Duplicate Content Question

[Mills]

My client's website is for an organization that is part of a larger organization - which has it's own website. We were given permission to use content from the larger organization's site on my client's redesigned site. The SEs will deem this as duplicate content, right?  I can "re-write" the content for the new site, but it will still be closely based on the original content from the larger organization's site, due to the scientific/medical nature of the subject material.  Is there a way around this dilemma so I do not get penalized? Thanks!

[Syed1]

I would make sure its re-written to a major extent that it passes Copyscape check otherwise there is a possibility of duplicate content issue. Also,  if possible I suggest you try to refer to many other credible sources as well on the same topic and not just source from the 'larger organizations' piece.

You can try and a have a unique take on this much more comprehensive piece. This will do two things: make sure your content is considered original & it could also make content more "link attractive" - so you attract more links & get good returns on the extra writing effort.

[WhiteHat12]

I agree with Syed on this one. The main issue you are having that I see though is some of the information is so technical it would be hard to rewrite it. If you can’t completely rewrite the information do this next best thing, make sure the duplicate content (should only have duplicate content for the technical details) is a smaller part of the page’s content then it is. Maybe add content, like a summary, on the page and have it optimized for what the page is about .This way when the Google Bots see the page instead of seeing 80%-100% of duplicate content they see 10%-20% duplicate content and the rest is well written, optimized and original content. There will always be websites out there ranking well with some duplicate content. Google knows this. It is a matter of how much duplicate content you have. I hope this was helpful to you.

[josh-riley]

Keep in mind that many, many niche sites have this same problem. I mean, there's only so many ways to write compelling content on a very technical subject, right? Images, studies, videos, articles, quotes, news releases - all sources for a way to freshen up what you are "borrowing" from the larger organization's site.

[SEOKeith]

Just an idea, if you are part of the same company why don't you redirect the pages from the larger site and point them at your newly designed smaller site?

That way you won't get stung for duplicate content.

If that's not possible I would rewrite all the content from scratch, the problem with rehashing is that sometimes it's often harder, also you can write optimised SEO copy for your new site to help increase rankings and traffic