Modifying Content to Avoid Duplicate Content Issues

[QueenSt]

We are planning to leverage specific posts from a US-based blog for our own Canadian blog (with permission, of course) but are aware that this can cause duplicate content issues.

We're willing to re-write as much or as little as we must from the initial blog posts to avoid duplicate content issues but I have no idea just how much we will need to re-write. Is there some guideline for this (e.g., 25% of content must be re-written)? I've been unable to find anything.

Thank you in advance!

[TomRayner]

Well, there are a number of tools that will give you a rough idea of how 'unique' the copy is, such as PlagSpotter, Plagium and of course Copyscape.

Some people may argue that if it passes Copyscape it will be unique enough, but I don't think this is necessarily true.

If you watch this really useful Whiteboard Friday from Rand in January, you'll see the need for each bit of your content to have unique value, in order to help it rank and pull in organic traffic.  To my mind, I feel that the content needs to a new take on things where it can be and to appeal to your specific demographic, which of course differs between Canadians and Americans.

If I were you, I'd try and rewrite as much as possible.  I'm sure things just can't be changed, but try and create the content in a different style and approach to before in order add a unique value.  At the very least, you will be able to A/B test the difference in response between your US and Canadian blogs and you might find that you've come up with copy and content that produces a better response, or one that's more akin to what you're looking for.

Hope this helps.

[simon_realbuzz]

I'm presuming that because you are willing to largely re-write this content that you actually want to rank for it yourselves. As such a sizeable re-write would be required especially the blog titles, and you may even want to to target different keywords and long tail keywords. All the while bear in mind that quality and uniqueness is essential.

Alternatively, you could just use the content from the US-based blog directly on your Canadian blog but specify the US blog URL as  the canonical version. This would avoid any duplication issue and yet give you some useful content on your site, even if you would never rank for it in SERPs.

[QueenSt]

Thanks. We've positioned this as an SEO opportunity for a client, with the caveat that we would need to solve for the canonical issues. So yes, we do want to help our own rankings.

Currently will be targeting different keywords (essentially products) and different links as well. We can definitely change the blog titles, header titles, updating the main copy to be more 'Canadian' and focus on a slightly different angle. Current content would be considered 'lifestyle' content so the main idea should remain but everything else is fair game for us to change, if need be.

[QueenSt]

Thanks Tom for the very helpful reply.

The tools are great! I'm currently writing guidelines for the copywriters and in that document, I need to provide a guide on how much copy will need to be updated. The tools would work well as a 'check' to make sure the copyrwriters have updated enough of the content but I'm unsure what direction I should be giving upfront.

The video with Rand is really useful though (especially #4)! This will be helpful with internal discussions around how there is no 'magic' percentage number.

Thank you,

Emma

[TomRayner]

Sounds like you and your team have just the right attitude towards this.  I'm sure it'll be a great success!

Have a good weekend!

[simon_realbuzz]

You definitely have the right approach. It's amazing how many people think they ought to rank for content even when it is duplicated on other sites. By adding some value to the content and making it more or less unique will only pay dividends.