How to handle duplicate content with Bible verses

[jeremyskillings]

Have a friend that does a site with bible verses and different peoples thoughts or feelings on them.  Since I'm an SEO he came to me with questions and duplicate content red flag popped up in my head. My clients all generate their own content so not familiar with this world.  Since Bible verses appear all over the place, is there a way to address this from an SEO standpoint to avoid duplicate content issues? Thanks in advance.

[Ray-pp]

Hi Jeremy,

Welcome to the Moz community!

That's an interesting position to be in. On one hand, Bible verses do not change and you may want to include the verse on your page. However, that copy is most certainly around the web and can easily be identified as duplicate content.

One strategy could be:

• Make each verse its own page, if the verse is length then try to break up the verse between multiple pages

• On each page, expand upon the verse.

• What information from each verse is important to the reader, explain it in plain language

• Include an interpretation of the verse and key components of the verse

• Explain how the verse is applicable through real world examples and experience

You can probably see the theme above - expand upon the non-original content with original content through interpretation and experience. You definitely want to outweigh the duplicate content for each verse.

If you're only trying to create an archive of the verse, then you may want to create a special area of your site that includes the original verse and have that noindexed from the search engines, to prevent any duplicate content penalties.

[LauraSultan]

Your friend has to give Google a reason to send searchers to his website instead of the many well-known authority sites that have the same verses.  Is he providing a lot of unique commentary, or are the pages mostly bible verses that can be found on thousands of other sites? If it's the former, then he should be okay. If it's the latter, he may want to focus on adding more unique content.

[CommT]

Hi,

When quoting sources, we use the blockquote tag.

Information here: http://www.w3schools.com/tags/tag_blockquote.asp

It tells Google that 'yes, I know this isn't original, it comes from here'.

Best of luck,

Amelia

[jeremyskillings]

Thanks so much everyone. Not only was it all very helpful, it was very fast.  Thanks and have a great day.