Serious Duplicate Content Issue - How to solve it?

[corepartner]

Hi,

I have very good content writer who understand that unique content is very important for search engine rankings and she knows how to rewrite and make an articles unique.

But, recently I have started a new site and given her few articles to rewrite and when I checked them on copy scape I found that all the articles articles are at least 32% copied.

After that I Have compared the rewrite copy with the original articles and I found that my content writer is still doing the good job but copyscape still tracked the source of the original article.

I have seen very surprising result like "a computer operator" (copied), there must be many sites who have used the phrase "a computer operator" and its only 3 words but still copyscape marked it as RED.

Long time ago I have read somewhere that if you had 12 words common in a phrase then only it will be considered as a duplicate content and I have given the same guideline to my content writers but I guess it is the time to change it now.

If possible I would also like the experts like tedster & todd malicoat check the copyscape result.

Also, let me know if you guys want to get the link of my page to check it by yourself on copyscape.

So my main questions are:

Why copyscape is considering only 3 word pharse as duplicate?

Why copyscape has shown only that page from which my content writer took the article and ignored the other pages on the web which have the same phrase?

What are the new guidelines that now we all need to provide to our content writers?

Thanks

[buckworks]

The best way to solve your duplicate content problem is to start creating something genuinely original instead of merely regurgitating someone else's material and trying to disguise the fact.

[corepartner]

I am not in a position to pay that much to writers to create content from scratch but I will surely do that when I reach that level.

It would be great if someone will provide me the answer of my questions.

[tedster]

There is no answer of the kind you are hoping for - like an allowable percentage. Simply put, technology is catching up with re-written content that originated with someone else. Imperfectly, yes, but catching up. Also, you are asking about Copyscape's technology - and Google's technology is without a doubt not the same.

I do appreciate that this is a business model decision for you. However, lower quantity with higher quality (i.e. wholly original content) would be the path I'd choose. Without that, you may not ever reach the level you are talking about.

How about trying just one writer doing authentic, original articles? That experiment might prove very interesting.

[corepartner]

Thanks for replying tedster, I will take you advice and focus on quality rather than quantity from now on.

But, kindly also let me know what should I do with those duplicate content?

Situation:

I have three articles on site which are 33% copied by copyscape and I am targeting three different key phrases via these three articles.

All the articles are already indexed, so what should I do now?

Should I redirect those pages to new one and then start building backlinks or I can still rank for them if I build better backlinks than my competitors?

I am very confused now since I have never dealt with duplicate content issue before and no idea how hard it would be for me to rank for my targeted keywords even after building a better backlinks profile.

[tedster]

It isn't Google that's telling you you have duplicate content - it's Copyscape, right? If Google calculates that you have dupe content, your URL gets filtered out of the initial SERP and hidden within the link at the end of results.

For all of Google's challenges in always ranking the original, they still do recognize the original a lot of the time. So my approach is always to create value, not try to rank by piggy-back efforts and technical tricks. Long term, that creates lasting substance.

I'd say just move on to the next bit of business - and please, hands off on rewriting any content that I create. I have some choice names for people who do that ;)

[corepartner]

my English is not that well and I already mentioned that I will try to focus on quality from now on :)

I don't understand what you mean by "If Google calculates that you have dupe content, your URL gets filtered out of the initial SERP and hidden within the link at the end of results."

[phranque]

I don't understand what you mean by "If Google calculates that you have dupe content, your URL gets filtered out of the initial SERP and hidden within the link at the end of results."

when you see the following text at the "end" of a search result (on the last page), you have content that has been filtered:

In order to show you the most relevant results, we have omitted some entries very similar to the [nnn] already displayed.
If you like, you can repeat the search with the omitted results included.

[corepartner]

@phranque Thanks :)

[phranque]

you can always add &filter=0 to the query parameters of the SERP url to see the unfiltered results.