~The Duplicated Content Debate Will Google Cripple Your Website Ranking

 

How do you create a website that the search engines love? It’s simple really – have lots of targeted content that closely relates to your site theme.

Recently though, we have heard a lot about “duplicated content” and how that can damage your site rankings in Google. You’ll see a frenzy of people saying things such as:

“Oh I mustn’t publish this article, I’ll get done for duped content”.

“I shouldn’t use private label rights content because others will be using the same content and that will hurt my chances of getting free search engine traffic.”

But do you know what? Before jumping on the “duped content is evil” bandwagon, consider these facts:

(a) There are a LOT of high ranking websites that are just plastered with nothing BUT duplicate content. If duplicated content really does matter, why aren’t these sites being banned from the engines?

(b) Google itself has not said that duplicated content is a no-no. Sure, it doesn’t exactly wear its heart on its sleeve when it comes to disclosing the factors it uses to rank sites but even so there has been little indication from Google that duplicated content will hurt your website.

(c) There are those to whom this “duplicated content” hysteria is very convenient and profitable. For example it gives people the opportunity to create products, books and software that deals with the dreadful issue of duplicated content. Article content changer software is a prime example of this – this niche market is worth a small fortune as content publishers who buy private label rights are forced to fork out a hundred or so bucks to allow them to make their purchased content unique in the eyes of search engines. It’s in the software developers interests to cause a stir about duped content because the moment it’s revealed that duplicate content isn’t really an issue they’ll lose a lot of sales overnight.

So how do you move forward with any level of certainty? You know search engines do like fresh content but what if you just don’t have the time to plug in content that’s 100% unique? The best way is to use a model that adds both unique content as well as purchased content (or free content from article directories) and optimise the page accordingly (remember – your page titles should all be individually optimised to the content).

Ultimately, unless you are employing blatantly unethical tactics to trick the search engines, the issue of duplicated content will not be a particularly tricky one for your websites. What does matter is that your site is well optimised and has plenty of back links from high ranking sites coming in. That’s the sort of thing that gets you rated high – even if your site has some content that’s commonly plastered over the internet.