Duplicate content penalty as i explained in Does Google Penalize You For Having Duplicate Content? is a myth. Google will not penalize you for having duplicate content, unless you are “duplicating deliberately”, however duplicate content can hurt your site in other ways. It effects the performance of your blog or website. There are a couple of ways, in which your blog’s performance can be effected negatively by having duplicate content on your site.
How Does Duplicate Content Effect Your Blog’s Performance?
1- One of the ways duplicate content can effect your site is when Google detects duplicate content (same content on two different pages) while searching for content, it selects one, based on things like link popularity as the best url, and that page is what will be shown on the search result page. And here comes the problem. Google’s idea of what the “best” URL is, isn’t always the same as yours. So if you wanted the other url to be shown in the search result, your screwed. Although there is a solution for that too, which is letting Google know which one is your preferred URL by including it in your Sitemap. But, you can see how that can drive away some targeted traffic from your site.
2- Another way that having duplicate content hurts your site’s performance, is that if Google isn’t able to detect all the duplicates content of one page, it simply cant consolidate all of their properties, which results in your content ranking lower(although it deserve a higher ranking), because Google will automatically split the ranking signals across multiple URLs. So your page gets a lower ranking.
So, there you go, although there is no penalty for having duplicate content, your blog or website’s performance will be effected negatively by having duplicate content.
Related posts:
If you would like to make a comment, please fill out the form below.
Thanks for clearing this up for me. I have avoided reprinting articles on my website because of the “duplicate content penalty”. Some sources say there is a penalty. Some say there isn’t. This is the first reasonable explanation I’ve seen of the effect duplicate content can have on a site.
SFaith´s last blog ..Legitamite Work from Home Jobs – Genuine Work Online at Home
Your welcome SFaith. Yeah i know, there are many different beliefs out there about duplicate content, but i don’t know why more people just don’t ask Google or check their site for answers, that’s why i went there to see whats up. I am glad it is helpful. Thanks for commenting. Hope to see you more often SFaith.