Adding third-party RSS feeds to your website - Is it helpful?

[zapotex]

Hi All!

I've done my homework and used the search function, but I could not find anything. My apologies if the answer to my question was already there, I could not find it.

I'd like to add a "news" box to my website and feed it with the Google News RSS about the relevant topic for my website. Technically, I know how to do that and I already have a prototype page.

My question is: what effects does this have on SEO? How to maximize the benefits and minimize the drawbacks?

I googled a lot and search strings with RSS and SEO only return tutorials about how to optimize the RSS feed YOU create. On the contrary, I want to add a third-party (Google-powered) RSS feed to my website and I'd like to know the best way to do that.

My thought is that it would increase the freshness of my website and that it would give visitors a reason to come back to my website to check the news. However, I'm concerned with duplicate content. I'm also worried that a page with tens of external links might be seen by Google as a content farm. Will Google recognize that it is their own news feed? (of course I'll link back to Google News, as per the terms and conditions)

On a non-SEO-related note: I'm also concerned that adding a lot of external links might drive visitors away (even though the links will be target="_blank").

What's your experience on this? It would be great to get some help from you gurus!

Thanks a lot!

[drogbasen]

i think it does not increase the freshment of your website, cause it's not your content..
If you do have excellent content, then you need not to worry about freshment issues, just add a facebook comment plugin or disqus comment system.. Now, google can crawl these content in javascript..

[Lenny2]

I was thinking of doing the same thing... here are my personal thoughts on the matter:

Duplicate Content:

As long as it's not the majority of the content, I think it would be OK.

Freshness:

I do think it would help with freshness...

Optimization:

I think actually curating the feed... and picking the BEST articles (and not just all the articles) would be the SEO best practice.

[zapotex]

Thanks so much!

drogbasen: my CMS already has comment system for pictures, but I really should add comments to the articles too... Thanks so much! Any suggestion on choosing between FB and Disqus?

Lenny2: great advice! I will experiment with your ideas!

Thanks again to both of you!

[FranticFish]

I think you'd get slightly more SEO 'brownie points' for writing a regular roundup of the news, with each post linking to interesting stories, and your own views and commentary added. Maybe not as much as covering the news yourself, because you're talking about other people's content (and Google have said that they are trying to target this sort of thing and give it less weight) but more than just sticking a feed on your site.

[Planet13]

I think you'd get slightly more SEO 'brownie points' for writing a regular roundup of the news, with each post linking to interesting stories, and your own views and commentary added...

I think FranticFish is on to something here. I am sure there are "gossip" sites out there that rank well that are basically curated news stories that provide commentary.

I think the important thing is to provide a unique VALUE to your viewers though. Instead of just trying to score "fresh content points" with the algorithm, it is probably better to do something that other sites don't do and that visitors are going to find helpful.

[zapotex]

Hi FranticFish and Planet13, thanks a lot to you as well!

Your suggestion is not just SEO, it is more of making my website evolve into a portal with frequent commentaries about news.

It would definitely help, but it is a lot of work! :-) I'll see what I can do!

Thanks again!

[FranticFish]

it is probably better to do something that other sites don't do and that visitors are going to find helpful

That could be as simple as your (editorial) opinion - that's why newspapers and magazines hire columnists.