Risks with sharing my original content with other sites
-
We write our own unique content to our blog a few times a week. The content is written by professionals (doctors and such) and carries a bit of authority.
We periodically get requests from other websites who want to post our content on their blog. We also find that some people will just go ahead and use our exact content (often with a link attribution), without asking permission.
Is there any risk of us not getting credit for being the original source of the content if others use it in its entirety?Are there other risks?
And more importantly, what should we do to make sure we're getting the SEO credit we deserve?
Some ideas which have been discussed that may or may not have credence:
- Only let others use the exact content well after we've been crawled, so we'll be seen as the first publisher
- Only let people cite the introductory paragraph, with a link allowing them to read more at our site (with good anchor text)
- Require people to summarize our story, with a link for the full story
Any thoughts would be appreciated.
Thanks!
-
Additional to the above points, I would suggest adding Canonical tag to the articles. For major articles you can also use Google Webmaster tools to request Google to fetch and index a page, you have a limited number of these requests, so used them wisely.
-
Sounds like Sage advice!
-
This is what we do, to try to make sure we get credit for our own stories, and it seems to be working:
Connect your G+ profile to your articles.
Add your own profile page to your site.
Link the G+ profile to your own profile page.
google will know that you are real and you are claiming ownership of the content.
It is too soon to tell if this is the answer, but it is what google says and it is what we are doing.
Here is a short video I made for our writers, to explain how to do it.
-
What are your objectives?
If you have "a message to get out" then you should be sharing your content eveywhere with everybody.
If you are trying to make money and develop a reputation for your site then ask yourself these questions....
- what will happen to my income if ten other sites have each of my articles in the Google index?
- who will get the social sharing for all of my hard work?
- why are these people asking to use my content instead of linking to it or tweeting about it?
The only option that you list that I would do is... "Only let people cite the introductory paragraph sentence, with a link allowing them to read more at our site (with good anchor text)"
Only let others use the exact content well after we've been crawled, so we'll be seen as the first publisher.
You publish first and then an authoritative site publishes.... they will outrank you. They will receive your traffic. They will receive your links, likes, tweets, etc. Thanks!
-
All the 3 options are okay. You have to keep in mind, that with the nature of the Internet, you are not really going to be able to control which one of the 3 technique people/other website owners you, so essentially you can't know what people decide to do.
Another oppurtunity would be to implement something like www.repost.us (I saw that discussed here a couple days ago) and when I took a look at it, it looked interesting. Check it out.
I hope that helps. And yes, the most important aspect would be to make sure the content you are adding should be seen by Google on your website/blog 1st. If you are using WordPress or something like that, I would suggest using a plugin to publish and ping to Google an updated XML sitemap as soon as a new article is added. That should so it for you.
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
-
Ugh content! I don't get it
Everyone on this website says the proper way to build links is with great content. I don't get that because I am trying to build links for a classified ads website and there is no "great content" for any of the classified ads websites. None of them have blogs or any content other than the stuff people are selling. When I look at my competitors inbound links using open site explorer, they are all junk. Most of the links listed in open site explorer are dead /broken links and the ones that are not dead links are spammy, low quality links including many link exchanges. So, I don't get the "great content to build links" route because in my vertical it's not being done. Suggestions on how to build links in this situation?
Link Building | | Noob150 -
Links from sites with iffy link profiles?
So the site http://www.cadenas.de/ appears to have good decent scores from the various Moz ranks, but when I check out the site in OSE there are a lot of really sketchy links that jump out, online pharmacy/drug type links. I should also add that the negative links are seemingly going to a weird blog deep in the site and only appear when I select all links to the root domain in OSE. Everything about the site appears very legitimate except for the link profile which has me nervous. Would you guys pursue a link from this site?
Link Building | | CJ50 -
Sitewide link to a sister site question
I own two websites that are somewhat related. On Site A, in the nav bar below the header I had a link to Site B. The nav bar shows on all several hundred pages. A few weeks ago I got nervous about this as I was doing some reading about sitewide links. Not exactly sure if they were a bad thing or not in this specific case, I decided to change the nav bar so that the link to Site B only showed up on Site A's home page. Well, within a week or so my site started dropping from its long-held #1 position for its main, high-volume keyword, slipping a bit every few days. Today it is #4. My question is, would the removal of the sitewide links and replacement of them with just a link on the homepage cause something like this to happen? And, I'm thinking about putting the sidewide menu link back in -- is this a bad idea? Note: the ranking on Site B is very important, with double the RPM of Site A.
Link Building | | bizzer0 -
Site URL called out but not clickable.
Hi - I'm after a bit of clarity; if my site URL is referenced in an article, but doesn't actually link through, does this still 'add value' to my seo efforts? Thanks, David
Link Building | | newstd1000 -
How to add extension to my site on the organic result ?
Hello, i am trying to add extensions to my site on the organic result. i just wandering if it can be done from the google web master tool or i need to contact my web developer? leKJK0z
Link Building | | steve2150 -
Are you careful about linking back to sites that link to you?
Suppose that a trusted website added you to their recommended links page. Do you worry that linking back to them from a page on your site will diminish the value of the original link?
Link Building | | Charlessipe0 -
Are there content swap tools/forums for linkbuilding?
Anyone know any besides myblogguest? I have a pipeline of content at the moment and not enough distribution. I also have web properties that can take posts etc Cheers S
Link Building | | firstconversion0 -
What to do with a new good looking site?
With a new site comes new challenges. We have recently finished one of our clients websites in the Retirement (financial) field. www.retirementireland.ie In my opinion the site is looking good, fast loading(very little js, optimized images) and good SEO structuring. As being a new site i feel like the decisions taken now are crucial. If SEO is done properly could save a lot of time. If not would take us a while until we get 1-5 positions for retirement, retirement options, retirement planning, retirement ireland. Any thoughts on existing design / structure / content. Any extra suggestions are welcome.
Link Building | | mosaicpro0