Forum Moderators: Robert Charlton & goodroi
I ask because I have a website around 7 months old that is PR4 for a [blue widget] related site but does not show up under any term at all. I can even type my own description and title and nothing comes up. The only way I find my site in Google is search the exact domain name. I have a few free articles....is this causing problem? or am I still in the the "Sandbox"
[edited by: ciml at 11:08 am (utc) on June 28, 2005]
[edit reason] No specific phrases please. [/edit]
Another thing to think about is original content. That seemed to be a major theme from most speakers at the 2005 New Orleans conference. SEOs, SEs, and other professionals reiterated over and over that for a site to be successful in the SERPs, it needs to have good, original content. The days of free, reprinted articles seems to be coming to an end -- that is, if you want to appear in the SERPs.
Regardless, I have both syndicated content on my site and allow some use of my content on other sites (as well as having it taken regardless!) and site is perfoming as well (and better on some KWs) after Bourbon - so I doubt that's a factor in any penalty.
Original Content has been a theme in SEO since long before I started out over 3 years ago and will no doubt continue to be a theme long after I retire. It's about the only safe play there is. ;)
Obviously if you reprint someone else's article you aren't going to out rank them for it's key terms. That stands to reason - even if it hasn't been the case all the time.
But it doesn't mean Google is going to penalise your entire site when you are legitimately using some content written by someone else.
Chickenpaw, try searching for larger sections of text (a sentence or two). It could just be you're ranking is rubbish. :p It's not unheard of for sites to be in sandbox for longer than 7 months.
MG
For example a search on blue widgets bring up 3 sites with the same white paper in the top 10 serps and this is how the page is laid out:
Title: [sitename] blah blah blah widget with BLUE WIDGET
Page: To download blah blah blah widget with BLUE WIDGET click here
Thats the only time blue widget is mentioned at all. Low PR pages as well. Very little back links. All 3 sites that rank in the top 10 search have this:
whitepaper.sitename.com
Obviously if you reprint someone else's article you aren't going to out rank them for it's key terms.
With very few exceptions, the articles that I reprint on my sites always outrank the originals. I have even had authors contact me asking me to remove the articles because their traffic dropped so much after I posted my reprints.
I've even had this happen with some articles that I reprinted after being requested to do so by the author (they were out for exposure and a link, but it backfired on them I guess). I always comply when asked of course.
As far Google penalizing sites with reprinted articles is concerned, I haven't seen any evidence of it. My primary site has over 3,700 articles, roughly 2/3 of them original with the rest reprints. The reprints do just as well as the originals in the SERPS. In fact, the page on that site that recives more visits per day from Google than any other is a reprint that is on dozens of other high ranking sites.
Obviously if you reprint someone else's article you aren't going to out rank them for it's key terms.
I wouldn't bet on that. Depending on the site the article came from, out ranking them might be quite easy.
Original content is king. I would like to see the WebmasterWorld Conference have more about true content development, since it is the standard advice a lot of experts are recommending for good rankings, natural link building, etc.
However, we now see substantial albeit only recent evidence that articles gleaned from some of those "article directories" are starting to cause problems. Right now we view the current evidence as being at the "early warning" stage, not conclusive yet.
But if I were one of those services, or selling software to manage submission to those services, I might start reviewing my business model. ;-)
huh? A lot of our original content is copied by sites that rank above us now.
What if reprint articles are re-worded enough (with the author's permission) so that they appear very different than the original article? Government sites usually offer "public domain" content that's free for the taking, except the problem there is it's often very difficult to find what you want, buried in the millions of junk articles one usually finds on government sites.
...so that they appear very different than the original article?
Very different would be original. If you are extensively rewriting material you should be able to add to it and improve upon it enough to call it your own.
What if reprint articles are re-worded enough (with the author's permission) so that they appear very different than the original article?If the article is changed enough it would likely be viewed as unquie content.
I started out my site by using the content of others (syndicate), then I realized that I could write better articles myself.
By the time you find the right article and rewrite it, you probably could just write one yourself.
This site was sandboxed for 14 months by Google. Roughly 20% of the articles are syndicated.
I now frequently outrank the original author for the same article - without changing a thing.
I originally came here looking for somebody to write a script that would take online imput and return an ad (sized, colors, background, type size, maybe a logo, etc.) that the customer could approve and pay for. If anybody has that kind of skill or knows of somebody who does, please sticky me.
On the subject of dup content, a couple of bullet points on the previous posts. If G interpolates between "syndicated" (established media) content and everything else, they are doing so at their own peril.
The internet was never meant to be about the control of information (well, maybe, when it was a DARPA project, but certainly not since Berners Lee) nor the desirability of one form of content over another. Just because an article is not written by an established media entity does not disqualify it as being meaningful or contributory to the overall wealth of knowledge.
Granted, some of the articles on the free sites are poorly written and launched by scrapers, spammers and scammers (for yor own sake, check the source!); however, the concept is well-rooted in the publishing business and commonly known as "the pool."
There are plenty of sources for articles and content for websites. Whether or not they produce traffic or excess space is another matter. The concept that copying and pasting an article may result in a search penalty is anathema to free thinking people. Not everyone visits the same sites and propulgating the internet with articles that are either informational, entertaining, or controversial, need to be reproduced and flung far and wide is a good idea insofar as freedom of information is concerned.
Encouraging the free and rapid exchange of information is not only a grand and democratic concept, but somewhat incidental to the efficient operation of the internet. Any effort to blunt that exchange should, in my opinion, be met with considerable opposition from freelancers and independent writers.
I could go on about the recent Supreme Court decision in favor of the recording industry, but this is getting a little long. All thanks should go to George Bush for being such an abject moron again so as to inspire me to at least attempt an intelligent composition without going nukleer.
I'm out.
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