You may have already heard about duplicate content and its negative influence on your SEO, and wondering how different your content should be. Knowing that some website owners are copying and pasting whole articles and think that this is no problem, the SEO Agency experts My Little Big Web will finally clear up the topic of duplication and give you some tips that will help you solve this problem.
WHAT IS DUPLICATE CONTENT?
Duplicate content is the same content that is shown on more than one website or on multiple web pages within the site. Google qualifies duplicate content as “blocks of important content, belonging to the same domain or spread over several domains that are identical or substantially similar”. To put it simply, it’s like having the same content as your competitor, or yourself. Most of the time, duplicate content is the result of errors, such as pagination, but it may also be due to ownership by another website than yours.
DOES GOOGLE PENALIZE DUPLICATE CONTENT?
In terms of positioning, Google does not want to show identical content on different pages to users because what matters to him above all is the user experience.
Put yourself in the place of a user who visits a page thinking to discover new content and realizes that he has already read. You understand that you will lose credibility, and you will not promote this user experience by doing so. Result: you reduce your chances of bringing this user back to your website. It’s pretty much the same thing with Google.
If you copy word for word or similarly web content from another page to simply make content, Google will know that it was published after the original content.
When he finds himself with duplicate content, to proceed to referencing, he often reacts by assigning a lower place in the search results. It also puts light on pages from which the content comes and positions the one with the highest domain authority.
This is certainly a time saver in content creation, but it goes against a strategy of relevant content since it does nothing to optimize your SEO. Copying the content of other pages is a waste of time because you are only regurgitating text and do not improve your SEO.
HOW TO CHECK IF I HAVE DUPLICATE CONTENT?
By actively checking if your website contains duplicate content and fixing the problem, you improve the ranking of your website’s pages and make sure that your visitors are directed to new content that will encourage them to revisit your website to know more.
DUPLICATE CONTENT ON SOCIAL NETWORKS
Many people duplicate their content to rely on other media because it is part of their digital marketing strategy. It is about copying their blog posts to post on social networks in order to promote their content and their web page. If your content is interesting and attractive, it will create a commitment, but it will not result in a conversion. Readers will not need to visit your website as they will already have the information they need. But increasing your conversion rate is surely what you want above all.
LESS DUPLICATE CONTENT FOR MORE CONVERSIONS
Here’s what you can do to share your content on different platforms. Publish only a portion of your content for tagging and link to the original article to encourage continued reading on your blog. The goal is to generate traffic from social networks. As a result, you’ll eliminate duplicate content and tailor your posts to drive conversions.
BLOCK INDEXING
If it is content published on the networks that you duplicate on your website by restating it, like a video, for example, know that you will get less commitment than what can generate social networks. Duplicating your content here will not let you perform in Google’s eyes. However, you can still rest to encourage commitment. To do this, ensure that the Google crawler is blocked, using the meta tag “noindex” to avoid weakening your website. Thus, your pages will continue to position correctly, having a relevant SEO strategy, of course, without your site being weakened by this duplicate content.
REUSE YOUR CONTENT WITHOUT DUPLICATING IT
If you want to go even further, you can put strategies in place that allow you to reuse your content while eliminating duplicate content. If you’ve posted a video on social networks, for example, make a full article by developing your ideas more than just reposting on your website. Google’s algorithms do not penalize websites that use their content on different platforms for the purpose of spreading more information.
DUPLICATE IDEAS, NOT CONTENT
As we have seen, it is useless to copy word for word the content of another Web page because it has no interest for the improvement of your SEO. On the other hand, what can help to promote your SEO, it is to take again the ideas and the main points of a content which seems relevant for your blog and to mention the page from which it comes. Make links to the original page, highlighting those who have done the research you use. Just make sure your sources are reliable. It will also increase your credibility with users, who will see that you have relevant sources.
PREFER ORIGINAL CONTENT FIRST
Creating original content will allow you to enhance your user experience and ensure that search engines do not have to choose between several of your pages with the same content. Know that your writing skills are your best ally in eliminating duplicate content. Remember that Google promotes quality over quantity and always on the lookout for the best possible content, which best fits the user’s intent. Your aim is to have a lasting impression!
DUPLICATE CONTENT IS EVERYWHERE; FIGHT IT!
In the race for SEO, duplicate content can be a real drag. Unfortunately, it continues to be common on the web, so act accordingly not to let it affect your positioning. You now know all the techniques to achieve this!