I want to use some content that I sent out in a newsletter and post as a blog, but will this count as duplicate content?
-
I want to use some content that I sent out in a newsletter a while ago - adding it as a blog to my website.
The newsletter exists on a http://myemail.constantcontact.com URL and is being indexed by Google.
Will this count as duplicate content?
-
You've asked a great question, Wagada. The fact that the version of the content on Constant Contact's page has already been indexed does mean that you'll have a duplicate content challenge, but there are ways to address it.
The whole problem with duplicate content is not that it generates some kind of penalty, (it doesn't) it's just that search engines then have to decide which of the dupe pages they should point to in the search results.
The version you publish on your own site already has several things going for it, and you need to add additional signals to help the search engines prioritise your site's version. First, at least part of the rest of your site is probably already talking about the same topics, so there will be more relevance there than from the random topics on Constant Contact. Plus, if your newsletter is like most, it will be linking back to your site, giving the SEs another signal.
The biggest thing you can do to get your site's page considered as the canonical (primary) version is to get at least a few links pointing to it. Social media links can be very useful for this, especially from Google Plus, but a solid link or two from other sites will go a long way as well. Also, make sure your page does NOT link to the CC page - that way there's a clear authority signal that only travels one way.
For future reference, if you're going to publish newsletter content on your own site, there are a couple of steps to take in preparation.
- Publish the content on your own site a day or a couple of days in advance
- Use the Fetch and Render tool in GSC to help it get crawled and indexed before sending the newsletter (SEs take "first published" date into account when trying to ascertain which page to return in results.)
- Make sure it's strongly-linked internally - maybe even put a link to the newsletter content page on your homepage before sending the newsletter
- Get a few incoming links to the newly-published page before the newsletter goes out.
- Use the newly published page's address in the newsletter's preheader text link where it says "If not showing up well in your email, you can read this in your browser" so the dupe page actually links back to the page you want to be considered primary.
- Or best yet, do the above and also turn off the newsletter archive on Constant Contact altogether and make the prepublished page on your site the only version. This is the best, but obviously takes a bit more work and preparation to pre-publish. It also offers the massive benefit of delivering those newsletter viewers who do want to read in a browser to your own pages where you can induce further activity/conversions. Though it should be said that in the newsletters I've managed, very few people click the "view in browser" links anymore anyway.
Hope all that makes sense?
Paul
-
While a good solution if it were possible, unfortunately ESPs like Constant Contact don't give you any way to alter the content of the of their pages. And canonical tags must be in the or they'll be ignored.
-
Gaston is right, Great answer Gaston
-
hello,
Yeap, it will be duplicate content.
Add a canonical tag from that myemail site to the blog post and issue resolved.Hope it helps.
Best luck.
GR.
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
-
Duplicate Descriptions
Hi, Our Woo Commerce store has about 30 product tags, of which a separate page is created for each, therefore needing the usual titles and descriptions adding. I want to know if the pages will be penalised if I 90% duplicate the 150 word description for product tags that have areas of overlap. How important is this? Thanks.
Content Development | | Arnikabhupal0 -
Are press releases that could end up being published with duplicate content links point back to you bad for your site ?
With all the changes to the seo landscape in the resent years im a little unsure as to how a press release work looks in the eyes of Google (and others). For instance, you write up a 500 word press release and it gets featured on the following sites : Forbes Techcrunch BBC CNN NY Times etc ... If each of these cover your story but only rewrite 50% of the article (not saying these sites wouldn't re write the entire artcile, but for this purpose lets presume only 50% is rewritten) could it be negative to your backlink profile, ? Im thinking not, as these sites will have high authority, but what if once your press release is published on these sites 10 other smaller sites re publish the stories with almost no re writing, either straight from the press release or straight from the article in the mainstream news sites. (For clarification this Press release would be done in the fashion of a article suggestion to relevant journalists, rather than a blanket press release, via PR Newswire, mass mail out etc. Although i guess the effect with duplicate content backlinks is the same.) You now have c. 50 articles online all with very similar content with links pointing back at you, would this have a negative effect or would each link just not carry as much value as it normally would. By now we all understand publishing duplicate content on our own sites is a terrible idea, but dose have links pointing back to your self from duplicate (or similar) content hosted on other sites (some being highly authoritative) effect your site 's seo ?
Content Development | | Sam-P1 -
Correction Duplicate Page Title Problems for a Blog
EDITED: To just focus on the issue at hand. I am trying to figure out the SEO rules instead of just working on the content. Please bear with me. I am adept technically. I just do not know the rules of the SEO process or even some of the termology. So I’m trying to attack problems one at time. Today’s problem – **Duplicate Page Titles ** We evidently have thousands of Duplicate Page Titles. We are using Joomla 2.5 & Easyblog. Our sitemap is automated from XML Sitemap Easyblog takes the title of the sites and uses it for a name of the summary pages. We post 5 blog items per page and all the names are the same. http://www.OursiteName.com/?start=5 Page Title = Site Name http://www.OursiteName.com/?start=10 Page Title = Site Name A similar thing happens on the sorting by Author or Category etc etc. Basically non-duplicate pages are looking like duplicates. What is the best practice / approach? Using the Robot.txt or XML Sitemap to tell Google not to crawl these pages? Writing a script or edit the Easyblog code to edit the 2000 duplicate Page Titles? Other thoughts?
Content Development | | Romana0 -
Who gets credit for content
Does it really matter if somebody takes your content changes it slightly and republishes it? This is my original article on history of house paints which was also published on ezine in Feb. and from google alerts I discovered this page http://www.franklinpainting.com/blog/home/a-brief-history-of-house-painting/ a minimally modified version. It is not easy to create content so these folks just copied and made a blog post. Their are now many versions of this on the web..who wins?
Content Development | | johnshearer0 -
Content Writers / Blog Posts
Hi there Would anyone know where i could fund affordable, reliable blog post writers who would be able to produce quality posts at affordable rates? What would the accepted rate be etc? Regards Stef
Content Development | | stefanok0 -
A truly useful directory
Many directories on the net are just spammy annoyances, but some are quite useful, particularly when someone has really put some effort into a niche market. But how can Google look at that favorably? I would be willing to invest the time to put together a directory for our niche market, but if someone uses our directory, they would come to it, find the link they are searching for, then click and leave our site. They would visit one page on our site, and not stay very long. Is it possible to create and maintain a compelling directory and get credit for doing so? Of course, we would not have any spammy ads cluttering the directory, so that may help. Anything else? Best,
Content Development | | ChristopherGlaeser
Christopher0 -
Where do you find quality content writers?
Sure we all know about oDesk or textbroker but is there a place people can go to hire higher quality writers?
Content Development | | joseph.chambers0 -
Duplicate Content - Video
I recently noticed a drop in rankings for my site shortly after the new algorithm update. I'm not sure exactly why rankings went down, but would like to know if it has to do with having videos on our site that do not belong to us. We have a few videos on product pages that the manufacturer of the product had created. I was wondering if Google maybe thinks we are maliciously stealing these videos or something and penalizing us for it. And if stuff like this has anything to do with the recent algorithm update. We make our own videos, but some of our manufacturer's videos are just better... and they work with us and are glad for us to have their videos listed. Thanks in advance
Content Development | | poolguy0