Worries About Duplicate Content

Okay, so you've worked hard to produce a large body of work, online content you want to optimize for the best possible exposure and earnings. Then, presto! the idea hits like a lightening bolt: why not publish the same content across different sites?

There are a couple of reasons not to do this.

1. Pages are crawled and indexed. Now, two identical pages cause difficulty. Google, in attempting to offer relevant material, will often go with the original, filtering out a secondary copy.
   
2. Web traffic may be diluted so you actually earn less for two pages of identical content. Far better to spin the second copy into a different article.
3. Then there's the dreaded Duplicate Content Penalty. If you haven't heard about it, you need to be aware that content producers have, in some cases, been banned from the Google AdSense program, resulting in loss of accrued and future AdSense revenues.

Most of us simply don't have the fortitude to read through all the gobblety-gook. If you are anything like me, you don't want to wade through the lengthy FAQs at the Google site, that never seem to directly address the question you want answered.

I've prepared Google's Duplicate Content Rule: Information That Sheds Light on Google's Policies. I hope this article helps to clarify issues that concern webmasters, publishers, and others who produce online content.