Duplicated Posts
Today I would like to offer some information that may be of help to the WA community.
It is wonderful to see so many people blogging and I enjoy all the various genres of content. I am always gaining new knowledge or motivation, from the stories that I read each day.
Now, I have just recently noticed, how many new members are eager to show their written website content here, and who do not realise, the ramifications of what that means for their work.
To clarify this I will give you the following scenario.
Two days ago, I was helping my cousin build her first website, and assisting with questions that she had with our OEC WA training.
She wanted me to show her how to use Site Content and with placing images into her content.
I was trying to explain to her, how to avoid duplicating content. As an example, I asked her to place the same image, and her profile content without editing in her personal WA profile, within her 'About Me' page.
As she clicked on the 'publish' button, a pop up showed up warning that the material about to be published had duplicated content. Obviously, it was the image she used from her profile.
My cousin was very happy that I showed her this, and will avoid duplicaing/copying information from now on.
If you are new, or did not know this (all mentioned in our training), I suggest that, if you want to mention your own site information, that it would be better, for you to give a summary of what you have written, and not just copy/paste/write what you intend to place in your website into your WA blogs.
You need to realise that any content we create or add in this community whether in our comments or WA blogs are indexed/ranked as part of the WA site. The whole world gets to read it as well.
They become duplicates, and may not help your ranking with the search engines.
The information you added, becomes a tool for the whole WA community to share and, to promote WA.
This is the reason why, every member's blog or training has an affiliate $ icon above it, so that we can use someone else's blog/training with our own affiliate links to promote WA.
You can try and delete your blogs, but that also affects your ranking in WA, because you will be removing any community comments etc, also.
I am sorry if this blog of mine has come too late for some of you and it is not to discourage you from sharing your stories here, it is just so that you understand why our content/images must be unique, and not just copied.
The search engines will notice and it will affect your site ranking.
I am not sure why some members post a copy of their site contents, but I am assuming some, wish to get feedback before they publish. If this is, the reason, then again I suggest using Site Feedback, or asking someone here to look at it for you, and provide an honest review.
Please let me know if you need clarification or have any questions.
Saane
If you still think I made this up please see this link from Kyle's training for further clarification https://my.wealthyaffiliate.com/training/wealthy-affiliate-t...
Recent Comments
196
The same pictures are not duplicate content, as if it was all the copyright free photos everyone uses from the copyright free websites would be no no's and we all do it. The duplicate content is related to using the same article twice. Duplicate content would be copy and pasting my exact article twice on both of my pages. I can use a portion of that post or change the words around a bit, and I am fine. The training talks about not using duplicate posts and having original content. Images are not the whole post. Also, we use logos and I use that logo everywhere to draw people to my site. If that logo which is a picture and published everywhere was a duplicate thing I wouldn't be indexed at all.
Thank you Sara, the image my cousin used is of her kids.That is not a WA image or from any other program, it is unique to her.
Also, she wrote an about me page, using the exact content in her profile. I did not clarify that, so edited it at the top.
I was with her in her home, when she did this.
Yes this discussion is about copied content/posts as I mentioned many new people are doing exactly that, if you actually read the blogs.
Logos are used to promote WA. That is okau. They are copyrighted to WA and we use them to promote it using directive links etc to point to WA. Our blogs also become promotional tools for WA.
I have added the link to the blog for any clarification. Wealthy Affiliate - The Open Education Project
I use the same photo of myself all the time, and that has never happened. I would say there was a glitch somewhere or something.
Perfect! If I had read this far down earlier, I wouldn't have added my two cents similar to this.
The duplicate content warning you see in Site Content is really a tool to stop people from literally copying and pasting content from one site to their own. As long as you've written all the content yourself and it came from your brain, even if it were to give you a warning, you're not doing anything wrong and you'll be fine.
With regards to images, there's nothing wrong with using your profile image or any image really both at WA and on your content. So don't be afraid of doing that. :)
Also, all the content you write here (blogs, videos, tutorials, training) is your own. It's not the property of WA once you hit publish. For example, if I created a video tutorial training and published it here and then decided to publish it to YouTube and monetize it, that's totally fine because it's my own content. WA couldn't say it's their property.
Hi Eric, sorry I missed a bit when writing about the image lol. Thanks for pointing it out.
So you are saying that what we learn in training is incorrect?...also it's okay for people to post a whole article including links to outside sites, that they have in their website as well (spam?) Just seems contradictory.
It's not only site content but how we are ranked in Google, because everything we post here is indexed already.
See Wealthy Affiliate - The Open Education Project
I'm not contradicting anything from the training. The training here is spot on. And I never said anything about posting your website articles to WA. That wouldn't even make sense. :)
What I'm saying is in my experience I've never worried even a second about duplicate content because I know I'm creating my content with my brain, and when you do that, you're good to go :)
I just clarified the image bit, I missed the bit where she used her profile word for word. So that was my wrong.
This is for newbies Eric, who I've seen literally copying their whole post. Tim has just admitted that in a new blog post, that he did this morning.
He actually refers to my comment I left him, before I wrote this.
I totally understand. Don't worry. :)
There's really nothing wrong with copying your entire WA profile word for word to your website either. I don't know why you would, but it's really nothing to worry about. You're not duplicating anyone else's work. It's not that different than writing a book report and then turning it in again the next year. The teacher wouldn't accuse you of copying, she'd just question why you didn't take the opportunity to make it better, know what I mean? Similarly, Google wouldn't have any need to rank two identical posts by the same author. Ranking one would be fine, but they're not going to bring the hammer down on you either. But really, my whole point is that it's important to remove unnecessary pressures where there don't need to be any, that's all :)
Lots of new members freak out about duplicate content and when you're the author it's not really anything to worry about.
