The Search Marketing Advisor Newsletter Article: June 2005, Volume 4, Issue 6
Duplicate Content: A Slice of Spam
by John Krochune, Algorithmic Search Manager, iProspect
I remember using search engines 10 years ago and being fascinated with how they worked. Back then, Excite and Lycos were the engines I used the most. True to my inquisitive nature, I found it interesting to plug in random search queries just to see what was out there on the net. Throughout my searches, something strange kept happening. In the first page of results, many of the listings were exactly alike in every way – from the link pointing to the Web page, to the bit of content that was displayed after it. But there was one particular difference: the URL. These pages were relevant to my query, since they were exactly the same, yet existed on different domains.
Memories – Like the Corners of My Mind
This trip down memory lane serves a purpose outside of being an example of what I did with my free time a decade ago. Duplicate content on separate domains was an early trick webmasters used to “fool” search engines into allowing the same page of content to rank multiple times on the same keyword phrase. Early in search engine development, there were simple elements on your Web page that weighed heavily in how visible it was within the search engine results. Webmasters who figured out what those factors were could get high rankings for a page they created on a particular keyword phrase.
Spamalot
Once they achieved those rankings for one page, they could easily dominate rankings on that same keyword phrase if they duplicated this page (with all of the same search-engine-friendly factors in place) across multiple, separate domains. In many cases, a webmaster could own the top ten results on one keyword phrase with little effort. This trick had two outcomes: great visibility for the webmaster, and a bad user experience for the person using the search engine.
Glory Days – Well, They'll Pass You By
Thankfully, those days are gone because long ago search engine architects devised ways to detect when this kind of tactic was being employed. Because search engines are now looking to find this technique, site owners need to be aware that owning multiple domains with the same content is problematic when trying to gain search engine visibility. When duplicate content appearing on different domains is detected, a couple results are possible:
One domain will be noted as the authority on this content. This domain will then be the most visible domain in the search engine results on keyword phrases that are relevant to its content. The others will be penalized in some form. They will either be invisible or have very little visibility within the search engine results.
All domains will be banned from the search engine’s index.
The big problem with the first result is the domain that is given authority status by the search engine may not be your company’s main domain, or the domain on which you are focusing. The problem with the second outcome is obvious.
E Pluribus Unum
The best option to avoid any penalization is to have only one domain on which to focus your search engine marketing efforts. Achieving search engine rankings on multiple domains with the same content in 2005 will not happen. If you currently own multiple domains featuring the same copy, the optimal strategy is to choose one domain, take down the other domains, and put up 301 server side redirects in their place that drive users and search engine spiders to the chosen domain. Placing these permanent redirects will strengthen the remaining domain and increase its chances for ranking on relevant, popular keyword phrases.
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