Is Duplicate Content a Problem?

First, duplicate content can come in three parts:

1.  Content that is on your site and then duplicated on other pages on your site.

2. Content that is on your site and may also be on other blogs and article directories.

3.  Multiple pages, perhaps doorway pages that have identical content and may have different paths, domain names pointing to it, etc.

On your site, you should do whatever possible to eliminate #3.  This did work years ago, and may work for a short period of time, but is not good for the long term for your website.  However, you may want to have multiple domain names, misspellings, etc going to a particular page.  Just make sure that each page uses unique content compared to the other pages.  For example, let’s say you have a website called, mywidget.com and you got widgetname.com.  Often people can point the second domain at the first one.  However, you may want to create a separate website and point it at http://mywidget.com/widgetname.htm  so that the spiders may not think you have duplicate content out there.

#2 is very difficult for the search engines to eliminate.  And right now it is not a big deal to have dupe content out there on blogs and article directories.  However, this could change overnight.  If you put in the effort and use an automated text changer app. you could create unique content for each of your blogs and article directories.  Basically what this tool does is allow you to take your article, insert variations of the article phrases, etc. and then when you press a button the article changes to be a completely different article each time.  You just cut and paste and post.  It is faster, but certainly takes a bit more time than if you took the exact duplicate content and posted it everywhere.  You are just bound to be blacklisted or found out sometime.  And the blacklisting may follow you whenever you launch anything else, since google will be able to know who is the owner of the domain name.

#1 is On-Page optimization.  Every site has some content that is repeated.  However, the more you can mix it up, the better.  To a spider, if all pages are unique it will likely rank you better than if you had the same material everywhere.

Of course there is duplicate content on the web.  Nobody can eliminate this.  However, Google is doing everything it can to eliminate web spam.  If you can eliminate it before it goes up, the better you will do in the long run.