I have two sites and sometimes the subjects of some of my posts overlap.
Is it detrimental to either site's rankings if I re-post the same content on both sites?
In short, yes. As Google does not like duplicate content and that will affect your rankings for both sites.
Hey David,
I'm sure you'll receive lots of replies about "duplicate content" and how it's a terrible thing.
However, this isn't strictly true.
The exact same article, copied word-for-word, listed on two completely different domains can both rank in the search engines.
This is especially true if the article is written by the same author.
This is known as article syndication.
You'll often see that an author publishes an article to their own website, and then "syndicates" it to a higher authority domain, e.g. medium.com, in order to receive more eyes on their work.
So, an article written by you, and placed on two different websites, could in effect both rank on the first page of Google.
The order of their ranking is usually down to Google's discretion, but it will usually be decided via the which "version" was published first or which site has more "authority".
HOWEVER
The reason I WOULDN'T do this based on your question is because you own both domains.
In effect, you are competing against yourself.
Why would you want to do that?
Two articles ranking at position 7 and 10 on Google will typically receive less traffic than ONE article ranked at number 1 or 2 on Google.
So, write the article, publish it to the more "relevant" of your websites.
Perhaps, pick out the main learning points, and create a shorter "bullet-point" (but different) version for the other website, and then link to the original article.
Plus, use internal links to link to the "main" article as well.
Hope that makes sense.
Partha
Thanks, Partha, it does make sense, I was a little caught between quality content and quantity content, however, using your advice quality outscores quantity, so I'll post each topic to the more relevant site and then reference it from the other when the subject matter overlaps.
Thank you.
Perfect.
I'd be tempted to do this if a high-authority website wanted me to publish content to their site, but were okay with the content already being written and published elsewhere.
As an example, if Buzzfeed approached me for an article, and said that it would go onto their homepage.
I know that the article could probably generate 20,000+ views in about 3-4 days being on their homepage, whereas to get the same number of views to the article on my own website would probably take 18-24 months.
Plus, the majority of those views on my own website would typically come after the first year.
But, I would still ALWAYS publish the article to my own website first.
If you have two websites that occasionally overlap in subject matter there's nothing wrong with having a similar "subsection" within an article on one site and then linking to the "main" article on the other website.
Partha
See more comments
Duplicate posting is it detrimental to your site rankings?
I have two sites and sometimes the subjects of some of my posts overlap.
Is it detrimental to either site's rankings if I re-post the same content on both sites?
In short, yes. As Google does not like duplicate content and that will affect your rankings for both sites.
Hey David,
I'm sure you'll receive lots of replies about "duplicate content" and how it's a terrible thing.
However, this isn't strictly true.
The exact same article, copied word-for-word, listed on two completely different domains can both rank in the search engines.
This is especially true if the article is written by the same author.
This is known as article syndication.
You'll often see that an author publishes an article to their own website, and then "syndicates" it to a higher authority domain, e.g. medium.com, in order to receive more eyes on their work.
So, an article written by you, and placed on two different websites, could in effect both rank on the first page of Google.
The order of their ranking is usually down to Google's discretion, but it will usually be decided via the which "version" was published first or which site has more "authority".
HOWEVER
The reason I WOULDN'T do this based on your question is because you own both domains.
In effect, you are competing against yourself.
Why would you want to do that?
Two articles ranking at position 7 and 10 on Google will typically receive less traffic than ONE article ranked at number 1 or 2 on Google.
So, write the article, publish it to the more "relevant" of your websites.
Perhaps, pick out the main learning points, and create a shorter "bullet-point" (but different) version for the other website, and then link to the original article.
Plus, use internal links to link to the "main" article as well.
Hope that makes sense.
Partha
Thanks, Partha, it does make sense, I was a little caught between quality content and quantity content, however, using your advice quality outscores quantity, so I'll post each topic to the more relevant site and then reference it from the other when the subject matter overlaps.
Thank you.
Perfect.
I'd be tempted to do this if a high-authority website wanted me to publish content to their site, but were okay with the content already being written and published elsewhere.
As an example, if Buzzfeed approached me for an article, and said that it would go onto their homepage.
I know that the article could probably generate 20,000+ views in about 3-4 days being on their homepage, whereas to get the same number of views to the article on my own website would probably take 18-24 months.
Plus, the majority of those views on my own website would typically come after the first year.
But, I would still ALWAYS publish the article to my own website first.
If you have two websites that occasionally overlap in subject matter there's nothing wrong with having a similar "subsection" within an article on one site and then linking to the "main" article on the other website.
Partha
See more comments
Good question.
Thank you