Will linking to very similar (or duplicate content) hurt SEO
-
One of my clients started working with a traditional PR company to get media placements and they've placed articles on some very excellent and relevant sites. However, the article's content is nearly identical on each site. We would like to link my client's site to these articles, but will the duplicate content hurt SEO? Because there are some very minor variations within these articles, will that be enough of a difference where we don't need to be concerned if we did link our site to each article?
-
Yea, sorry I misspoke there. What I meant is that I was thinking of reaching out to these various sources and asking them to link to our site where it was mentioned in the article. I was just concerned whether links from many very similar (or duplicate) articles would do more harm than good. I think I go my answer, which is that it probably won't build much positive benefit, and there is a risk of negative effects, so I will avoid this tactic.
-
This could get you in trouble, even if the articles are not identical, but fairly identical. It's like those crappy spun articles people were (or still are) using for building contextual links. Most of the won't get indexed and if you have too many of them. The main problem is if those similar articles are also posted on your website. If yes, it could hurt you, if not, there's no risk but just as max pointed out, the backlinks will have no value.
-
Yes, linking from duplicate content means potentially loosing SEO value.
google could detect those articles as duplicate and do not include some in the index, result the backlink will bring no value to you.
if google do not detect those articles as duplicate you should still ask yourself if it's really what you want to be linked from extremely similar articles. Because that's a signal, the content of the article where the link is placed, google will use to choose the keywords you will be ranked for. Same article content same keywords you are feeding google.
-
you say "We would like to link my client's site to these articles"
How do you mean? Please explain a little more
-
I guess if it really is duplicated content its not recommended. If its very similar content but not duplicated it shouldn't hurt your SEO
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
-
Should I disavow these links?
Hi all, I have a ski website that I am currently performing a toxic backlink audit on. I have noted that a lot of the links being flagged as toxic/spammy by the tool I am using seem to be the same/similar sites with different URLs. The sites are vaguely related to skiing (relating to helicopter travel options for travelling to ski resorts) but it is concerning me that there are so many of them and they are being flagged as so toxic.
Link Building | | SolveWebMedia
Do you think it is worth disavowing these? Or contacting the owner to ask them to remove the link? I have included an example of some of the links below. https://www.cannes-helicopters.co.uk/index.php?menuopen=21&showcontent=5
https://nice-helicopter.co.uk/index.php?menuopen=21&showcontent=5
https://monaco-helicopter.co.uk/index.php?menuopen=21&showcontent=5 Slightly different site but same favicon icon:
https://monaco-helicopter.co.uk/index.php?menuopen=21&showcontent=5
https://www.whitetracks-holidays.com/Helicopter_Transfers_Villars_Switzerland.htm Thanks in advance for any advice / help!0 -
Other websites copy content and giving a link back
Hi, I've just noticed a few back links in Google Search Console, I was excited. But when I saw the backlinks, 2 other websites that had completely copied my content and then gave a backlink to my website. Is this bad for SEO and would google penalise my website for this?
Link Building | | thinkLukeSEO1 -
Indirect Link Earning via dofollow Links In News Articles
Hello, MOZ SEO Gurus. I've been trying to think some deep thoughts on safe, effective link earning for news publishing sites, and wanted to run this up the flagpole and see if you salute. Our site is a biotech news service -- we pump out copious amounts of news content each day, which works well for driving traffic. That being said, we also want to rank some optimized landing pages as well. Take, for example, this page, which we'd like to rank for "secondary progressive MS" and related keywords: http://bionews-tx.com/secondary-progressive-ms/ Now, as far as I'm concerned, shopping this page around to MS influencers isn't easy. I can go to Foundational websites, blogs, etc., and say, "hey, we have this info page on SPMS, and I thought that you might find it helpful/want to link to it." But chances are, the MS influencers already have their own proprietary content on SPMS, and there isn't much value to linking to it. Therefore, I think that we'll get few link earning conversions on the effort. However, what if I take our Secondary Progressive MS landing page, and I link to it in a corresponding article about SPMS research, as I did here: http://bionews-tx.com/news/2014/01/30/secondary-progressive-ms-natalizumab-clinical-trial/ Then, I go to the drug developer who is at the center of this story and say to them, "hey, we recently covered your drug in the news, and I thought you might want to link to it." Then, we get a link from an MS drug developer to the news article, which in turn has a prominent anchor text, dofollow internal link to the landing page for SPMS. If the link from the drug developer is dofollow, then we flow page rank juice from the drug developer page to our news page to our landing page. To me, it's much easier to earn safe links this way than to try and shop the landing page itself. That being said, if we get a dofollow link on the news piece, we only get a diminished portion of page rank going to the landing page. Is this strategy viable? Is the indirect flow of page rank from a linking site to a news article to a landing page even worth it? I'd love to hear your thoughts. Thanks!
Link Building | | bionewstx2 -
Do links from between common sites you run count as "bad" links?
Hi everyone,
Link Building | | AMA-DataSet
Iv recently been asked to review a group of sites. There are 3 sites, each of these sites has a link to the other two sites within the footer or the navigation.
These site are about a similar topic each provides a different perceptive or aims at a specific section of the industry so its not like the links are to irreverent sites. However because the links are in a global section they are repeated thousands of times on each site and count for a large proportion of the link profile to each site, I don't think this is good practise and I want to remove them or at least add a no-follow but my client insists they are relevant to each other and doesn't not want the links removing. What would be best in this situation? remove them? no-follow them? or leave them? Thank you in advance,
Liam0 -
Content Now
This is a general question, I was wondering if anybody had used content now before, either for content writing or link building. I've had them mentioned to me by a manager but would like to hear the opinions of others too. Has anybody used anything similar for creating content at all? Thanks
Link Building | | onlinechester0 -
Should I become a regular contributor to help my SEO link building?
I've been offered the opportunity to contribute to a blog as often as I want and have a link included at the bottom of each post. Will this be much help to me in my link building SEO campaign? As I understand it more links from different root domains are what really count? So 20 links each from a different site is more valuable that 20 links from one site? Should I take up this opportunity or are my efforts best spent elsewhere?
Link Building | | SamCUK0 -
Which link should I use for link building?
I have an article which have high rank on Google. But recent, I use mod rewrite url so this article have new url. old: mywebsite.com/c1/p-1 new: mywebsite.com/c-e/p-1 Now, google is indexing old url. I want to ask when I build linking to my site, which link should I use for link building? I should build linking for new url or old url. Thanks
Link Building | | sonzin13040 -
Will No Follow Links count toward your root domain links for Domain Authority?
I am wondering if no follow links help, hurt, or do nothing when it comes to increasing page and domain authority? I know they are not supposed to pass rank and I have read discussions that some people suspect they still might, but I am wondering if I have a mix of follow plus no follow, will the no follow ones increase the count of the root domains linking to me and help boost my authority? Assuming of course the no follow links are coming from quality sites with high page and domain authority of their own. Thanks.
Link Building | | FastLearner0