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Duplicate Content talk at SES

February 28th

Carlos Rabanillo

2011 is a new year for search engine optimization but there were still SEOs attending SES concerned that they might be getting penalized by Google because of duplicate content.

Mikkel Svendsen was one of the speakers in SES, he talked about the Myths around Duplicate Content

Mikkel said that there are several SEO myths surrounding duplicate content, he broke them down to 7 myths, in this post I’m just going to summarize the main 4.

1.Don’t worry about duplicate pages … search engines will figure it out

False.

Not entirely false, but you need to be careful because search engines can de-index important pages which could translate to you losing organic traffic.

2. Google will coo coo for cocoa puffs if they find duplicate content on your site

False.

Main thing you need to know is the difference between punished and filtered. If you’ve been filtered you just need to make a few changes and you should be OK, if you are punished … Well that’s another story. The difference is crucial to how you fix it.

3.If it ain’t broke don’t fix it

False.

Some SEOs think that you can get away with duplicate content as long as you haven’t been filtered or punished. Well … it is a lot like a landmine in Guantanamo Bay, people think it’s OK if you don’t step on it, but guess what? Google keeps moving the landmine and sooner than later it will get you!

4. Duplicate Content is only problem across domains – not within your own domain

False.

Search engines will try to filter it out if it pollutes the index, even if the duplicate content was found on your site. When the algorithm thinks that it doesn’t make sense form a user point of view, your pages will be filtered if not punished. (Google won’t penalize or filter your entire site, only the pages they consider as duplicate content)