Google duplicate content penalty- fact or fiction?

[Kay]

I've been pondering this awhile now and would be interested in what you all think about it. For years we've been told submitting articles to directories is one of the best, if not the best,way to promote yourself and your site.

Then Google comes along and by all accounts over the last few months has begun cracking down on duplicate content by slashing or taking away completely PR rankings. But is Google really doing that or is the penalty one of those things that gets repeated by so many for so long it becomes accepted wisdom without any basis in fact? (For example, the "lemmings jump off cliffs" tale is a myth (http://www.snopes.com/disney/films/lemmings.asp) and the truth's more shocking.)


This post Google 'Duplicate Content Penalty' Doesn't Exist (http://www.searchnewz.com/blog/talk/sn-6-20080923GoogleDuplicateContentPenaltyDoesntExist.h tml) says Google denied it does at a webmaster forum.

I'm finding it hard to reconcile the two things - how can posting articles still be a good option if the duplicate penalty does exist? Surely no webmaster will touch them now for fear of being penalized for having duplicate content. Anything in an article directory's usually been posted elsewhere of course. If you choose an article that's been around a while, there could be thousands of copies of it out there.

On the other hand, if it really doesn't exist, why are so many yelling about losing their PR despite not doing anything different from usual in such concentrated numbers the last few months? Surely Google can't expect every site on the web to have exclusive content. If that's the case, they better take a look at their own News section and stop posting AP releases.

I feel like I'm missing something here. Thoughts please?

[pendelton]

The articles are, generally, for getting back links to your site for the SERPs and to hopefully get a little traffic to your site from them.

Google may have different arrangements with larger businesses than what it provides for we commoners. So, in reality, it could be both, as they would count the big sites with original content and any copiers, even if they are not, as duplicate content.

Another reason people have lost PR is just like you said, "...so many yelling about losing their PR despite not doing anything different...". This doing nothing different in the ever changing environment of the net is no different than an substance abuser. Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. In this case, they get them, and not the ones they had hoped for.

[Nazreen]

Kay, that link you've provided is almost the same as this googlewebmastercentral post (http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2008/09/demystifying-duplicate-content-penalty.html) by the way. If that's the case then it should also have been penalized. :)

I also agree with what's being said in those posts that there's no such thing as a "Google duplicate content penalty.". If there is such a thing, then it would be a very bad thing especially for forums because it's impossible for the admins and mods to check each and every post for duplicate content. Some of their members might have just copied and pasted some of their posts from other websites.

[Kay]

The articles are, generally, for getting back links to your site for the SERPs and to hopefully get a little traffic to your site from them.

Google may have different arrangements with larger businesses than what it provides for we commoners. So, in reality, it could be both, as they would count the big sites with original content and any copiers, even if they are not, as duplicate content.

Another reason people have lost PR is just like you said, "...so many yelling about losing their PR despite not doing anything different...". This doing nothing different in the ever changing environment of the net is no different than an substance abuser. Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. In this case, they get them, and not the ones they had hoped for.

Thanks for the response, pendleton. :) I do get the logic of why we've always done it, for the backlinks. I've submitted them myself for years for that very reason and hoping a few people would pop along too. What I was wondering was, does that look like it'll dry up as a way to promote your site?

Because even if it's not true, and the perception of the majority is that it is, is that not capable of causing as much damage as if were true in the first place? Hope that made sense.

I'm coming at it from both sides here, because as a submitter I'd look to do something else if I thought webmasters wouldn't bother publishing them. All I'd have would be the article directory links (which may be enough, I don't know if I'm being over optimistic expecting the article to go further afield). But then surely the article sites would be 100% duplicate content themselves. Ezine articles is a PR6.

Putting on my editors hat for a minute. I go to the well known article directories a lot, looking for some high quality writers for my writer's magazine site I can get in touch with. Now if I thought I'd lose PR because I published their content, I don't know if I'd just knuckle down and write it all myself instead. I try hard to have different writers there because variety's the spice of life butif I felt it would hurt me with advertisers who look at your PR before much else, I don't know what I'd do.

Sorry, just thinking out loud here. You're probably right about different rules for us commoners and you're definitely spot on about standing still as well. In fact my husband and I just started building a new site a few days ago. We've always got some irons in the fire and if we're not working on our sites, we're talking about what we'll do with them next. Romantic eh :rolleyes:

Sometimes I feel Google changes the goalposts so often there's no point in trying to second guess them, which of course is why they do it...probably best to just go with your gut and my gut says keep working hard at it and it'll all work out.

Thanks again, pendleton. :)

[pendelton]

You are welcome Kay.

I never checked any of the article sites PR, but, with it only being a 6 even they may have a bit of a penalty applied, as it seems that they should be higher.

[Kay]

Kay, that link you've provided is almost the same as this googlewebmastercentral post (http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2008/09/demystifying-duplicate-content-penalty.html) by the way. If that's the case then it should also have been penalized. :)

True! :) I did see he said "Duplicate content penalty has been refuted by Google in a recent webmaster central blog post " but didn't make the connection to that being an official Google blog in all honesty.


I also agree with what's being said in those posts that there's no such thing as a "Google duplicate content penalty.". If there is such a thing, then it would be a very bad thing especially for forums because it's impossible for the admins and mods to check each and every post for duplicate content. Some of their members might have just copied and pasted some of their posts from other websites.

Good point, Nazreen. I think that's one of the reasons why it makes my mind boggle. I know I've done it myself with my own stuff and up till now all I've ever worried about when I share my writing is someone pinching it and me never finding out.

I hope the penalty's a myth. It makes more sense to be a myth, don't you think? Does to me anyway. Thanks for the comment and that link, Nazreen! I'll be reading it all through later in the wee small hours. :)

[Kay]

You are welcome Kay.

I never checked any of the article sites PR, but, with it only being a 6 even they may have a bit of a penalty applied, as it seems that they should be higher.

I don't either but I just went and looked mid-post out of curiosity. I imagine the sheer volume of visitors they get alone would help balance that out, if so.

I hate ezine, I must admit. I've read some real rubbish there that doesn't deserve the label of article at all while trying to sort the wheat from the chaff. I recently saw someone comment elsewhere that some webmasters don't care about the standard of the writing anyway. They just want fillers.