If you want to do a quick seas on Google to find specific information, you don’t want to receive results which are either irrelevant or contain the same content. Ideally you want the search engines to return results related to the keywords you entered. Search engines have become clogged with duplicate content. The top ten results should offer visitors a choice of different web pages.
Google is now doing something about it by creating a new patent application on near duplicate content. This new patent tries to keep its users from finding redundant content in the result pages.
How is content duplicated?
1. Web page content is available in different formats e.g., html page, PDF, printable page
2. Syndicated content e.g., articles, blog posts, news, press releases
3. Content Management System (CMS) displays the same content in different locations e.g., a blog post may also be listed in the category and archives sections.
4. Content is reproduced by others e.g.,your article may be distributed to other blogs, ezines, newsletters, web sites.
What’s in the patent application?
Google tries to detect duplicate duplicate content at different web addresses.
What does Google do when it detects duplicate content?
Google displays the original source of the content providing it has better inbound links than the other web sites carrying the same content. If the content is placed on a web page with higher quality links than your own, it will rank higher than your own site.
Tips
* Write unique content for your own web site and don’t distribute it to other sites.
* If you want to distribute the same content to other sites, place it on your own web site first, then wait until it has been
indexed by the search engines. This will ensure your site will get ranked ahead of the others carrying the same content.
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Herman Drost is the Certified Internet Webmaster (CIW)
owner and author of Web Site Design, Web Hosting, Search Engine Optimization
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