And copying a website post word for word with outside links and pasting it to a WA blog post would really be more a spam issue just like you mentioned.
You're a huge help to the community and always looking to help! Keep it up! You're an asset here :)
Thanks Eric, sorry for any confusion in my blog and didn't want to offend you in anyway, if that's how I came out ☺️ I apologise.
Great advice, as usual, Saane. I did not know this in the beginning either and made the mistake of duplicating. I think some newbies, myself included worry so much about our writing the perfect content for our site that we get distracted. We try to go through the training too fast and miss important steps or advice given. I have learned to just let go and since I mostly use speech to text, I have found that my content gets indexed much faster and I get better results as a whole.A very important lesson I have learned in creating my content is to just be myself
Thanks for sharing your words of wisdom :)
Thank you Snazzy. Very helpful.
I write a lot of posts that I would like to share with WA members and want also to put them on my website.
This is a spam no no according to WA rules. See rule 3 on page 6, Spam is a NO NO here: Wealthy Affiliate - The Open Education Project I realized this would be considered duplicate content by the search engines, so I post the article on my website and not also on my blog posts here at WA.
I then ask members to go to my website if they want to read my posts.
Thanks Derrence, I have added the link to the blog, so people can see for themselves. Apparently some disagree lol
Hi Saane. We agree with everything you have said generally about duplicate content but have a query about the repeated use of images. Our understanding is that images themselves are not considered duplicate content. If they were then, for instance, every time we used one of the free images in SiteContent (and which will likely have been used multiple times before by others) it would be considered duplicate content.
Did we misunderstand what you were saying?
Colette and Philip
Sorry guys I will edit that as people will get confused. However, she used her own family image, not one from a program. Thanks for pointing this out.
Please don't apologize, we just wanted to be sure we weren't misunderstanding what you were saying. It's a really good post.
Colette and Philip
Didn't know but good to know. Got a question though. I have a current website and like the content but I want to change the name of the biz and just move the content to the new site. If I remove the content, delete the old site, then put the content on the new site, that would avoid the duplicate content issue, correct?
I do believe that there is an option to duplicate your WordPress site and then use a different name and domain name for it. I know that Wix.com offers that option.
I think you should do that first and then delete the old one.
As to the content being duplicate in the end of that process, I think that others here can answer that question. I personally would think that it will be duplicate content since it has been previously published, however, I can be wrong in that assumption.
Blessings!
Yes you can move your old content over to a new site. However, just deleting and copying will have a negative impact on your ranking. You need a redirect code for the search engines. I did one just last week, here is my blog question, some members gave me good advice that may help you too Can I re-use an old site for another niche site?
Wise words Snazzy! It's not something I do but I'll definitely keep it in mind.
One thing though, if you don't mind? Is it wise for someone to blog on WA about their specific ideas for their website. Niche ideas, keyword research etc? I am a trusting person but have you heard of anyone's ideas being stolen or copied?
Thank you, and your question is a valid one. I have helped people with their niche ideas, and found that the many who PM do so, because they don't want their ideas stolen. Some are quite happy to share openly, but there have been cases of websites being hacked and copied.
I suggest being wise, even in WA. Spammers have become quite smart, and if your specific niche site has a high ranking it can be a target.
Just keep your great ideas to yourself and share general information about them.
Thank you for sharing this info.
I think it is also hopefully clearing out some of the perceptions of content written here somehow just staying within the WA confines and not being out there on the internet.
I tend to ask he permission of other WA members to re-post their materials and giving them the credit for it. The reality of it is that ANY post, here or anywhere, is going to be already out there on the internet.
One thing I am unclear of is sharing a blog post in that it seems that multiple shares may actually harm its rankings.
If someone can explain how that works, I would greatly appreciate it.
Blessings!
Thank you. You are absolutely right. It will also help us differentiate between real spammers and those who genuinely did not read the rules. More than often the copied content comes with all the links as well.
I was just asked about the blog shares by someone else. Apparently if you wish to share a success story by another member you can click the link icon (chain) above that specific blog and send by email or use it in your review of WA. I use it as call to action buttons for people to click and read themselves of member success stories.
If the people used the link, to sign up, you get a percentage for promoting it.
When we use it in here, just say, you are encouraging a starter to upgrade and send them a blog/training link (using your referral link of course) you get paid cash credits for it by WA, if that starter member upgrades.
Hope that answered your question ☺️
Thank you for that clarification.
What I was also trying to determine was whether multiple shares of the original post harm its Google rankings since it is in fact duplicated content.
Blessings!
I don't understand what you mean by "post a copy of their site's content". I see there is a provision for a link to my website on the right hand side of this screen under my profile. I notice not everybody uses that. I certainly like to take a look at people's websites when I follow them and try to look at sites but am often disappointed. I am not entirely clear about the purpose of these WA internal blogs. Yes, they are there to create a community spirit but how do they add to revenue generation which I assume is the purpose of affiliate marketing?
I had just read a blog in here by Tim, who has probably deleted it after after reading my comment about duplication. He had practically copied copied his whole WA review post with WA links and all (website content) onto his blog here. That's what I meant. I also noticed other new members placing their niche contents also, and were confused when people told them to remove their links (which they did not intend to spam).
The internal blogs are useful, especially for those promoting WA instead of creating niche sites. They can link a success story of one of the members into their content, using their own affiliate link. That way, when people click the link and are directed into the actual WA blog. If those people join, using that blog, the member who promoted the story/blog gets a percentage of the referral also.
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I have only just found out that our blogs here on WA can be ranked on google ( I asked a question earlier about the stats on the WA referels programme.)
Interesting that any content that is copy/pasted will pop up as duplicate content.
I have no reason to copy content from my website to a blog on WA but will bear this in mind for any different website I might have in the future.
Thank you
Lou
You are welcome ☺️