Duplicate Content! The name itself can terrorize many webmasters and aspiring writers. Yet no one seems to be sure about what duplicate content actually means. An attempt was made in 2008 by Susan Moskwa of Google to demystify the concept of duplicate content. Yet till this day the term has retained its mystery. In this blog let us try to take a look at what duplicate content actually refers to.
Duplicate content refers to content within or across the domains that are exactly or largely similar. In most cases they are attempts by dishonest webmasters/scammers to steal good content from genuine websites to draw traffic and therefore manipulate the ranking of the search engines. This activity, known as plagiarism is in most cases maliciously intended.
However, if the language of the articles changes, it will not be considered as duplicate content. So, an identical article written in Spanish and English will not be considered duplicate. Similarity in snippets will not be counted as well.
One of the reasons why Google cares so much about the duplicate content is that they create a negative impression among the visitors. While searching on a particular subject a person wants to get as much information as possible. However when he/she comes across duplicate articles it frustrates him. Therefore Google is very careful about filtering and screening duplicate content.
Remember good content is the key for a successful internet marketing campaign. So make sure that you avoid duplicate or scraped content as that will harm your website in the long run.
What is the recent stand of Google on the duplicate content issue? Can you please update me?