Duplicate content can affect your website’s SEO rankings. But, creating duplicate content is a common practice among content marketers; for instance:
- A blog writer might guest write for another blog, and then want to post that article on their own blog;
- the writer of a news release might want to link the news release back to a summary on their own site, or;
- a website owner might want to use the same quote on multiple pages.
But Google values unique, relevant content; so content providers have to take steps to make sure Google recognizes that their original content, even when duplicated, is noteworthy.
Keep your website rankings high by making sure that one distinctive and high-quality version of your text is the one Google sees.
Google recognizes the existence of ordinary (non-malicious) duplicate content, and does not penalize it. But it can feel like a penalty when your duplicate content hurts your ranking because search engines don’t know which URL to show in their search results. So when a writer’s text appears on another website, it should include a link back to the text on the original site. Writers can also take the technical step of using canonical URLs — that is, the official version, or the URL they choose to be the original resource — to ensure that their official page gets all the SEO value.
Another step is to ask the blog owner who has posted your article to use the no index meta tag on their version of your content. That way, it won’t be indexed by Google, and therefore your version will be the one Google is likely to notice.
Google instructions for all of this—and for other types of duplicate content scenarios that can crop up — are found here.
For Content Marketing and SEO Success, Good Content Is Still Key
Good content providers already make sure that the useful, relevant writing they provide makes a visit to a website worthwhile (here’s how one particular website accomplishes that). So Google’s imperative for high-quality websites is good news. Original, valuable, informative, and remarkable content is still noticed by search engines. This—along with a bit of technical care—allows a website to achieve high rankings.
