Question about copying content
-
Hi there,
I have had a question from a retailer asking if they can take all our content i.e. blog articles, product pages etc, what is best practice here in getting SEO value out of this?
Here a few ideas I was thinking of:
-
I was thinking they put canonical tags on all pages where they have copied our content?
-
They copy the content but leave all anchor text in place?
Please let me know your thoughts.
Kind Regards
-
-
Hi Adam,
Thanks for your reply.
I suppose what I could do is mention to them that if they are taking content from our website, they must have at the bottom of each page 'Text supplied by Company Name' the company name supplies a keyword that we target.
I have actually just noticed that there are many retailers out there who are copying our content from our product pages without me knowing, I noticed this by copying a pasting the first paragraph of a number of my product pages, however what is strange that these websites come above my product pages, is this something to worry about? is Google giving me full credit for these pages?
Kind Regards
-
I have had a question from a retailer asking if they can take all our content i.e. blog articles, product pages etc, what is best practice here in getting SEO value out of this?
Well firstly, there is no SEO benefit to either party here unless the retailer provides a link to your site. This can actually cause damage to the retailer's site with regards to duplicate content issues. Forget about canonical tags here, they are not designed to avoid duplicate content issues when copying someone else's content.
My advice would be to advise the retailer to create their own unique content rather than copying your content. They can provide links to product pages on your site but they should try to create unique descriptions for the products rather than copying your content.
With regard to other retailers copying your content, they do so at their own risk as Google could decide to penalise these sites (assuming they haven't already done so). It is best practice to create unique content rather than copying other people's content.
Hope this helps.
-
Hi Mat,
Thanks for your reply.
Yes, there is a lot of work that goes into the content for product pages, blog posts etc.
I think most of the content that they want is for our products they are going to be selling on their website, so they are in need of content for these pages, but not really sure on how to handle this best (SEO benefit)
I had recently stumbled upon retailer websites who have copied our content without actually asking us, however some of those websites have kept the anchor text, we are getting some benefit, right?
Kind Regards
-
Canonical might work. However I wouldn't let them have it. If the content is good then it has too much value.
Maybe instead you could suggest that you do a regular guest spot for them, including your link in the profile.
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
-
Teaser Content Help!!
I'm in the process of a redesign and upgrade to Drupal 8 and have used Drupal's taxonomy feature to add a fairly large database of Points of Interest, Services etc. initially this was just for a Map/Filter for site users. The developer also wants to use teasers from these content types (such as a scenic vista description) as a way to display the content on relevant pages (such as the scenic vistas page, as well as other relevant pages). Along with the content it shows GPS coordinates and icons related to the description. In short, it looks cool, can be used in multiple relevant locations and creates a great UX. However, many of these teasers would basically be pieces of content from pages with a lot of SEO value, like descriptive paragraphs about scenic viewpoints from the scenic viewpoints page. Below is an example of how the descriptions of the scenic viewpoints would be displayed on the scenic viewpoints pages, as well as other potential relevant pages. HOW WILL THIS AFFECT THE SEO VALUE OF THE CONTENT?? Thanks in advance for any help, I can't find an answer anywhere. About 250 words worth of content about a scenic vista. There’s about 8 scenic vista descriptions like this from the scenic vistas page, so a good chunk of valuable content. There are numerous long form content pages like this that have descriptions and information about sites and points of interest that don't warrant having their own page. For more specific content with a dedicated page, I can just the the intro paragraph as a teaser and link to that specific page of content. Not sure what to do here.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | talltrees0 -
Could another site copying my content hurt my ranking?
Earlier this week I asked why a page of mine might not be ranking locally. (https://mza.seotoolninja.com/community/q/what-could-be-stopping-us-from-ranking-locally). Maybe this might be part of the answer – another firm has copied huge chunks of my website copy: **My company: **https://idearocketanimation.com/video-production-company/ The other company: http://studio3dm.com/studio3dm-com/video/ Could this be causing my page to not rank? And is there anything I can do about it, other than huff and puff to the other firm? (Which I am already doing.)
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Wagster0 -
To merge or not to merge? That is the question.
