Duplicate Content
I got a great article in a newsletter yesterday.
Then today, I got the exact same article, in a different newsletter. I'd just signed up for the second newsletter, and it's the first newsletter that I got from them, so I'm really disappointed. Not only did they take someone else's article, and make that their entire newsletter, they pretty much stole the name of the article for the newsletter. That shows me that these people put about 5 minutes of thought into their newsletter, and into their customers.
Now I don't mind using other people's articles..but to mail it out in a newsletter the day after the original person mailed it, is a bit much. If they had written, "I ran across this article by so and so yesterday" it would have been a little bit better. But they didn't. They wrote "I ran across this article recently, check it out." So I went ahead and clicked on the link, and found the same article I'd read yesterday - only now it was full of google ads :-(
In addition to this I noted that although most articles that are available for reprint say something along the lines of "please feel free to reprint this as long as you leave this resource box at the bottom" there was no resource box on this page. I even looked up the original article, and although I couldn't find it, all the other articles that were available on the original author's website, had a resource box, and a message at the bottom saying that you could reprint the article, as long as you included the resource box, and emailed a copy of the reprint back to the original author.
So not only was I reading the same article I'd read yesterday, the second newsletter writer had effectively stolen all of the traffic and interest that the original author worked so hard for, by failing to include the resource box.
Now I don't mind using articles that are available for reprint on your website, or even in your newsletters, but if you are going to use those articles, there are some things to consider.
First, you must abide by the conditions the author put on that article. If the author says you can reprint this article, just make sure included the resource box, then by all means reprint the article, and make sure you include the resource box.
After all, the author has spent time and energy writing that article, and if they are willing to share it with you, and help you provide interesting material for your users, then by all means give the author some credit!
If you don't, you might risk losing more than a few clicks on your site-you might risk losing the credibility of your business, and of yourself. After all, if I can't trust you to do something as simple as copy an entire article, resource box and all, to your site, how can I trust you to give me good advice about business? How can I trust you to accurately describe the items you are selling? How can I trust anything you say?
Second, if you are going to use articles from other sources to place on your website, you need to add your own information to those pages, so that you don't risk being penalized for duplicate content by the search engines. In the same vein, if you yourself are writing articles for dispersal, you need to make sure that there is enough extra content on the page that your articles are on on your website, so that you don't get banned for duplicate content either.
After all, the point of sharing articles is to help bring more traffic to your site, and if your site gets banned from Google, than those articles will be doing the exact opposite of what you intended.
Best Wishes For a Prosperous Business,
Sarah
Then today, I got the exact same article, in a different newsletter. I'd just signed up for the second newsletter, and it's the first newsletter that I got from them, so I'm really disappointed. Not only did they take someone else's article, and make that their entire newsletter, they pretty much stole the name of the article for the newsletter. That shows me that these people put about 5 minutes of thought into their newsletter, and into their customers.
Now I don't mind using other people's articles..but to mail it out in a newsletter the day after the original person mailed it, is a bit much. If they had written, "I ran across this article by so and so yesterday" it would have been a little bit better. But they didn't. They wrote "I ran across this article recently, check it out." So I went ahead and clicked on the link, and found the same article I'd read yesterday - only now it was full of google ads :-(
In addition to this I noted that although most articles that are available for reprint say something along the lines of "please feel free to reprint this as long as you leave this resource box at the bottom" there was no resource box on this page. I even looked up the original article, and although I couldn't find it, all the other articles that were available on the original author's website, had a resource box, and a message at the bottom saying that you could reprint the article, as long as you included the resource box, and emailed a copy of the reprint back to the original author.
So not only was I reading the same article I'd read yesterday, the second newsletter writer had effectively stolen all of the traffic and interest that the original author worked so hard for, by failing to include the resource box.
Now I don't mind using articles that are available for reprint on your website, or even in your newsletters, but if you are going to use those articles, there are some things to consider.
First, you must abide by the conditions the author put on that article. If the author says you can reprint this article, just make sure included the resource box, then by all means reprint the article, and make sure you include the resource box.
After all, the author has spent time and energy writing that article, and if they are willing to share it with you, and help you provide interesting material for your users, then by all means give the author some credit!
If you don't, you might risk losing more than a few clicks on your site-you might risk losing the credibility of your business, and of yourself. After all, if I can't trust you to do something as simple as copy an entire article, resource box and all, to your site, how can I trust you to give me good advice about business? How can I trust you to accurately describe the items you are selling? How can I trust anything you say?
Second, if you are going to use articles from other sources to place on your website, you need to add your own information to those pages, so that you don't risk being penalized for duplicate content by the search engines. In the same vein, if you yourself are writing articles for dispersal, you need to make sure that there is enough extra content on the page that your articles are on on your website, so that you don't get banned for duplicate content either.
After all, the point of sharing articles is to help bring more traffic to your site, and if your site gets banned from Google, than those articles will be doing the exact opposite of what you intended.
Best Wishes For a Prosperous Business,
Sarah
posted by Sarah at
7:10 AM
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