Hold on Tight Now, Here We Go..

Right guys,

So, having read many threads in this forum about "duplicate content", can you tell me how these forums get away with it. They have users posting the same content all over several (nay, dozens) of forums and article web sites, yet none of them seem to be penalised?

Any ideas on how Google really sorts out duplicate content then?

I also did a test recently with duplicated content on two different sites, published at different times, on different ip addies. Google took down the original publisher and gave the copier the SERPS ranking !

What gives?

Google assess document by algorithm so this means that everything is based on data, they will not know who is the real owner, all they have to look is the data they gathered.

Google uses links to evaluate authoritative documents, so this means for two same documents,if one documents has higher incoming links than the other. The one with the higher incoming links will become the original. So this means, quantifying the number of links.

Other things IMO, that they can use is the trust of the domain, if one domain is trusted it will have the priority in Google and all documents published in that site will appear much more original to them though it is not really the original at all.

I observed this when I publish a blog article and submit it to digg. Digg is highly trusted site, and when I type the title of the post, my submissions in digg , which is using a digg URL ranks higher than my blogspot URL. (Even though in this case, I just use a 20 word snippet from my post and use it as a Digg description).

One of the things to combat this one, is to refrain from copying document and if these happens , ask them to link to the original. So that the original always has higher links than the copier and will appear as original to Google.

The last one, could be which URL first appear in Google index. Usually the first one is the original, but this data is paired with other factors such as above, in determining which is the original.

The whole forums has nothing to do with one thread or post that has been plagrized.. Basically that particular thread might not get weight in google.. but that doesnt mean the whole forum has to suffer due to that particular thread/page..

There have been instances where such threads do not come up in SERPS or ar burried deep below.. But genuine content posts show up withint minutes after being posted..

So, In short, If the content duplicacy issue is there, perhaps there will be an after effect to it for the thread..

Great work! Thank you

It is one of the most frustrating things in this business when you write some cool content and some other wretch just rips it off and then ranks higher than/instead of you for it.

Even when the fecker has just embedded my image from my server straight into the ripped off story Google still puts the bugger up there. They really should take that into account otherwise the more well-established pages can just plagurise the new guys out of existence.

This is one of the most frustrating things to us about Google as we are a magazine site with journalists and others working for us (we pay them loads too) to write unique content and I know genuinely that they do.

Many sites (forums and many others) are reproducing our content despite our copyright. It is impossible to keep on top of this. We are a small business and cannot afford to pay others, nor spend all our day, checking G for copyright breaches.

Please don't even try to tell me to take it as "the sincerest form of flattery" - this is seriously affecting our business and our livelihood.

My simple test showed to me that Google does not at all register duplicate content on the basis of the true and real author (even despite having a link to the original author!!!) but uses a completely different algorithm - probably not surprising at the end of the day as they are too big, wanting too much to have control and money, but it's still totally wrong.

If Google wants to keep up there as a top search engine it definitely has to sort this out.

I think Emerson said it all when he replied that G does not really know who the real author is! Well said, Emerson and thank you: it is exactly what I suspected.

royalbluestuey is also correct when saying that the bigger sites can just steal stuff and put smaller guys out of existence.

So, in effect G are producing SERPs which are only a mirror (duplicate content - which they say they are against!?!?) of what the original author has written - what kind of search engine is this?

The original author should certainly NOT be determined by incoming links to a site! It should also NOT be determined by which they put highest in the SERPs results, based yet again on their own algorithms.

This is a real breach of copyright by G, promoting sites which are copies, and they should recognise this problem immediately and resolve it swiftly.

Totally disgusted that our original and copyright material can be copied and stolen and then put higher in G than us, the original author.

Why does anyone continue to use this search engine is starting to become beyond me.

Are you getting decent links back into your site when people steal I mean reproduce your stuff?

If I am getting credit then I let them off with it, it's when they don't even link back and start stuffing it with their own link that annoys me. If they've embedded the picture straight from my server I change the image to feature my logo. I also try to contact their webmaster and try and get a the link or comment along the lines of "Glad you liked my article, it's an interesting subject etc etc"

This is a good strategy and I am using it, but currently Google algo has a flaw that I noticed.

Like what I have experience, even if they do link back to your post/article ,they can steal potential traffic to your site because Google will rank that copier higher than yours.

Take a case of trusted blog directory sites such as BlogCatalog, or big bookmarking sites like Digg.

Blog catalog publishes snippets of RSS data from your blog and uses same title with your blog also, they even give your blog their own URL in their own domain. Well that is fine and great, the problem is the original author Google ranking of the post/blog. According to Google, Blogcatalog URLs are even more relevant, and puts them in higher ranking than the source (the real author doing the hard work).Thus, Blog catalog got the traffic while the author has none (lucky if visitors will click on nofollowed link to the site on the BlogCatalog page).

I agree with Foggyducati, I think this is something to be improved in the part of Google.

Not only the Blog catalog case, but I have tried observing Digg URLs ranking higher than the original post that I wrote!

When they are ranking higher, they get the traffic not to your blog. Poor original authors, I think Google trusted the domain so much that they forget the authors doing the original work.

I know this could be tough for them to identify original documents (by algorithm) as what should the original authors expects to be. Current data available like incoming links, date indexed/cached, date of publishing, may not be enough, but I believe this can be resolved.

You're welcome

Don't you have to sign-up to Blog catalog?

Getting away with it and getting something out of it are two different things.

Well it would seem that they are getting something out of it 'cause they are ranking for terms that are brought in by copy someone else has written whilst the original author is getting bugger-all.

Not so much 'standing on the shoulder of giants', more standing on the shoulders of a big pile of little people.

Soryy this is off the topic but this not worty post you are the person I always like you and recogmended you company for seo so, please avoid this kind of post it is just a friedly suggestion.