What's the best practice for handling duplicate content of product descriptions with a drop-shipper?

[Adam-Perlman]

We write our own product descriptions for merchandise we sell on our website.  However, we also work with drop-shippers, and some of them simply take our content and post it on their site (same photos, exact ad copy, etc...).  I'm concerned that we'll loose the value of our content because Google will consider it duplicated.

We don't want the value of our content undermined... What's the best practice for avoiding any problems with Google?

Thanks,

Adam

[William.Lau]

There is really nothing you can do because someone else is copying your description.

The only thing I can initially come up with is asking your dropshippers to not copy descriptions.

However, the content that is duplicated and might not really negatively effect your SEO. Google understands e-commerce and a lot of the times products on e-commerce sites are very similar and they do not get penalized. Another thing is that you originally created the description and Google does index according to freshness. As long as you are indexed first with the description, I don't see how Google can penalize you.

[ORob]

Are these dropshippers people who have to obey by your agreements in order to continue doing business with you? Would it hurt your business to create a requirement that they either create unique content or have their pages use the noindex code to prevent google from finding the dupe?

Do most of your dropshippers get their traffic via Organic Search? Or are they using other advertising sources?

[DavidKonigsberg]

The best way is to give your drop shippers a feed with 1 set of descriptions and your site having another set (people will still copy but much less)

[DavidKonigsberg]

penalization isnt the only thing you need to worry about its a dropshipper that is stronger then you out ranking you.

[Adam-Perlman]

Hey guys, thanks for all the fast responses!

I thought I remembered reading something about a technical method for demonstrating to Google that your version of content is the original version.  Is there a way to do that?

And yeah, we could ask them to change their behavior (or require it), but there are costs to both and I'm wondering if there's a more effective solution (such as the possibly mythical one above).

[DavidKonigsberg]

You could have them add a rel- canonical - But dropshippers want your content so they can rank they will not want to use it.

[ORob]

Go with David's method, or a hybrid. Present them useable text and ask that they put that on their sites and if they won't then ask they they use canonical or noindex directives.

[Adam-Perlman]

Having two sets of ad copy does effectively solve the Google issue, but it creates two non-Google issues, both of which are potentially costly.  For example:

1. I have to write new copy for them which costs time and money, and even then they may still not use it, which creates enforcement issues.

2. If it's substantially different copy (and possibly inferior, because let's face it, it's hard to write two sets of good compelling copy on the same item), then it may not convert as well, which means they sell less... and we sell less

I'm not saying you can't solve my original problem with this method.  I'm just saying that there are some very real costs to take into consideration

[Adam-Perlman]

oops, hit submit button twice..

[DavidKonigsberg]

I totally agree but you should be able to have another set written with great quality - The big drop shippers always rewrite manufacturer descriptions because of this issue.

• You need to decide if the gains out-ways the costs