Why Avoid Duplicate Content on Your Website
Google’s guide to SEO is clear about the need to avoid duplicated content. We should all be aware that Google has duplicate content checkers. They monitor everything. However, with a bit of understanding, you can safely add content to your website without impacting your search engine ranking.
4 Reasons Duplicate Content is Frown Upon by Google
As a rule, it’s prudent to publish unique and new content every time. Do not copy from your existing content archive. Your users are looking for something new, and it may be regarded as duplicate content and could hinder your Google search engine optimisation efforts.
Why do search engines want original content
The search engine’s job is to index and present as much original content as possible, ensuring a variety within the search. Google, the world’s biggest search engine, takes notice of original content and uses it as a factor in determining a website’s credibility, which in turn can impact Google SEO ranking. If you want to be seen, you need original, relevant content and should actively review duplicate content issues.
Search engine algorithms have become increasingly sophisticated and now reward websites with no duplicate content and are free from keyword spamming. They want original content that is of value to the user.
Why do website builders want original content
If you’re going to be easily found online, you need to ensure that you perform well in terms of search engine ranking. But there are other reasons why there is value in having a relevant and engaging website with little or no duplicate content. A couple of additional benefits of engaging a duplicate content checker across your content include:
- Credibility – If you can provide the correct information in a relevant manner, you become more credible as a brand
- Backlinks – A credible website can soon become an authority and may start to earn backlinks from other sites
Sometimes duplicate content is unavoidable
Perhaps you need to repeat information about your services provided across multiple locations, featured on different pages. Canonical tags can be used to direct Google to undertake onpage SEO on just one of these pages. If you do not use canonicals, Google will decide which page to index. Canonical SEO is a powerful way to diminish the impact of duplicate content SEO on your ranking.
Penalties are intended for spammers
Considering the amount of spamming that search engines have to deal with, they do a pretty good job indexing unique content. To do this, they have introduced duplicating filters that sort and dispose of information that the search engine already knows about. This is simply a filter, not a penalty. Penalties may be awarded algorithmically or in some cases by a search engineer who uncovers spamming or deception within a site.
A professional web presence
The best way to ensure that your web content is original is to avoid copying and pasting from other sites. While researching online to find out what content is already being used is advisable, it is vital to produce original content.
There are many content writing services online; however, beware of the minimal price services. If you are an Australian business, then having a local writer can give your business an advantage as long as they take the time to produce original content. Few writers receiving a small payment or given an unreasonable deadline will spend the required time on research to generate unique content. The best content writers will ensure your professional online image and original content containing keywords and descriptors specific to your site.
Webcentral has a dedicated Digital Marketing team that can advise you further on effective web content. Learn more about how our copywriting service can help boost your content marketing campaign or call 1300 638 734 to speak to one of our consultants.