Republishing Breaking News

[mattdinbrooklyn]

Hi Everyone,

Quick question. If there is breaking news on something and a major outlet of that publishes the content and then republishes the breaking news (new H1 and possible new title tag) will that affect them in organic and/or Google news listings? I know that speed is a major factor in publishing breaking news but, if the URL doesn't change upon republishing, will Google still rank the article as high if the H1 or title tag changes?

[GlobeRunner]

When it comes to republishing content, Google is going to look at whether or not the content is duplicate or not. Based on what Google has told us, we know that Google considers something to be duplicate by comparing page to page--not just a headline or an H1 tag.

So, although the headline may be the same, it's quite possible that the content of the page (when looked at as a whole) is not duplicate. There could be other content on the page (usually text) that is shorter or longer than the original page, so there isn't an issue.

But with all duplicate content situations, the first to get crawled is the originator--so it's quite possible that the other site gets crawled first and the actual originator of the content ends up not doing as well in the organic SERPs.

[mattdinbrooklyn]

But I don't believe it's an issue of duplicate content since the URL stays the same. Let me clarify:

So article one has the headline and Title Tag of "Beyonce releases Surprise New Album" with the URL of domain.com/news/beyonce-releases-surprise-new-album. The headline and title tag then changes when editorial knows more and becomes: "Beyonce releases Lemonade in Surprise Event". Does this affect the ranking to publish with one headline and title tag and then change the title and headline but keep the url the same?

[GlobeRunner]

Yes, in your example it WOULD affect the ranking, as the first URL no longer exists. Ideally the 1st URL should 301 redirect to the 2nd URL, the updated one. In most cases, timing is everything--and getting a URL crawled and indexed quickly means a lot when it comes to rankings. Keep in mind, though, that you're getting a good ranking, but you then essentially ignore it and get rid of that ranking when you change URLs.