In this article internet marketer, Titus Hoskins explores the concept of Duplicate Content and how it effects your website search engine rankings.

The Tricky Issue Of Duplicate Content & What Google Says About It
By Titus Hoskins

Being a full-time online marketer means you have to keep a
close watch on how Google is ranking pages on the web...
one very serious concern is the whole issue of duplicate
content. More importantly, how does having duplicate
content on your own site and on other people's sites,
affect your keyword rankings in Google and the other search
engines?

Now, recently it seems that Google is much more open about
just how it ranks content. I say "seems" because with
Google there are years and years of mistrust when it comes
to how they treat content and webmasters. Google's whole
"do as I say" attitude leaves a bitter taste in most
webmasters' mouths. So much so, that many have had more
than enough of Google's attitude and ignore what Google and
their pundits say altogether.

This is probably very emotionally fulfilling, but is it the
right route or attitude to take? Probably not!

Mainly because, regardless of whether you love or hate
Google, there's no denying they are King of online search
and you must play by their rules or leave a lot of serious
online revenue on the table. Now, for my major keyword
content/pages even a loss of just a few places in the
rankings can mean I lose hundreds of dollars in daily
commissions, so anything affecting my rankings obviously
get my immediate attention.

So the whole tricky issue of duplicate content has caused
me some concern and I have made an ongoing mental note to
myself to find out everything I can about it. I am mainly
worried about my content being ranked lower because the
search engines think it is duplicate content and penalizes
it.

My situation is compounded by the fact that I am heavily
into article marketing - the same articles are featured on
hundreds, some times thousands of sites across the web.
Naturally, I am worried these articles will dilute or lower
my rankings rather than accomplish their intended purpose
of getting higher rankings.

I try to vary the anchor text/keyword link in the resource
boxes of these articles. I don't use the same keyword
phrase over and over again, as I am nearly 99% positive
Google has a "keyword use" quota - repeat the same keyword
phrase too often and your highly linked content will be
lowered around 50 or 60 places, basically taking it out of
the search results. Been there, done that!

I even like submitting unique articles to certain popular
sites so only that site has the article, thus eliminating
the whole duplicate content issue. This also makes for a
great SEO strategy, especially for beginning online
marketers, your own site will take some time to get to a
PR6 or PR7, but you can place your content and links on
high PR7 or PR8 authority sites immediately. This will
bring in quality traffic and help your own site get
established.

Another way I combat this issue is by using a 301 re-direct
so that traffic and pagerank flows to the URL I want
ranked. You can also use your Google Webmaster Tool account
to show which version of your site you want ranked or
featured: with or without the www.

The whole reason for doing any of this has to do with
PageRank juice - you want to pass along this ranking juice
to the appropriate page or content. This can raise your
rankings, especially in Google.

Thankfully, there is the relatively new "canonical tag" you
can use to tell the search engines this is the page/content
you want featured or ranked. Just add this meta link tag to
your content which you want ranked or featured, as in the
example given below:

link rel="canonical" href="place your preferred link here"

Anyway, this whole duplicate issue has many faces and
sides, so I like going directly to Google for my
information. Experience has shown me that Google doesn't
always give you the full monty, but for the most part, you
can follow what they say. Lately, over the last year or so,
Google seems to have made a major policy change and are
telling webmasters a lot more information on how they
(Google) rank their index.

So if you're concerned or interested in finding out more
about duplicate content and what Google says about it try
these helpful links. First one is a very informative video
on the subject entitled "Duplicate Content & Multiple Site
Issues" which is presented by Greg Grothaus who works for
Google.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hSoXutuj0g

Another great link is this page from Google Webmasters
Support Answers by Matt Cutts. It has a lot of helpful
information, including a video on the Canonical Link
Element. It's located here:

http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en
&answer=139394

In yet another post, Matt Cutts discusses the related issue
of content scraping and advises webmasters not to worry
about it. This is a slightly different matter, other
webmasters and unmentionables may use software to scrape
your site and place your content on their site. This has
happened to me, countless times, including when my content
has been reduced to scrambled nonsense. Cutts says not to
worry about this matter as Google can usually tell the
original source of the material. In fact, having links in
this duplicate content may just help your rankings in
Google.

"There are some people who really hate scrapers and try to
crack down on them and try to get every single one deleted
or kicked off their web host," says Cutts. "I tend to be
the sort of person who doesn't really worry about it,
because the vast, vast, vast majority of the time, it's
going to be you that comes up, not the scraper. If the guy
is scraping and scrapes the content that has a link to you,
he's linking to you, so worst case, it won't hurt, but in
some weird cases, it might actually help a little bit."

As a full-time online marketer I am not so easily
convinced, I mainly have pressing concerns about my
unscrupulous competition using these scrapings and
duplicate content to undermine one's rankings in Google by
triggering some keyword spam filter. Whether in fact this
actually happens, only Google knows for sure, but it is
just another indication, despite the very detailed and
helpful information given above, duplicate content and the
issues surrounding it, will still present serious concerns
for online marketers and webmasters in the future.

---------------------------------------------------------------
The author is a full-time online marketer who has numerous
websites. For the latest web marketing tools try:
http://www.bizwaremagic.com
If you liked the article above, why not try this Free 7 Day
Marketing Course here: http://www.marketingtoolguide.com