Duplicate content

[jamesti]

Is there manual intervention required for a site that has been flagged for duplicate content to get back to its original rankings, once the duplicated content has been removed?

Background: Our site recently experienced a significant drop in traffic around the time that a chunk of content from other sites (ie. duplicate) went live.  While it was not an exact replica of the pages on other sites, there was quite a bit of overlap.  That content has since been removed, but our traffic hasn't improved.  What else can we do to improve our ranking?

[SimonCullum]

Hi James

If you have reason to believe that your website has received a penalty from Google, then I'd suggest submitting a Reconsideration Request once you're sure that your website no longer violates any of Google's guidelines, such as excessive duplicate content in your case, going by what you've described.  It sounds as though your traffic levels have dropped as a result of significant drops in ranking.

There are two main types of penalty;  'Algorithmic Penalties' and 'Manual Penalties'.

If you received an Algorithmic Penalty (more common of the two) then your rankings will start to improve anyway, once some time has passed since you rectified your issue with duplicate content and have added value to your website.

If you received a Manual Penalty (less likely for duplicate content issues though certainly still possible) then a Reconsideration Request would be worth a try.

So once all is great & healthy again with your website (which it could be already) then decide whether or not to submit a reconsideration request based on how much time has passed since you believe you received a penalty and rectified the suspected issue. If you feel enough time has passed and your rankings haven't started to improve, then go for it.

Hope that helps,

Regards

Simon