I am planning to do something I never did, and I am wondering if it's really a good idea or not. I have four websites, all of the same company, each one with a different domain and different content: one has been the main official site for 16 years, 200 unique per month, indexed for 134 keywords, Domain Authority 17, 13 linking root domains one has been used as the main site from 2003 to 2006, it's focused on a specific business they actually discontinued, still online, no update since 2006, 500 unique per month, indexed for 92 keywords, Domain Authority 13, 8 linking root domains another has been a built on 2010 and maintained for less than year, and it's focused on a business they never really started, still online, no update since 2010, 3000 unique per month, indexed for 557 keywords, Domain Authority 25, 84 linking root domains a fourth one has been also built on 2010 and focused on a business never really started, still online, no update since 2010, 100 unique per month, indexed for 4 keywords, Domain Authority 6, 3 linking root domains Each website has traffic and links, all links being natural, they never tried to gain links in any way, they never did on page optimization, they never ever thought about SEO. They are not event interlinked. So, my idea is to merge all of them, putting websites 2, 3 and 4 as subfolders of the main site and replicating the old content there. Because those sites have traffic, incredibly one of the abandoned sites has 3000 unique per month, while the main site just 200! My doubts are: does it make sense to merge everything from a SEO prospective? A part from doing 301 correctly, what else should I be careful to do or not to do? website number 4 it's really outdated, content and structure is not easy to merge with the rest, traffic is really small, is it worth spending the time to merge it? Finally I also have a problem; customer didn't want to merge them, they agreed to, but they don't want visitors of the main site to be able to navigate to the old ones, so once moved and redirected I would have to put them in the sitemap of the main site but avoid linking to them on the actual "main" site. As far as I know google crawler doesn't like to find pages in sitemaps which are not reachable through a linking path on the website, is that correct? Is that going to make all the merging work useless? Should I convince the client to at least put small links in the footer or on a page linked from the footer?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | max.favilli0 -
Interlinking from unique content page to limited content page
I have a page (page 1) with a lot of unique content which may rank for "Example for sale". On this page I Interlink to a page (page 2) with very limited unique content, but a page I believe is better for the user with anchor "See all Example for sale". In other words, the 1st page is more like a guide with items for sale mixed, whereas the 2nd page is purely a "for sale" page with almost no unique content, but very engaging for users. Questions: Is it risky that I interlink with "Example for sale" to a page with limited unique content, as I risk not being able to rank for either of these 2 pages Would it make sense to "no index, follow" page 2 as there is limited unique content, and is actually a page that exist across the web on other websites in different formats (it is real estate MLS listings), but I can still keep the "Example for sale" link leading to page 2 without risking losing ranking of page 1 for "Example for sale"keyword phrase I am basically trying to work out best solution to rank for "Keyword for sale" and dilemma is page 2 is best for users, but is not a very unique page and page 2 is very unique and OK for users but mixed up writing, pictures and more with properties for sale.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | khi50 -
Can a website be punished by panda if content scrapers have duplicated content?
I've noticed recently that a number of content scrapers are linking to one of our websites and have the duplicate content on their web pages. Can content scrapers affect the original website's ranking? I'm concerned that having duplicated content, even if hosted by scrapers, could be a bad signal to Google. What are the best ways to prevent this happening? I'd really appreciate any help as I can't find the answer online!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RG_SEO0 -
Copy content from news about your own company
I´ve a client who uses news articles about his company in newspaper and other magazines in his blog. It´s fair because he wants to show how how big and important he is when someone check his website but in otherwise he is just copying content from others sites. ( there is lot of original content also) Should I use noindex on these pages or use a rel=canonical? We already ask permission and show the font with the link in these cases.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SeoMartin10 -
Duplicate Page Content - Shopify
Moz reports that there are 1,600+ pages on my site (Sportiqe.com) that qualify as Duplicate Page Content. The website sells licensed apparel, causing shirts to go into multiple categories (ie - LA Lakers shirts would be categorized in three areas: Men's Shirts, LA Lakers Shirts and NBA Shirts)It looks like "tags" are the primary cause behind the duplicate content issues: // Collection Tags_Example: : http://www.sportiqe.com/collections/la-clippers-shirts (Preferred URL): http://www.sportiqe.com/collections/la-clippers-shirts/la-clippers (URL w/ tag): http://sportiqe.com/collections/la-clippers-shirts/la-clippers (URL w/ tag, w/o the www.): http://sportiqe.com/collections/all-products/clippers (Different collection, w/ tag and same content)// Blog Tags_Example: : http://www.sportiqe.com/blogs/sportiqe/7902801-dispatch-is-back: http://www.sportiqe.com/blogs/sportiqe/tagged/elias-fundWould it make sense to do 301 redirects for the collection tags and use the Parameter Tool in Webmaster Tools to exclude blog post tags from their crawl? Or, is there a possible solution with the rel=cannonical tag?Appreciate any insight from fellow Shopify users and the Moz community.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | farmiloe0 -
Keyword Ranking Question
I have recently hired a SEO company to help with our keyword. My question is what are the best tools to use to verify what that are reporting. I can do an unpersonalized search, but I am likely still getting the my local results. I have been using the SEOmoz rank tracker in the past but for some reason it is not able to retrieve results over the past day or so. Are there any other good tools to check ranking for an exact url at the for non-localized, non personalized results? Thanks for the suggestions.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | fertilityhealth0