Article Marketers – Lay the Duplicate Content Myth To Rest Once and For All
Over and over, on all the popular Internet Marketing forums, especially the Warrior Forum, new article marketers pose the question: “if I post the same article in multiple article directories, will Google penalize me for duplicate content?” Or: “after posting an article to my blog or website, do I need to re-write or spin it before posting it to article directories?”
It’s really amazing how these two words duplicate content have become such a completely misunderstood concept. I think the entire confusion was perpetuated by opportunity seekers who sell services or software to spin articles After all, it’s hardly in their best interests to be seen to accept the real truth.
Just stop for a moment, forget all the myth and hype and think rationally. All the news services, for example Bloomberg, the Associated Press, Reuters, Scripps Howard, CNS etc., are in business for one reason: to distribute news in a pre-written format. These news feeds are picked up and published all over the internet by thousands of diverse subscribing web sites. They don’t employ people to re-write the content; it’s published exactly as they receive it, with a byline to the source.
Wikipedia describes Web Syndication thus: Web syndication is a form of syndication in which website material is made available to multiple other sites. Most commonly, web syndication refers to making web feeds available from a site in order to provide other people with a summary or update of the website’s recently added content (for example, the latest news or forum posts). The term can also be used to describe other kinds of licensing website content so that other websites can use it.
This should be the mind-set of every professional Article Marketer. You should write high quality content, publish it first on their own blog, wait for it to be indexed by Google, then publish it, without any editing (other than adding a resource box), on EZine Articles and other article directories. By doing this, you will transcend the horde of ‘article directory marketers’, and move into the more elite class of Article Syndicators.
Following Google’s February algorithm update, known as the Panda, or Farmer update, aimed at identifying low quality sites and content, writers and syndicators of top quality material are reporting significant upturns. Google calls it a “high quality sites algorithm”, and it is causing the cream to rise to the top.
Actually, the only time “duplicate content” can become an issue is on your own blog (and this is extremely unlikely). The software powering the site structure (WordPress, b2evolution, Nucleus, TypePad, etc.), may repeat the same content in multiple formats. One post can appear repeatedly through sub-directories created by categories, tags, dates, sitemap, archives etc..
Direct Quote From Google WebMaster Central Blog:
- Google wants to serve up unique results and does a great job of picking a version of your content to show if your sites includes duplication. If you don’t want to worry about sorting through duplication on your site, you can let us worry about it instead.
- Duplicate content doesn’t cause your site to be penalized. If duplicate pages are detected, one version will be returned in the search results to ensure variety for searchers.
- Duplicate content doesn’t cause your site to be placed in the supplemental index. Duplication may indirectly influence this however, if links to your pages are split among the various versions, causing lower per-page PageRank.
If you are still concerned and have a WordPress blog, there are a number of excellent SEO plugins available that can go a long way to eliminate this problem, Platinum SEO Pack and All In One SEO are the two most popular.
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Filed under: Article Marketing
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Thanks a lot. This article really cleared a lot up for me. It means that it’s going to be 100x easier to hit my daily goals for submitting to article directories.
I found this link from the warrior form. Thanks again!
Thanks a ton for this information. I too was browsing the Warrrior Forum and found a link to your blog. I have now bookmarked and will return.
This has been so very, very helpful. I have been completely mislead by the term “Duplicate Content”, and as you so rightly stated, by people in the market for selling article spinners or rewriting services.
Before finding this blog, I have spent hours and hours spinning articles. I guess it’s better late than never to find these things out. Thank You for saving me time in the future!
Thank you for your kind comments. I love to put my love of writing to good use and help others. IM is a rocky road (I learned that a long time ago), and if I can smooth it for a few, that’s great
What if you’re just using articles for back-linking purposes rather than syndication (i.e. submitting articles with anchor text links to build up back-links)? Would it be important to have unique content containing your back-links?
Sorry, but I’m puzzled by your question. This entire article went to great lengths to expand upon its title: Article Marketers – Lay the Duplicate Content Myth To Rest Once and For All.
It details how the requirement for unique content in every submission is nothing more than a “myth”. Unique content is never a requirement, be it for syndication, or merely back-linking.
I have been advocating the benefits of article syndication for some time.
The duplicaton issue and I believe the ‘too many backlinks in a short time will get you penalised’ are myths. If 5,000 people link to the BBC News website in one day will it get dumped out of the google index? Don’t think so, the BBC News website has a PR 9 so riddle me that Batman…
Great articles and explains very well so many misunderstanding about what duplicate content actually is.
On the (somewhat unrelated but important) question of wordpress blogs, it can be a bit annoying to eliminate all the possibilities of duplicate content. Since you posts appear under posts name, but can also be found via categories, tags, authors, dates and even on the home page.
