Many people are concerned the penalty imposed on them for duplicate content when submitting articles and the possibility of their website tanking in the search results with the same article published on a number of different directories. In a way they are right to be, but in practice, assuming that they fully understand the concept of duplicating your content, then you will be able to work around it. Prior to discussing the topic in more detail, let’s first make it clear for those new to Internet marketing, and article marketing specifically, what is meant by duplicate content and why you should be submitting your articles for publication to article directories.

”There is No Such Thing as a Duplicate Content Penalty”

This has frequently been referred to as the ‘Duplicate Content Penalty’. The fact is, the Google duplicate content penalty is a myth. There is no such thing! A penalty does not exist, and even Google itself states that. Here is some proof for that statement:

Here is a quote directly from Google Webmaster Central Blog:

“Duplicate content. There’s just something about it. We keep writing about it, and people keep asking about it. In particular, I still hear a lot of webmasters worrying about whether they may have a “duplicate content penalty.”

Let’s put this to bed once and for all, folks: There’s no such thing as a “duplicate content penalty.” At least, not in the way most people mean when they say that.”

Source: Susan Moskwa, Google Webmaster Trends Analyst

Google software engineer Matt Cutts has stated the same thig as well. It is because naïve webmasters fail to understand the Google Algorithm and spend a significant amount of energy following others that don’t understand either. Perhaps if they did the appropriate research and testing, they would realize that duplicate content is handled in a way that tends to infer there maybe a penalty. However, this does not mean that you should spend your time duplicating the very same content over and over again until you flood the Internet with the same drivel. Read further and you will gain an education as to what actually occurs within search engine function.

Do a search from my Google search box for “Duplicate Content Penalty” and check the information on Google’s official policy on duplicate content, for example, just search for it. Since Google does not apply any duplicate content penalty, you will be hard pressed to find an official policy on it. However, you may find several blog postings by such respected technical personnel as Matt Cutts. But don’t take my word for it, do your own research. All I can do is present what I feel is an informed observation based on years of Internet research and testing.

Use Critical Thinking!

Ponder this for a moment…Think about online newspapers who utilize articles from Associated Press. There are hundreds of these websites around the world that are posting the exact same content. Do you think duplicate content affects the search engine position of the NY Times?

The Real Duplicate Content Problem

Although there is no duplicate content penalty as such, Google will list the page that offers the most relevant and useful information on the search term used by Google’s customer looking for an answer to a problem. Although all the articles will be the same, Google’s algorithms will also take the following into account the following:

Any other information on the web page.
Any links on the page to other sources of relevant information.
The relevance of the website as a whole to the topic in question.
The Google Page Rank of the page on which the article is published.
The chronology of the page, though the earliest source of the article is not necessarily listed highest.
Any other page factors that are relevant to the topic (Adverts, graphics and so on)
The general search engine optimization factors of the page, such as intelligent used of Meta tags, the title tag and H heading tags.
Any other content on the page: the article itself might be only a small part of the web page on, for example, an ezine.

There may be others, but it should now be obvious that the article itself is not the only factor involved in the search engine results position for the page on which the article is published online. Google will begin to drop the other listings until only the most relevant is left. It is not a duplicate content penalty as such, but natural to a search engine trying to provide the best possible service to its customers.

However, this does not happen overnight, and it will be several months before even 75% of all the original submissions are no longer listed in the main results pages. During that period you should have written other articles, and the net number of listed articles will continue to rise. Your back-links will continue to rise, as will exposures of your resource URLs to the public.

Getting around the Duplicate Content Penalty

If taken to the logical conclusion, each of your articles will be listed on only one directory, but consider the math. Assume that each submission is picked up and listed on Google – this could be anywhere from Page #1 to Page #500 or whatever. It is still a back-link, irrespective of its listed position.

a) Week 1: write one article and submit it to 100 directories and ezines = 100 listings.
b) Week 3: write another article with the same URL in the resource, and submit to the same 100 publications = 200 listings.
c) Week 5: 20% of the listings from a) are dropped = 180 listings left
d) Week 5: write another article and submit the same = 280 listings left
e) Week 7: 20% more of a) and 20% of b) are dropped = 244 listings left
f) Week 7: Write another article and submit ton 100 publications = 344 listings left.

Use the formula above and watch your visitors grow exponentially

As you can see, by writing and submitting one article per week, your number of listings and back-links continue to rise, even though you may be losing 20% every 2 weeks. You need therefore have no fear of the effect of duplicate content if you write even just one more article every two weeks. Some write 2 – 3 a week and some even more. The so-called penalty, even if there was one, will have minimal effect on your results. If you continue to write articles and continue article distribution as normal then the number of live publications of your article on the article directories and ezines will continue to increase, and with it the exposure of your landing page and your sales. If your landing page is a squeeze page then your emailing list will increase proportionately to the number of articles you write.

Google does not immediately see all this duplicate content and immediately delist it. The function of Google’s algorithms, and those of the other search engines, is to calculate the relevance of each page to the keywords used by that search engine’s customers, and list each web page accordingly. Very rarely will each web page containing your article be equal in terms of content and SEO factors, and many different pages will contain your article, and still be listed on Google, for several months to come.

Your job as a blog operator:

Your job is to keep ahead and make sure that more pages are generated than are lost. That is one of the major aspects of article marketing whereby those that can do it the best will gain the most. Quality AND quantity win in this game, so don’t let scaremongering ‘duplicate content believers’ frighten you out of making the best possible use of this fabulous free advertising technique, and continue to write and continue to submit your articles for long-lasting success.

Alternatively, continue to have your articles written for you and to have them submitted for you: doe correctly it is worth paying double the price for the potential benefits that you will gain. Focus on article distribution to article directories and the duplicate content will become an irrelevant nuisance that will have very little effect on your success. However, keep in mind: One article submitted without back-up with others will offer only limited results. What works is replacing dropped listings with new fresh ones from fresh articles focusing on the same keywords and offering the same URL links in your resource. A frequency of one every two weeks, submitted to the same article directories, will more than compensate for any duplicate content lost through attrition.

You will never be penalized for duplicate content, but your listed numbers will gradually drop off over time. There is no duplicate content penalty but you can easily overcome the effect of duplicate pages being dropped from Google’s listings. In a nutshell, keep your content fresh.