Duplicate content is used in search engine optimization to refer to content on one web page that is the same as or too similiar to content on another web page, even if the content appears on different websites with unique domain addresses.
There are a variety of reasons duplicate content occurs:
- Website content may have been scraped from a site, stolen, and used without the website owner’s knowledge or permission, something that actually happened to us and we caught the guy!
- A group of resellers or distributors who rely on the same product information from the manufacturers they represent each post the exact same content supplied by the manufacturers on their respective websites.
- Dynamically generated urls (web pages) that are not done properly to ensure the same content is not being placed on different web pages.
- The same content intentionally placed on web pages with different urls in an attempt to trick search engines and users (also called ‘Spamdexing’).
Whether malicious or not, search engines do not approve of duplicate content because it dilutes the quality of the end-user experience. People searching for something specific do not want to spend time clicking on different links only to arrive at the same content repeatedly.
Bottom line is you must avoid duplicate content. If you are using product information supplied by a manufacturer then re-write it in your own voice. If the dynamically generated web pages of your site are delivering the same content, then a hire a professional web developer who knows how to keep that from happening.
There is really no need for duplicate content. A good professional copywriter will ensure you have unique and compelling content that is search engine optimized for the terms most important to your business.