Is all-in-one seo plug in for wp still around? seems like it wasn’t being updated anymore. And the other plug ins I’ve found seem more complex and confusing. But I am babbling about my own problems now
Many of the article directories say on their T & C’s say that a submitted article should be unique – anyone had any problems submitting the same article to multiple article directories? Thanks for the post (came here via the Warrior forum)
Sorry Cockapoo, but you are completely wrong. No article directory demands “unique” content. I think you are falling into the old, old trap of confusing the words “unique” and “original“. Take a look at Ezine Articles’ Author Guidelines: they specify “original”. Here is their actual working of that specification:
Original—not unique. Those two words each have an entirely different meaning. It’s really unfortunate that many so-called “experts”, lack the basic language skills which enable them to distinguish “original” from “unique”.
To further enforce Ezine Articles’ requirement that any article you submit to them should be your original (not unique) work, they offer authors a plugin to add to their WordPress blogs. Again, exactly in their words:
Save Time. When you write a post on your WordPress blog, you will now be able to submit it to EzineArticles directly from your blog.
Customize. Resource Box can now be loaded and tweaked for your WordPress article.
Republish. Your old WordPress posts can now reach a wider audience on EzineArticles.”
I have nearly two thousand articles published on Ezine Articles (under various pen-names), after they have first been published and indexed by Google on my own blogs and websites.
Buzzle (an article repository not an article directory), is the only place, to my knowledge, which does require unique content. But, neither do they allow any external links, so they are not relevant to any discussion about affiliate article marketing.
If duplicate content does not matter, why do you make sure that the article is indexed at your site first? Is this to stop other people using your article from an article directory and ranking higher than you?
Surely, it makes sense that when you have written an article, you want Google to find and index your version, posted on your site first. It hardly makes sense to publish the article on (for example) EZine Articles, and have that indexed first by Google. When people search on one of your keywords, you want your version of the article, on your website presented to them first, not a version in a directory, or a syndicated copy.
InfoBarrel and others will deny articles if previously published on another site. I have received a number of rejections from infobarrel stating the article is published elsewhere on the net. Give it a try.
InfoBarrel is NOT an Article Directory, it’s an article submission site. It’s not intended to be used as a directory by publishers looking for available free content to syndicate, because the work published there isn’t actually even available for free syndication. Furthermore, Buzzle allows no external links at all, not even in a resource-box attached to an article.
Great information. This goes against everything I have read in the past and probably contradicts things that I have told people on my own blog.
I am going to use this method by reposting some quality articles from some of my own personal niche websites onto Articlesbase and see what the affects are.
Do you know if I can repost one of my own articles from Articlebase onto Ezinearticles? I thought I had tried that before and had been rejected – given “duplicate content” as the reason. But I could be mistaken…
Thanks again for this great info. I plan on sharing with the readers of my blog.
Hi Mike – thanks for the great comment. I really appreciate you taking the time. The criteria you must follow when reposting articles is to always use the same author/pen name with each posting. For example, if you post an article on your own blog with the author name “Mike”, then you publish it on Ezine Articles under the name “James”, they will see that at not being original content (don’t confuse original with duplicate), and will assume you copied it from Mike’s website.
I’ve heard of several similar instances where a writer will hide behind various pen-names for various blogs, but publish articles in the popular directories using their correct name. Their articles are rejected by the directories as not being original content, and thus the urban myth about duplicate content becomes further perpetuated.
Anne, first off, thanks a ton for providing such great information.
Two quick questions.
In your last comment you used the example of posting under the same name. If you post the article on your site as Jane Doe, and then post it somewhere such as eZine under Jane, does that que the not unique trigger?
Secondly, I’m new to the affiliate marketing and article submission world and had totally bought the “unique” article stuff being sold by submission services. As you see it, are the spinning companies where all of this unique article confusion started? Also, why do some of the spinning services require variations of articles?
Thanks for your continued comments on this post.
Ryan
Hi Ryan – To answer your two questions:
Whenever you publish an article in more than one place, you MUST keep the author name EXACTLY the same or you will trigger a plagiarism warning. If, as you say, you post an article on your site under the author-name Jane Doe, then on Ezine Articles as just Jane, the EZA software will assume it is stolen from the other location. You will understand the process if you stop using the word “unique”. EZA never asks for “unique” articles, but they do ask for “original” – meaning your own “original”, NOT COPIED work.
Here is Ezine Articles’ actual, published definition:
The article spinning companies just love perpetuating the “unique article” urban myth. It’s making them a fortune, and that’s why they fight tooth and nail to prevent it from dying.
To make the job especially easy, Ezine Articles offers authors a plugin to publish all your blog posts instantly to the EZA directory, and this is what they say (again, copied from the EZA website).
