Does posting an article on multiple sites hurt seo?

[Scratch_MM]

A client of mine creates thought leadership articles and pitches multiple sites to host the article on their site to reach different audiences.

The sites that pick it up are places such as AdAge and MarketingProfs and we do get link juice from these sources most of the time.

Does having the same article on these sites as well as your own hurt your SEO efforts in any way? Could it be recognized as duplicate content?

I know the links are great just wondering if there is any other side effects especially when there are no links provided!

Thank you!

[MalcolmGibb]

If the text is exactly the same in each article then yes, Google looks for large chunks of duplicate text. Usually the way to do this would be to rewrite the article for each site.

[DanielFreedman]

There is a larger issue at play here.

Submitting the same article to multiple outlets is a sure way of pissing off editors and destroying  relationships. It could be seen as less than exemplary conduct. I speak as a former editor.

If your client is a thought leader, the best bet is to submit one article to one outlet. Which is not to say you can't write another article for another publication that is a variation on the theme.

I work with thought leaders in several fields.  Guest blogging is a hugely effective technique. The outlets are thrilled to get a free article from a leading expert that is far more authoritative than what they usually publish.

But you must insist on a link back or there is no SEO benefit. (There may be a marketing and branding benefit.) Often the link back can be done in the author's note. Even better is getting it in the text in a natural way.  And you have to be relentless is ensuring the links actually appear. Not infrequently, you have to follow up post-publication.

My strategy is to time the guest blogging activity to coincide with the release of research or an e-book. We target 5-7 leading publications. Each gets an original and unique article that focusses on one aspect of the material. The articles on the third-party sites point back to the full version on our own site.

Just to be clear: we're not talking about cutting and pasting. We're talking about an original article customized to the third-party site and its audience that may have go through several drafts.

It's quite a bit of work, but it pays off. Big time.

These days, I call myself a web strategist. But sometimes I also act as a content strategist. I really think this is the future of our industry, post Panda and Penguin.

[SEODinosaur]

It depends. If the article goes on your site first it gets indexed and all the credit. If someone takes it for their own usage and does not link back to you it can hurt them. If they syndicate your article and trackback to the original, AKA the first one indexed they will not be punished.