How much do I have to differentiate syndicated content, exactly?

[Jen_Floyd]

We have about 15-20 articles we'll repurpose on a partner domain (think: media outlet).  To avoid duplicate content suspicion, how much exactly do we need to differentiate the content on the second domain?  Yea, this is assuming we can't obtain a canonical for whatever reason.

I've found some good advice here, but am looking for some quantification. Like:  "A sentence/paragraph of introduction at the top of the piece, plus a link back to the original at the end of said introduction ought to do it."

Any help is appreciated.  Thanks!  Tim

[Mustansar]

There is no clean formula for how much of your content to syndicate. It’s all about finding a balance. You want to syndicate some of your best stuff so that you can build a good reputation with a larger audience — however, you’ll also want to ensure that there is a lot of high quality content which is unique to your site because the reputation-building benefit of syndication will give you the best results if people have an incentive to visit your site for more.

How much content to syndicate may also depend on your circumstances. If you are just starting out, you might be more aggressive with syndication in the near term just to get your name out there — especially if an opportunity presents itself to syndicate your content to a very high-authority site. If your reputation is more established, you might be more selective and sparing about content syndication.

[Chris_Hickman]

Hello,

A simple canonical tag would be sufficient. You can keep the content the same and not have to take the time to re-write the article.

Chris Hickman

Adficient.com

[Jen_Floyd]

Hoping I can do this, but am not 100% if we can.  Thanks Chris!

[solvid]

That's an interesting question. To get it out of the way, there is no duplicate content penalty. But, there is a chance that partner website will rank better for a specific piece of content than your own site, but there is no duplicate content penalty.

I would agree with Chris. If you can get your partner website to put a rel=canonical, that would be the best option.

[RuthBurrReedy]

Dmytro is correct - the risk you run isn't a penalty per se, it's that the piece of content will rank on a partner site rather than on your own site.

If what you really want is for both pieces of content to rank for the same phrase, or to ensure that your site continues to rank even without partners using rel=canonical, I would recommend making sure that the content on your site is substantially different from the other sites'. I empathize with your desire for a hard-and-fast rule on exactly how different, but whether or not two identical or very similar pages will both rank is really going to depend on the query and the other pages competing to rank for that term. Again, I would recommend making them substantially different - that is, more different than they are the same. Google is now sophisticated enough at detecting spun content that simply switching out some words for synonyms or adding or subtracting a sentence here or there likely won't be enough to keep it from being flagged as duplicate content for a more competitive query.