Duplicate Content

[Studio33]

Hi,

So I have my great content (that contains a link to our site) that I want to distribute to high quality relevant sites in my niche as part of a link building campaign.  Can I distribute this to lots of sites?  The reason I ask is that those sites will then have duplicate content to all the other sites I distribute the content to won;t they?  I this duplication bad for them and\or us?

Thanks

[Carla_Dawson]

Hi Studio33,

I used to do the same thing about a year ago. I will tell you why my strategy.

1. Most bloggers or websites that accept content only receive original content. They do not want a duplicate.

2. Google does pick up that the content is duplicate and I cannot say for sure, but I am pretty sure that the incoming link does not have any worth. I do not know this for certain.

My link building strategy

When I bought my domain (keyword domain) it had a PR2 with lots of spammy links. I bought it 2 years ago.

1. I disavowed the spammy links

2. I did directory link building, and content link building to bring it up to a PR3. I was not showing up in SERPs because my PR was so low.

3. Now that I had a PR3, anything I wrote was showing up on the first page (SERPs)

4. Now I just write articles that attract the link I actively looked for and occasionally go out and look for links. If you write about topics which people are interested in (do your keyword research) and focus on niche issues and build great content with awesome graphics, you will attract links. If you go for big concepts, it is hard to get a link. Focus on the niche. You will rank high in SERPs.

5. I will give you a specific example. We wrote an article on SEO and Parallax Scrolling since most parallax scrolling websites do not do SEO architecture. We posted the info on our blog. Note the article focuses on a very niche concept. We also had to promote the content to encourage inbound links so we went to every blog and commented about the tutorial to give it visibility. All the comments gave us a nofollow links but it did promote the material which eventually encouraged a blogger to use it in one of his articles. http://www.posicionamientowebenbuscadores.com/blog/tutorial-seo-parallax-scrolling-espanol/ - my content

inbound link - http://www.factorsim.info/2013/06/19/parallax-scrolling-en-la-narrativa-web/

[Studio33]

Thanks

Is "We also had to promote the content to encourage inbound links so we went to every blog and commented about the tutorial to give it visibility" ok to do still?

[SEO-Buzz]

Hi, Studio33. Yes, promoting discussion and exchange of ideas on blogs is usually the purpose of a blog. Commenting on blogs was previously used to boost SEO, but now the value is found more in the discussion participation, reputation, and calling attention to your own work. Just like you would not boast and manipulate conversation at a party, you do not want to do so on a blog comment either. But if a comment is relevant to the post and readers are likely to have interest, it is great to share your information...and if you get some attention from it, that is a nice benefit.

Do not be afraid to market your brand. If you are marketing in a respectful way with readers' interests in mind, you will rarely go wrong.

[Chris.Menke]

Hi Studio,

Here's the thing:

Links to your site that are published on other websites can help your authority and your site's ranking potential when those links are published on sites that are themselves recognized as authorities and these days, it's fairly rare to find an authoritative site that publishes duplicated articles. This tactic was considered effective in the past, (and in some cases, may work today) but Google can now identify and eliminate this as a tool to help boost your rankings.  Here's an interesting past Q&A on the topic.  And here's another one.  In answer to your question, yes, it's not good for you and neither is it good for them.

Moving forward, give the section on growing popularity and links on Moz's Guide to SEO a read to start giving you ideas about building your site's authority.