I just read this article by David Tischler entitled “Beware the Duplicate Content Filter“. The overall message of the post is correct: Proceed with Caution. That said, what he states just isn’t true.

There was one part, however, that made the little hairs on the back of my neck stand up. Here’s a quote, “Bear in mind, authorities and experts in a given field are often seeking collateral exposure, which you can provide them. The exercise is to find an article published online that contains content related to your industry and ask for permission to “reprint” it on your site.”

I must strongly disagree; reprinting articles from other sites can cause problems with duplicate content. When the search engines determine that the content on two different pages are duplicate, one will be chosen seemingly at random by the “duplicate content filter” in the algorithm and sent to the supplemental index (otherwise known as Google Hell). You are better off writing original content that refers to the article and providing a link to it.

I suppose if you took article domain.com/xyz.html and copied the exact HTML to yourdomain.com/xyz.html including all of the same text, surrounding copy, HTML, Title tag, and & Meta tags, then your page would probably end up in the supplemental index. But who would do that? How lazy are you?

The fact of the matter is that it is possible to re-use content if done properly. Your site can’t be a mirror copy of another existing site. Your page can’t be a mirror copy of another page. But there are certainly plenty of areas in the middle where content such as press releases, product specifications, news articles, product reviews, and other pieces of content from the same source can be re-used and can be found ranking in the same SERP. I have plenty of concrete examples from today’s SERPs.

I don’t think many people know how to walk the line though. They don’t know enough about the situation or they’re too green and not able to cut through the FUD.

So, like I mentioned before, David’s overall message of caution is correct. You need to be careful or you run the risk of being bitten in the ass. But, it can be done and it isn’t as black and white as he suggests.

I mean, if the search engines can do it, why can’t you? For example, all of the Yahoo! Movie News is technically duplicate content as the articles are licensed from the Associated Press, E! Online, Reuters, and other content providers. Other sections of Yahoo! are the same.

And check this out. Yahoo even has duplicates within their site. And still ranks!

• Yahoo! Article 1 - McGregor earns minimum wage on stage
• Yahoo! Article 2 - McGregor earns minimum wage on stage
• Google Ranking - McGregor earns minimum wage

Or even better, how about both of them ranking next to each other? Here you go!

Sidenote: It actually looks like Yahoo has some sub-domain issues going on. This search for “site:yahoo.com ‘McGregor Earns Minimum Wage’” brings back 3,860 results. Are those their different servers?

You need to ask yourself if the content presents value to your users. If it does then you can proceed without worrying because even if the pages don’t rank well they’ll still give your users a better experience on your site. If they are simply search engine food you may want to rethink it.

Now, I have no problem with what Yahoo! is doing since it probabaly presents value to their users.

BUT, don’t generate half of your website based on someone else’s content, duplicate content, and then state this in your Quality Guidelines:

Pages Yahoo! Wants Included in its Index

• Original and unique content of genuine value

What Yahoo! Considers Unwanted
Some, but not all, examples of the more common types of pages that Yahoo! does not want include:

• Pages that have substantially the same content as other pages
• Multiple sites offering the same content

Oh the irony…..