Google news Duplicate Content

[WongNs]

Hey Moz Buddies,

So I have a google news website. Sometimes authors submit "news" that is already listed on other websites. I know this won't help me much because it's not unique content but will it hurt me??

Should I delete the news articles all together and go through that trouble? Or should I just let them be as is?

[FedeEinhorn]

It depends on how many "no newsy" articles you allow. If over 30% are no actual news (consider that news released by others, rewritten by you, and adding valuable content to previous posts, are still news), then you could have a huge problem coming from the well known Panda.

Try proofreading the content before publishing, or, if it a lot, then try adding some filters (copyscape score for ie).

Hope that helps.

[Thos003]

How many of your news articles are actually receiving traffic?

Duplicate content can be a serious problem and indeed hurt your website. If you have pages and pages of content that don't receive any traffic at all then start cutting out the crap pages. Consolidate. Measure. Did your site metric improve or decline after eliminating content?

[KaneJamison]

I'd agree with Federico that if you try to keep the percentage to a minimal level (30% or lower seems reasonable to me) then you'll be OK. As Thomas mentions, keep an eye on how this ugc content actually performs compared to the rest of the site. If it's junk that doesn't earn organic traffic on its own, doesn't accumulate links and social shares on its own, and doesn't increase pageviews from users already on the site, then it's junk and you should cut down on it heavily.

In regards to how it performs for Google News specifically I can't say, but you should review the Google News Quality Guidelines for Publishers pretty heavily: https://support.google.com/news/publisher/answer/40787?hl=en

[KeriMorgret]

Also make sure that the content being submitted isn't copyright and being used without permission. The last thing you want is someone upset that you're reprinting things without permission and against terms of use.