How to best take advantage of content being used on another site?

[DanCrean]

We've never syndicated content or done "article marketing".

Another site contacted us and requested to use the content on several of our webpages.  The other site is a fairly prestigious nonprofit in our industry.  We don't mind them using our content, but we want to get the most benefit out of it.

There are two ways the occur to me:

1. Have them create pages with the exact same text as on our pages, but put in the header of those pages

2. Just have them create pages with the text from our pages with embedded links back to our other pages.  Each page they create will say "Content courtesy of XXX"

Does anyone have opinions on which way is best, or another approach?

[EGOL]

First... congratulations!  You must have some really nice content to get the attention and an invitation from such an important site.

Now for what I really think about this....

Be    very    careful.

This is a respected and powerful site, yes?

If you give them your content and they publish it then you have just invited a powerful competitor into all of your short tail and long tail SERPs.

You are going to lose some traffic.

How will it hit your bottom line to drop a couple position in the SERPs?

What if your content started being filtered from the SERPs because it is duplicate?

How will it hit your psyche to see them getting links for the content that you authored?

Is that worth getting a link on the butt of the article?

I am not saying that I would NEVER give articles away... just saying that I would not do it for a couple of links way down on the bottom of their pages.

If a site with absolutely enormous traffic (far far higher than mine) offered me a chance to write a syndicated column with very prominent pathways to my site, I might do it and write on topics that are tangent to my vital interests but never congruent.

I haven't received that kind of offer yet and I am not lookin'.

Bottom line... if they are askin' they must really like your content (especially if it is free)... so why not just invite them to link to the great content on your site and you will do the same for them?  Great sites link to one another all of the time.

(Lots of people are going to disagree with me.  That's OK.)

[IPINGlobal54]

I would agree with the points EGOL has made - there are a few other things to take into account too.

Is it older static content they are wanting to use? or, is it an article repository that you constantly add more articles to?

If it is static content - then as per EGOL and consider licensing it to them.

If it is on site article content then you could consider creating an rss output of it, and have them rework it to include a cross domain canon as you suggest yourself, if the content you write has links embedded into it that link to other relevant pages on your site, that will help too as far as "riding their traffic" is concerned.

If you do go down this route - I would suggest a delay of 6 hours or so on updating your rss feed to them - then at least you stand a good chance of google seeing your content on your site before they outrank you for it. (It will still happen occasionally though, but correct the following day)

[EGOL]

I like the "license" idea.  Thanks.