Article Marketing and the Duplicate Content Filter
Many people ask me if they will run into problems with the duplicate content penalty when distributing their articles online.
If "run into problems" means being penalized, then the answer is no.
What will happen if you submit identical articles to multiple directories is, after a while the duplicate content filter will spot them, and the links pointing to your website from those articles will not "count" in Google.
However, that doesn't necessarily mean that submitting the same article to multiple websites won't do you any good. Many times, the duplicate content filter will not catch every single one of the articles. (Webmasters will find your article on the directories and post it to their own website.)
Also, as of now (this will probably change in the future), most of those links will still count in MSN and Yahoo. And they send traffic too…
One thing I do not recommend doing is posting the articles you distribute on your own website. Always use unique content on your own site.
When it comes to article marketing, most of the benefit comes from the links you'll acquire.
Whether you use Isnare, Article Marketer, submit to the Top article directories, or use any other kind of distribution service/tool, it's always a good idea to setup a Google Alert for your article title and:
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a) Track the results so you know which service is more effective for you. (Results can vary based on your market, and a number of other factors)
b) When a website with good PageRank and/or Alexa ranking picks up your article, contact the webmaster and offer them a unique article to post on their site. This way you both win. They get unique, quality content for free - and you get a valuable link to your website for free.
The more links you can get from websites with high PageRank, the better off you will be from an SEO standpoint. This is all covered in Step 7 - SEO Traffic, of the Nitro Blueprint System.
Bottom line, using something like Isnare or Article Marketer is very quick and will still get results.
Last time I checked, Article Marketer had a service that allows you to create unique versions of your original article, then distributes the unique versions for you. This is a great strategy, because unlike with Isnare, more of the links from those articles will count in Google, and won't disappear as the duplicate content filter spots them.
With something like Isnare, it's still effective for getting links. What will typically happen is, your article will be submitted to hundreds of places, and about 5-10 of those links will "stick" in the long run.
Don't forget there are more benefits from article marketing than just getting links. For instance:
- Some sites will pick up articles from article directories and send out to their newsletter subscribers. In that case, the duplicate content filter is meaningless.
- Also, regardless of whether the search engines count the link or not, there will be readers on other sites who will read your articles and follow the links back to your site.
- Plus, by getting your name out there all over the web, you are establishing yourself as an expert and authority in your niche.
Now get out there and start distributing some articles. 
- Liz
article marketing, internet marketing, seo, website promotion, website traffic
Comments
February 7, 2008
Webcontent Thursdays: What Is The Duplicate Content Penalty? said (pingback):
[...] The first thing that I learned is that the so-called penalty is actually a filter. When a search engine finds duplicate content, then it excludes links from the duplicates. So, it's not actually a penalty as much as it is an exclusion. You can read more about it at Nitro Marketing. [...]
March 27, 2008
Alex Newell said:
Way too many people worry about the duplicate content filter. This is a good post because it encourages people to take action.
The position with article marketing is a bit like making comments in other people's blogs.
Yes it's true that most blogs have a "no follow" tag or "filter" but you can still get traffic from the blog. If someone likes your comment they will click through and see what else you have to say.
And when push comes to shove what you want is traffic not PageRank!
All The Best
Alex
October 24, 2008
Internet marketing tips said:
Sweet..I've been looking for this answer for a long time now. Now I know the formula to submit my articles to 10+ locations. I'll just keep the articles unique on my own site. Thanks alot!
December 1, 2008
Writer said:
I've been looking all over for information such as this. Thanks. I do think page rank should be more of a goal than traffic, as a higher page rank will lead to consistent traffic. Whereas blog links and article links are pretty patchy in terms of generating traffic. But it's good to see a post that doesn't totally limit the value of posting to article directories. It's not a be-all traffic strategy, but every bit counts.
Jeff said:
The information I have been able to get my hands on regarding this issue indicates that Google gives the greatest weight to the site where the content is indexed first. If you are submitting articcles to directories, this will likely be ezine articles.com. The "rule of first mention" if you will. Other occurances of the article will still provide back links to your site, but will not have as much weight with Google. As mentioned above, Google plays by their own set of rules, which are not followed by Yahoo, MSN or others - the no follow tag is a good example. The only search engine I know of that follows the no follow is Google.
If duplicate content were certain death to your article writing efforts, then there would be no point in submitting articles to directories that will syndicate your articles and disctribute them to other web sites, and allow other marketers and web masters to use them as content.
Where Google appears to penalize sites for duplicate content is having repetitious content on the same site (keyword spamming), or having duplicate sites with different URL's, which are perceived as attempts to "game" the search engines.
As long as your efforts are above board, "white hat" you shouldn't find yourself in too much trouble with Google.
An excellent resource I found on this topic is "SEO Lies" by Justin Brooke.