BWMagic’s Internet Marketing News!

The Tricky Issue Of Duplicate Content & What Google Says About It

Don’t know about you but one of the most worrisome issues has
to be duplicate content. I am mainly worried about my content
being ranked lower because the search engines think
it is duplicate content and penalizes it.

Now, for my major keyword content/pages even a loss of just a few
places in the rankings can mean I lose hundreds of dollars in commissions,
so anything affecting my rankings obviously gets my immediate attention.

The whole tricky issue of duplicate content has caused me some
concern and I have made an ongoing mental note to myself to find
out everything I can about it.

My situation is compounded by the fact that I am heavily into
article marketing – the same articles are featured on hundreds,
some times thousands of sites across the web. Naturally, I am
worried these articles will dilute or lower my rankings rather
then accomplish the intended purpose of getting higher rankings.

I try to vary the anchor text/keyword link in the resource boxes
of these articles. I don’t use the same keywords over and over
again as I am nearly 99% positive Google has a “keyword use”
quota – repeat the same keyword phrase too often and your highly
linked content will be lowered around 50 or 60 places, basically
taking it out of the search results. Been there, done that!

I even like now submitting unique articles to certain popular
sites so only that site has the article – thus eliminating
the whole duplicate content issue.

Another way I have handled this issue is using a 301 re-direct
so that traffic and PageRank flows to the URL I want ranked.
You can also use your Google Webmaster Tool account to show
which version of your site you want ranked or featured:
with www or without the www.

The whole reason for doing any of this has to do with PageRank
juice – you want to pass along this ranking juice to the appropriate
page or content. This can raise your rankings, especially in
Google.

Thankfully, there is the relatively new “canonical tag” you can use
to tell the search engines this is the page/content you want
featured or ranked. Just add this link tag to your content which
you want ranked or featured:

link rel=”canonical” href=”http://www.example.com/product.php?item=swedish-fish”/


Anyway, this whole duplicate issue has many faces and sides,
so I like going directly to Google for my information. Experience
has shown me that Google doesn’t always give the right information,
but for the most part, you can follow what they say. Lately, over
the last year or so, Google seems to have made a major policy change
and are telling webmasters a lot more information on how they (Google)
rank their index.

So if you’re concerned or interested in finding out more about
duplicate content and what Google says about it try these helpful
links:

Video – Duplicate Content & Multiple Site Issues

This video is presented by Greg Grothaus of Google and
is quite informative on the subject.

Another great link is this page from Google Webmasters Support Answers
by Matt Cutts. It has a lot of helpful information, including a
video on the Canonical Link Element.

It’s located here:

Kind Regards,
Titus

http://www.bizwaremagic.com

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