Does Google Penalize Duplicate Content?
by Satrap
Does Google penalize duplicate content? Is duplicate content penalty real or is it just another SEO myth?…
I am sure you have heard of the idea that Google will penalize you for having duplicate content. Perhaps you are a blogger or a webmaster, who’s worrying all the time if he or she is going to be penalized by Google for having some duplicate content, and you want to find out, once and for all, the truth about duplicate content.
I have seen this question pop up in many places, from forums, blogs to chat rooms and social networking sites. So, do you think there is such a thing as duplicate content penalty?… Well, I did a little research to find out the truth.
To find out if duplicate content penalty really existed or not, I went straight to the source, Google’s official GoogleWebmasterCentral blog, to be exact. By the way, I don’t understand why more people don’t use Google’s official blog to get their Google related answers, instead of looking for it everywhere else and getting hundreds of different answers that just adds to the confusion?…
Anyway, here is what Google has to say about the duplicate content penalty subject:
There’s no such thing as a “duplicate content penalty.” At least, not in the way most people mean when they say that…. Duplicate content on a site is not grounds for action on that site unless it appears that the intent of the duplicate content is to be deceptive and manipulate search engine results…
So, it’s best not to have the same identical content on two different pages of the same site (why would you want to have the same content on two different pages of your blog anyway?). But even then you are not penalized, although it may affect the performance of your blog. Here is what Google says about that:
…about things like having multiple URLs on the same domain that point to the same content. Like www.example.com/skates.asp?color=black&brand=riedell and www.example.com/skates.asp?brand=riedell&color=black. Having this type of duplicate content on your site can potentially affect your site’s performance, but it doesn’t cause penalties…
So, no there is no SEO penalty for having duplicate content. Simple as that! But I am sure as long as Google and internet exist, this duplicate content penalty myth will exist too. But, at least now you know that it’s all just a myth, and you don’t have to waste time and energy worrying about that.
In a nutshell, although duplicate content can hurt your blog or website’s performance, Google will not penalize you for having duplicate content unless you’re duplicating deliberately.
Duplicate content may not get penalized, but I think it surely cannot beat original and high quality content in the long run, what do you say?
Mike, i agree 100%, of course original content is the way to go. I mean these days readers are looking for fresh and useful content, not the same old same old. But i just wanted to clear up the idea of duplicate content penalty since its wildly believed that there is a penalty for having duplicate content. Any way thank you for the comment.
Very nice post!
But I think that it will be better if There is a “duplicate content penalty”.
I lot of people are stealing content text only by copy/paste – I think that it’s not right.
Thanks boris. Yeah of course stealing other peoples content is not right. It actually is a crime. But most of the times duplicate content is referred to your own content which you have it posted in different pages on the same site. Which again although there is no penalty for it by Google, i don’t think there is any benefit to it either.
I think you need to be content to the article but I do not agree with people stealing content its wrong. The hard thing about it is how do you know if someone stoled your content it be hard to check or I could be wrong. I think readers want fresh content but as long as its true and catchy they will continue to read more of the articles you are producing.
I agree Thomas, stealing other’s content is unethical and just wrong. And I also agree that readers are looking for fresh and useful content, people are tired of reading the same content every where they go.
This topic has been discussed and argued for years. While some maintain that Google does penalize others say they don’t and each argument has support evidences. News websites should be penalized if but they are not. RSS Feed aggregators should also be penalized but they are not. Now this is confusing. My advice is to make your own content as unique as possible. In that way you will be free from the dilemma this has been generating.
Thanks for this wonderful post.