I was perusing the Google webmasters blog and came across a post about duplicate content, and how that affects the rank of a site. I was great to read that in General duplicate content is not seen as a problem!
Google separates duplicate content in to 2 buckets - One: duplicate content on your site, and Two: Duplicate outside of your site.
For duplicate content suggestions and tips take a look at these three articles:
Duplicate content summit at SMX Advanced
Deftly dealing with duplicate content
Ranking as the original source for content you syndicate
These articles will provide you with the technical information you’ll need to curb duplicate content on your site or externally to your site. a brief synopsis of those articles:
1) know your CMS. make sure your not in inadvertently creating duplicate content by moving content to another portion of your site and not using a redirect from the old URL to the new URL is ONE example of creating duplicate content.
2) Guide search bots to the content you would like to be indexed. This can be done by specifying the the urls you want searched in a sitemap, blocking versions of content you would not like to be indexed, such as printer friendly versions of a page. and specifying your preferred domain in the google webmasters tool (if your not signed up for a google webmaster account. run out and get one Right NOW! hurry, there are lots of Goodies for you to look at!)
3) make sure your RSS feeds include links back to the original content.
4) links back your own page in your articles. that way if your content gets scraped then you get some promotion! Just kidding, really this is another way that the search engines can attribute you as the original content creator.
5) don’t worry about it too much. Search engines are tuned well enough to eliminate duplicate content on their own and know where the original content came from.
**as always this free blog is sponsored by our clients from web design st. louis, VRBO services by RentExpert.com, Silver Cross Jewelry by LoveRelic.com and Background Check Services by Peoplefinders.com. If you want any or all our SEO Services insights don’t be afraid to pick up our marketing book from Amazon.com. As we always say, SEO is simple you just have to provide a lot of valuable content for your users.
