Same article published to 3 different client owned sites
-
My client is publishing their own articles simultaneously on three sites, sites which they own. What can and should they be doing to ensure the get maximum exposure without penalty?
-
Truth be told, I'm not sure. Google says they reserve the right to not follow a rel=canonical, but that being said, I don't know why they wouldn't in this case. I think the attribution is probably much less important just because it could come in so many different forms (link at the top of the post, link at the bottom, worded one way or another, etc), which becomes different to track and account for on the search engine side.
-
Hi Eric.
Just to be clear, is the attribution a must have or will the canonical tag suffice? If it's necessary, is there specific wording to be used?
Donna
-
Hi Donna,
What your client is doing will cause duplicate content issue. Hopefully nothing happened to the ranking yet. I would suggest you use cross-domain canonical tag to tell Google which version of the article you want to show up on the search results.
Instead of sharing the same article on three sites, your client can increase the exposure by sharing it on Social Media platforms or send the article to subscribers on that topic (if it applies).
There are many ways to increase exposure but sharing the same article on multiple site will only cause harm.
-
I assume all of these sites are thematically related (eg. tractorparts.com, tractorstories.com, and tractorwarehouse.com), right? If not, get them to stop. It's hard to imagine a reason to post many tractor articles on a massage website. If they are related, you might have them give attribution to one of the sites and then cross-domain rel="canonical" it to the place it was first posted. That at the very least will let search engines know that it first came from another site and that it hasn't simply been stolen.
You see things like this all the time. For example, Mitch Joel write for HuffPo, Vancouver Sun, etc and reposts the articles to his blog with a link to the original and a statement about it first appearing on that other site.
-
If all three sites have the same article, one or two of the sites could be filtered from the Google SERPs because of duplicate content. This is much more likely to happen if these sites link to one another.
If there are only a couple of these articles there should not be much of a problem beyond filtering.
However, if they have many articles published this way then they could be hit with a Panda problem. To avoid that they could use a cross domain canonical to attribute the articles to a single site. To learn about that read these...
http://searchengineland.com/google-supports-cross-domain-canonical-tag-32044
http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1716747
You can attribute all of the articles to a single site to give that site maximum value or distribute the attributions to give each site a little value.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Restarting SEO when you move to different state
Hi every one, I have been working on my local citations but I have a blog which has been up for 4 years and has about 500 blog posts but I was living in NJ before and there is loads of stuff from jersey and also I have a lot of errors which is way too much to go back and fix like thousands since I am a photographer and loads of images. Would I be better off starting a new blog in my new SC region? my blog is feuzablogs.com and my main website is feuzareis.com so I thought of just doing a www.feuzareis.com/blog is it too much google juice to miss out on? is changing locations worth keeping blogging at this previous blog or should I just leave it up and start a new one which will be focused on new location? thanks
Content Development | | FeuzaReis121 -
Content: Best Blogs Article
Hello, For an Ecommerce site, I think a good way to get known is to write a "Best X Blogs" article, where X is a topic in your industry, and then letting the people you link to know about the article. I got the idea from a Mozinar. My question is, how close does the X from above have to be in your niche? For example, if your product is running shoes can you write a "best athlete blogs" article? I'm worried about them reading the article, then leaving. In some smaller niches the topics closest to the product don't have much in the way of blogs out there. So how close to your niche does the Best X Blogs topic have to be?
Content Development | | BobGW0 -
Site Content Review Please!
I m looking for someone who can review my site and let me about quality of content on my site. Can anyone suggest / know who I can talk to about this ? Nick
Content Development | | orion680 -
The same phrase in many different pages of one site
Hi,
Content Development | | webg
Recently, I had to add the same phrase, with 15 words, nearly, in 700 posts in a same blog. In this phrase is written about the site ownership and eventually some links showing the posts sources. I thought in create a image, but it will be some variations in the source words (2 or 3), therefore I chose to use text format. I'd like to read some comments and opinions about this kind of insertion (the same phrase in many different pages of one site). For exemple, did you handle this in your site? Problems or benefits (mainly with indexing)? Special code to indicate in this case? Any threat?0 -
Is there a way to repost content (with permission) to another site without being penalized by Google?
I write a monthly Social Media Marketing column for a local Business Journal and the column is printed in their paper as well as posted on their website. Is there any way I can repost these articles on my website's blog without being penalized by Google for "duplicate content"?
Content Development | | vyki0 -
Blog and Website = 2 different URL's - Is it WORTH to merge content on to one site
Good day Mozzers! A friend of mine recently asked for my help in regards to online marketing. While getting familiar with his online presence, I realized that he has a blog hosted under a completely different URL Main Site = http://pardons.org/ (page rank 4)
Content Development | | vip4service
Blog = http://pardons.wordpress.com/ (page rank 3) What I am battling with is whether or not he should take all of the blog content he has, and merge it on to his main site. It has over 280+ blog posts spanning over a few years, so there is A LOT of content that could benefit his main site. However is it worth it, or should he continue to run everything as 2 different sites? Also, of you suggest moving the content over, what would be the best way to do it in your opinion? He currently has links on his blog TO his main site, so there is a little bit of link juice there, but with a average of 300 views a day, he only get about 10 clicks to his main site from the blog. Thanks a ton for your help!0 -
Should I publish several blog posts at once or stagger?
I have several blog posts that I want to publish (40 or so). For freshness is it better to stagger their publication over several months or is it fine to publish them all at the same time. The comments are closed.
Content Development | | AndreB0 -
What are the advantages/disadvantages of a blog residing on a website as opposed to free-standing and linked to site
I have a cleint with a web site and with 3 freestanding wordpress blogs - should we be housing those blogs on the site? should we combine them (its an insurance compnay with several business units). thanks
Content Development | | thirsty30