post, I was looking for ways to improve the uniqueness of my product reviews articles, which led me to your blog post.
I would like to know, how do you get fresh and quality ideas for your product review post without researching from other similar articles online? because Google adsense will not approve your website when you paraphrase ideas you got from other articles, they consider this as plagiarism or scrap content.
I agree with you that it is almost unavoidable to use the same words if we are talking about or describing a product or service?
So, how do I translate posts ideas in my posts without it being considered as scrap content or plagiarism, since paraphrasing an idea is also considered as plagiarism...
Nedi
Hi, you can read other people's blog posts however you'd need write your own, all content must be original written in your own words. If you use Grammarly premium version would check your content for plagiarism as well as grammar plus other features.
This question has been marked community.
Hi, thanks, I think upgrading to Grammarly premium will be a great option for me, thank you for suggesting that. However I still believe it will be very difficult to be 100% unique if I am reviewing a popular product or service.
I believe original content is more achievable when you are writing about other blog post types like tips posts compare to product or service reviews.
Hi Nedi. I hadn't considered Grammarly Premium but it does sound like it could be a benefit.
It is difficult to write unique content, but I guess most people describe their understanding of a product or service, in their own words. Even if they have read other blogger's notes or product specs.
Thanks for the tip Abie. I am going to look at Premium version to see if it can help me too.