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Avoiding Duplicate Content on Web 2.0 Sites
By Tiffany | August 22, 2008
Emma asks, “Thanks for the information! I’ve been following your advice, gotten through Squidoo, hubpages, and blogging. However, now I’m running into an issue: If I create a lens and a hub for the same keyword, how do I avoid duplication of information? It doesn’t seem right to have links from my website to a lens and a hub with exactly the same information. What are your thoughts? ~Emma”
Thanks for the question, Emma! There are two solutions for you:
You don’t want to put the exact same content on a lens and Hub - or anywhere on the ‘net for that matter. You have to learn how to write the same thing in a different way. It can discuss the exact same concepts, though!
Let me give you an example: Top 5 Diet Tips (I’ll do it two ways for you):
For a lens, you might have these: (1) Burn More Calories Than You Eat (2) Exercise for an Hour a Day (3) Avoid White Foods (4) Shop on the Outer Edges of the Grocery Store (5) Listen to Your Hunger Cues.
For a Hub, take those exact same 5 ideas and make them this: (1) Eat Less, Exercise More (2) Get in an Hour of Cardio Daily (3) Don’t Eat Sugar or White Bread (4) Stay Clear of Processed Foods (5) Adhere to Normal Eating Patterns
It may take some practice for you - you may have to use the synomym feature on your word processor, but learn how to say the same thing using different words.
Or, here’s another solution:
Let’s say your keyword is diet plans. On your lens, your slant can be “Top 5 diet plans” and on your Hub it can be “Why Many Diet Plans Never Work.” Your Ezine Article might be “Which Diet Plans Harm Your Health?” and your blog entry could be “Reviews of the Best and Worst Diet Plans.”
Your goal is to get the hyperlink anchored in your keyword phrase and pointing to your site.
Does this help?
Tiff 
Topics: Web 2.0 Sites, Website Traffic |
August 22nd, 2008 at 1:08 pm
Phew………. I know you said it would be hard, but I didn’t know it would be THIS hard!
That’s okay, I can handle it. I hate to keep bothering you with questions, but is it okay to make a lens that is a ‘compilation’ of material elsewhere? For example, I’m doing a Community Fridays feature on my blog every Friday; could I make a lens where I copy all those interviews so that people can just read the interviews if they want? (BTW I’ve linked a few of my sites to your Traffic Advice post, so I can help get the word out!)
August 22nd, 2008 at 1:44 pm
Great timing on the advice, Tiffany. I’ve been writing like a maniac for my sites. But I have Josh Spauling’s report on Article Marketing Domination where he blows away the duplicate content “penalty” jazz. It seems he has tested this extensively and he found that submitting articles to ezine directories may dilute the power of the article but there is no “penalty” as such. It seems that the penalty arises when the same content is found within the same site.
Now, I am still very new to this so I don’t know how this applies to what you are doing. Do you find that it is necessary to make changes in content for your Hub, Squidoo, site, ezine?? so the articles are substantially different? Because, unless I am not understanding this, Google will give more wieight to the site that publishes an article first but there really isn’t a “penalty”. The other sites who have the same article just get less authority. Right? I really could use your insight on this.
Thanks!
August 22nd, 2008 at 2:06 pm
Emma and Cheryl,
No one knows for sure what Google’s (or any other SE for that matter) take is on duplicate content. I’ve heard definitive “proof” from both sides of the argument.
My expertise is in web 2.0 peer to peer content. So my advice is to make it unique. Even if it’s that it gives you less authority, that in itself is a penalty if you ask me. lol
Why not take a little bit of extra time and slowly grow your site with 100% unique content so you get full authority instead?
For Emma, instead of making a lens that compiles the interviews, why not have text modules that disucss the topic or person being interviewed and then hyperlink to the interview that’s on your domain?
Tiff
August 22nd, 2008 at 2:46 pm
Hey Tif- I believe it would be even better to find different keywords for each place that you will be writing content for.
For example-
on a squiddoo lense you could be targeting the keyword phrase:
diet and exercise plans- which gets 12 searches a day
on a hub page you would target the keyword phrase:
diet meal plans which gets 20 searches a day
The on your own site you would be targeting 2 keyword phrases on the same page like:
low carb diet plans (41 searches a day)
healthy diet plans (31 searches a day)
That way you can anchor text link back to your site with different but similar keyword ophrase and rank for all of them.
So from the squidoo and hubpages you can anchor text to your site with the highest amount of poeple searching keywords.
You can also interlink squidoo lenses so that they rank higher andget more page rank.
Then on your backlink camapigns you wouldn’t becompeting with yourself trying to get more than one place ranked for the same term. Adn you would be getting in additional people for the other terms.
.What do you think about this strategy?
August 22nd, 2008 at 3:09 pm
Actually, Google is pretty clear about duplicate content:
http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=66359
Here’s an excerpt:
“Duplicate content generally refers to substantive blocks of content within or across domains that either completely match other content or are appreciably similar. Mostly, this is not deceptive in origin. Examples of non-malicious duplicate content could include:
* Discussion forums that can generate both regular and stripped-down pages targeted at mobile devices
* Store items shown or linked via multiple distinct URLs
* Printer-only versions of web pages
However, in some cases, content is deliberately duplicated across domains in an attempt to manipulate search engine rankings or win more traffic. Deceptive practices like this can result in a poor user experience, when a visitor sees substantially the same content repeated within a set of search results. … Duplicate content on a site is not grounds for action on that site unless it appears that the intent of the duplicate content is to be deceptive and manipulate search engine results. If your site suffers from duplicate content issues, and you don’t follow the advice listed above, we do a good job of choosing a version of the content to show in our search results.
However, if our review indicated that you engaged in deceptive practices and your site has been removed from our search results, review your site carefully. If your site has been removed from our search results, review our webmaster guidelines for more information. Once you’ve made your changes and are confident that your site no longer violates our guidelines, submit your site for reconsideration. ”
This seems to indicate that the “try your best to put make it unique” approach will work just fine.
August 22nd, 2008 at 4:38 pm
Here’s an easy way to check your pages for duplicate content:
http://www.seochat.com/seo-tools/page-comparison
This tool (free) tells you the percentage of similarity for your two pages.
August 22nd, 2008 at 4:46 pm
Thanks, Tiffany and thanks, Dallas. I am still in the trenches on this one and often wonder what is what. Your quote above is most appreciated. Not that I was going to go out there and duplicate all over.
I wonder, though, about the idea of article marketing where one is supposed to submit say 5 similar (not duplicate)articles to each of the top 5 ezine directories and say another 5 (differnt articles, too) to the next 20 - 30 most popular ezine directories. This is what I was referring to earlier. Is that considered duplicate content when 5 or 10 or more ezine directories has a copy of your one article and then if someone then picks up your article and publishes it on their site. How does that come into this duplicate content thing? ??
August 22nd, 2008 at 4:58 pm
Dallas, good find! Unique is always better - rule of thumb. That’s what my mantra is anyway
Cheryl, you’re saying similar but not duplicates - there’s no problem with that! Duplicate content is verbatim stuff that’s not going to pass copyscape, for example.
But you’re mentioning publishers picking it up - well in the case of article directories, you WANT it to be picked up. Your original submission, as Dallas showed, will be considered the authority and the other publishers will rank lower for it than you.
Tiff
August 22nd, 2008 at 5:01 pm
Okey Dokey. I am getting a bit of a glimmer, thanks all!
Back to the writing board
August 24th, 2008 at 11:06 am
Okay, I think I’m starting to figure it out now. Thanks again for your help.