Is Syndicated (Duplicate) Content considered Fresh Content?

[ColeLusby]

Thanks for your feedback Mike - definitely helpful!

In this hypothetical, we're looking at research or comprehensive articles for specific niches that could serve multiple businesses well as an authority.

Thanks,

Cole

[AlanMosley]

Short answer, NO

[Bob_van_Biezen]

Hi Alan,

Is there any source / own research that can back up this answer?

Would love to read more about this subject!

[AlanMosley]

Yes, freshness update was not for all queries, it was for certain queries that need fresh content such as football scores, or whose on the team this week, obviously we don't want the score from last year or who is playing last year we want the current data, that is where the freshness update may give you a boost while your content is fresh. Having syndicated content I cant see falling into this category, even if it did, being duplicate content would mean that only once source is going to rank.

Also you have to look at indexing, will the duplicate content even be indexed? if so how often.

That's why I say the short answer is no.

[Bob_van_Biezen]

This post is deleted!

[Bob_van_Biezen]

Thanks a lot! Kinda made me realize I really should read some more about this update. Might be off topic, but what's your view on freshness applied to **all **pages. In this Whiteboard Friday its stated it only impacts the terms you describe:

http://moz.com/blog/googles-freshness-update-whiteboard-friday

But in this blogpost of that time (before the sum up) it’s stated that it’s applied to all pages, but does affect search queries in different ways:

http://moz.com/blog/google-fresh-factor

[AlanMosley]

Had a quick look at that page, did not see that it affects all pages. Anyhow google said 35% of queries, so could not be all pages.
Some points

1. Why would fresh data be excluded from duplicate content?
2. Is it likely that syndicated data is fresh?
3. What are google trying to do here, rank syndicated duplicate data?

I cant see it working

[Bob_van_Biezen]

This was the part that triggered me:

"Google Fellow Amit Singhal explains that “Dif__ferent searches have different freshness needs.”

The implication is that Google measures all of your documents for freshness, then scores each page according to the type of search query."

[AlanMosley]

Well that could mean that some don't need any.

Like

Q. Who discovered Australia, A. Captain Cook.
This does not need freshness.

Also consider being original content, in that case the timestamp being older would be better.

I like to think that I own google, and say to myself would I rank it? of cause some things may rank that were not intended to, but I think its quite safe to think that way.

[ColeLusby]

Hi all,

Thanks for the responses & feedback.
Alan, in this example, the fresh content would be relevant. Of course there are search queries that don't need freshness or updates, but I would argue most do need updates / freshness (even the ones we think we know the answer to over time).

Once again, the conversation is not about RANKING for that page but about HELPING the domain achieve "freshness & relevance" around a topic with that duplicate content.

Would love to see others chime in.

Thanks,

Cole