“I’ve read that a website or blog needs original content to get ranked higher by the search engines. If I use content from ETR’s newsletters/website on my blog, will that hurt my Google ranking and keep me from getting traffic?”
Anita Funkhouser
Keyser, WV
Dear Anita,
Using third-party content DOES NOT hurt your rankings. The reason Web marketers make such an issue about duplicate content is that only the original creator of the content gets the full SEO (search engine optimization) value from it. In other words, if you use articles from Early to Rise, you won’t rank as well for the content as we at ETR would.
Let’s say you republish one of our articles about satellite sites. Since ETR published that article first, we would automatically get a higher Google ranking for the term “satellite sites” than your site would. However, even though the ETR website would get most of the credit, you’d still benefit in three major ways:
1. You would get some SEO benefit from it, which would result in traffic for your site.
2. You would be providing your visitors with useful content they would want to read. One thing search engines look for is how long a visitor stays on a site. And sites with a “stickier” following get better rankings. PERIOD.
3. If your visitors like the content, they will return to your site – which also helps with search engine ratings. (See #2.)
You can’t take everything you read about Internet marketing as the gospel truth. Most (so-called) “SEO experts” will tell you that having duplicate content is a bad thing. But it really isn’t. It just may not be as good as having your own unique content.
Take a look at drudgereport.com. This site has nothing but content from other websites, yet it is among the top 1,000 sites on the Net (traffic-wise), week in and week out.
Bottom line: To get the search engines to love your site, you want to update your site regularly with useful, relevant content – whether that content is your own or syndicated from other sites.
Having your own content is better, but syndicated and republished content helps too.
- Edwin Huertas
ETR Web Team Manager
[Ed. Note: ETR experts are standing by to answer your questions! Send us your top marketing, health, and business-building questions at AskETR@ETRFeedback.com.]
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that contradicts with everything I have learned about SEO
Yes, I’m sure it does. The problem is that advice gets lost in translation much of the time. Most SEO gurus will tell you NOT to use duplicate content, but they really mean not to use it as your MAIN content. There are hundreds of thousands of Websites out there that have nothing but ‘duplicate content’ and THAT is a problem. If you’re simply using other people’s articles to compliment your existing content you should be fine.
If you use mostly duplicate content and have no real content of your own, then you’re not going to achieve good rankings, period. Your Website (regardless of what you’ve heard) will NOT be penalized for using other people’s articles. You just won’t rank high for those articles. As long as you keep the duplicate articles to a minimum (remember they’re meant to just compliment your existing content) you’re ok.