Another website copying our blog content but credit us. Still bad?

[aphoontrakul]

Hi Moz community,

A few businesses that we work with are asking if they can leverage our content such as blogs by basically copying it and post it on their site. They will give us credit for the content though. My concern is that going to cause duplicate content issue and hurt us with our SEO? We'd like to provide it to them in a way that would benefit us or at least doesn't hurt us. I can think of a few possible options...

1. Have them only copy part of the content and link back to our site with a link "Read the original article" or something similar

2. Have them implement rel=canonical back to our site

3. Have them just copy the whole thing (because it doesn't really hurt us?). In that case, do we have them link back to us or no?

Is there anything I missed? What's the best option for us?

Thank you for the help in advance!

[LoganRay]

Hi,

Don't let someone else benefit from content you worked hard to create. If they want to reference it, they can link to that particular piece of content within their own content. So option number one is the best of the 3 you've laid out, I'd be picky about how much of a teaser you allow them to copy though. Give them enough to want to click the link to your site, but not so much that they don't need to click that link.

[NickW816]

Option #1 for sure. This way you get a link and hopefully traffic from them, while they are still able to reference your content.

[donsilvernail]

This is a great question that many clients have asked me on several occasions. I really do not like any of the choices you have listed. You still risk duplicate content with option 1 as the teaser will still be mostly word for word then a link. If your content is that good they should produce their own content based on the subject and link to yours. This way they are producing fresh content that gives authority to your content.