But don’t just take my word for it, go to the Warrior Forum and search on Alexa Smith, Steven Wagenheim, MYOB, Nicola Lane, JohnMcCabe, Richard Van, TPW, PatriciaJ, Benjamin Ehinger, and many others.
Thanks for taking the time to provide such a detailed response, Anne.
Happy Holidays to you.
Ryan
Glad to help Ryan. Happy Christmas and a prosperous New Year to you
Hello Anne, it’s refreshing to ready your post after seeing the frenzy around article spinning techniques on many other sites. I appreciate your clarifying the distinction between original and unique in such clear terms.
Hi Eliseo – Thanks for the kind words
So glad you feel I’m able clarify things for you. It’s always good to hear how my efforts are read by others.
What if I want to post someone else’s content on my site to provide commentary on it? If I just cut/paste it into a blog post in WordPress, do I need to worry about it being flagged somewhere, even if I use a citation? Are there author tags I need to keep intact?
I would be extremely cautious of posting anyone else’s content on your website if it hasn’t been offered for republication via an article directory or something similar. I would advise you to first contact the author of the piece you wish to comment on, and ask for their written permission.
It�s arduous to seek out educated individuals on this matter, but you sound like you recognize what you�re talking about! Thanks
Anne. Thank you for this article. I found a link to it in the warrior forum. I purchased so many s/ws for rewriting content and let them be … now i think i understand what i should be doing…
I So own you one…
This is awesome post will definitely bookmark it and probably send some traffic just the same.
So glad I am broke, won’t find this website and would end up buying spinning softwares.
I got this link from warrior forum.
Thanks A million
Anne, I linked my article to yours. I think my readers need to hear what you have to say.
Thank you Latha, really appreciate your participation
Anna, thanks for the article. This clears up a lot of misconceptions about duplicate contents and syndication.
Thanks a lot. The article was so clear and easy to understand as learning abc . I have been searching for some posts to know that weather google will penalize my blog if i post its contents to ezine sites or not. I read a lot of posts but the authors werent their self cleared that weather submiting article will cause duplicate contents or not. I was going to install a wp plugin to submit my site to ezine directories automatically. Hopefully i can use that. Thanks again
Really glad my words were able to help you Moneyflora. I love to receive feedback just like yours. Much appreciated
Nice post Anne. I’m just a newbie getting started but I’m quickly learning that there is a wide variety of opinions, information and misinformation spread everywhere. I’m assuming a lot of making it through has to do with common sense and good judgement. Hopefully I’ll be able to help my wife before more successful as she runs her own beauty blog.
I’m going to subscribe
Hi Christopher – thanks for the kind words – very much appreciated
Anne
Interesting.
I’m curious though, I almost never see quality posts on Ezinearticles or other directories.
Everything is 500 words almost exactly, fluff content. Never anything of substance or worth reading. Why aren’t quality 1500-3000 word posts from reputable blogs on Ezine? Or are they and I just haven’t seen them amongst all the garbage?
Clearly you haven’t seen the decent ones. Maybe they are in niches you don’t read. Besides my own contributions, which are know are high quality, and most are 1,500+ words, I know of a number of writers who contribute top notch material to EzineArticles. I can’t speak for other directories, because I don’t know which ones you are referring to, but I will readily agree with you that 99% of the directories out there are stuffed full of dreadful content: hence Google’s clamp down.
Stellar job on this post Anne – you succinctly pierced some online myths that needed to be clarified. Great job and thanks so much for sharing!
Thanks for the kind words Lee, much appreciated
This is brilliant Anne.
I have learnt a lot from this thread.
Thanks for taking the time to answer all these questions in depth.
I am a bit of a newbie and have got a daft question: Would I be free to use an Artice on Ezine and post it on my own website. Is this the whole idea of Artice directories
Hi Stuart – not quite sure if I’ve got your question right. Do you mean, is it okay for you to take articles other writers have published on EzineArticles and post them on your own website?
Yes, absolutely, this is “syndication” and exactly the true purpose of article directories. A word of warning though: you must post the articles without any changes and you MUST include the full author bio and the EzineArticles attribution.
I occasionally pick up an article from EZA just to add a fresh perspective to one of my blogs, but on the whole, I prefer to use my own content, because it’s often just too darn difficult to find anything of high enough quality. The last thing I want to do is promote poorly written content, because that will reflect badly on me.
Thanks Anne
Personally I take pride in my website and like it to be full of my own articles and content.
Was just interested to know as I have seen a lot of my articles taken off other directories and appear on certain blogs. Weird looking blogs that all seem to look alike
As all of these articles, like you say, seem to have my original content and all of my links, I am presuming this is a good thing.
Still very new to all of this and trying to figure what is going on.
Nice to know, though, that if I do see a nice article I can use it on my site.
Thanks again