If a business wants to be number one, the goal is to stand out among the rest. When we say stand out, we mean it in every aspect, such as branding, web design, and even content! You might be wondering if there’s a duplicate content penalty. We’re here to cover all the bases with duplicate content, so you’ll know what to do next time.
What is Duplicate Content?
Before we go on to more pressing matters, let’s first define what duplicate content is. It is content that has large portions that are already available on the world wide web. It also counts as a duplicate, even if it’s on your own website. Now, does Google impose penalties for such circumstances? The answer is a giant NO, but you shouldn’t celebrate just yet!
What is the Connection Between Duplicate Content and SEO?
Although Google doesn’t penalize similar published content, it affects your website’s rankings. That’s right. Duplicate content makes it difficult for search engines to rank your content. Search engines also don’t have time to crawl every page and analyze what should be on top. No matter how much you utilize SEO, your efforts might be in vain.
Each version will have the same authority signals, such as backlinks, website traffic, and conversions. That will affect the performance of your website and can drive your sales lower. If you have duplicate content, you’re putting your website’s growth and presence totally up to Google’s standards.
“Does duplicate content affect SEO,” you might be wondering. The answer is yes. Google filters content to make sure that users get different results. When that happens, you unknowingly sacrifice your rankings.
When Does Duplication Happen?
You might have a few practices that you’re unaware of which contributes to the duplication, including but not limited to the following:
- When you have two or more domains
- When you publish the same content for different regions or countries
- When you use identical meta titles and meta descriptions on various articles
What Duplicate Content Checkers Can You Use?
Copyscape
This duplicate content checker is free. All you have to do is copy and paste your content. Copyscape will list down the URLs where similar content is published.
Exact-Match Search on Google
You can do this by copying a few sentences from your content. Enclosed it in quotation marks and hit the Search button. All results with the exact words will come up. You’ll see if your content is or has duplicates created by others.
Duplichecker
When you register on Duplichecker, you can do 50 searches a day. You can check if your content is original with just a few clicks.
Siteliner
This duplicate checker can scan your website once a month to check for any similar content. Aside from that, it can also see if there are any broken links.
How Much Similarity is OK?
There are times when repeating the same content can’t be helped. What situations are considered acceptable?
- A quoted sentence or two from another website
- Product specifications in product descriptions
- Products that belong in multiple categories in your e-commerce website
- Content that appears in different sections on your website
Now that you’re knowledgeable about what is considered duplicate content by Google, you know what to and what not to do. From there, you can be confident that your Google rankings will not be affected in any way. When you know that your content passed duplicate checkers, you’ll have peace of mind knowing that you’re not plagiarizing.
It can be stressful to manage a business from the bottom to the top. The good thing is that there are businesses that can manage your website for you. If you don’t want to get frustrated with duplicate content, you can hire them.
At Advanced Digital Media Services, we help clients establish their online presence from web design, SEO, and page speed optimization, to content creation. Our team dedicates our time to giving our clients the best service there is. You can rest easy knowing that our content team can come up with unique and fresh content. If that sounds like something you need, don’t hesitate to call us!
