Stolen or copied content can be a problem when it comes to your website’s search engine optimization. Recently we learned that our Omniture vs. Google Analytics blog post was copied and translated into Japanese. This made us ask what the ramifications of our stolen content could have to our site.

Although search engines might not directly punish a site if the same exact content is published on multiple URLs, the value of the original content could be diluted. Google states that they do not have a duplicate content penalty; however, if the website with the copied content has a higher page ranking than the originating page, then that original site might not appear in a search because Google doesn’t want to have multiple search results with the exact same content.

Google says when it comes across duplicate content they group all the URLs together. They then select what they think is the “best URL” to represent the content in search queries. In our case it is unlikely that the translated blog post ranks above ours for this particular topic, but it is possible for search engines to choose a site with copied material.

Other factors that help search engines determine the originator of the content is by backlinks, post date and respect of the site. A more powerful, respected site is more likely get credit for the content because they are unlikely to copy others.

Here are some ways that you can protect and help prevent your content from getting duplicated.

1. Add a copyright notice at the bottom of all your content and warn that you check for duplicated content
2. Perform internal audits has many Web sites have duplicate content across various pages throughout the site
3. URL canonicalization- have clean URLs

Copyscape is a great tool to use in order find out if any of your content has been copied. It lets you identify sites that have duplicated your content without permission and even shows you who is quoting your site. All you have to do is type your domain into the search box and Copyscape will tell you how many pages have your content on their sites. It will tell you how many exact words are used and the percent of similarity throughout the entire page.

If you discover that your content has been copied you can do a couple of things to resolve the problem. You can contact the person who copied your content and ask them to take it down. If you do not get a response or the person refuses to take it down, you can file a complaint with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). They will assess the situation and send the duplicate site owner a takedown notice.

Has anyone else had issues with their content being duplicated before?

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 15th, 2010 at 2:10 pm and is filed under Global Interactive Marketing, Internet Marketing Strategy, Rise Interactive, SEM Tutorial. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.