Possible Penalty Using 'Submit to Download' Sites?

[raymondcc]

Let's say I made a freeware and I want as much exposure as possible for the program.

One of the best ways are to submit the program information to download portal sites such as CNET, brothersoft, majorgeeks and etc.

However, the possible problem is duplicate content when all of the download sites merely copies the description from the official website.

I certainly do not want to take the risk in assuming that Googlebot is smart enough to know that my site is the original one and download portal sites that are much higher in authority copied from me.

Question: Is there "ANY" possibility that submitting my software to download sites will cause penalization either by Panda (duplicate description) or Penguin (sudden increase of download sites linking to my site)?

[jimbeetle]

Why not supply the download sites with a different, shorter description than used on the main site?

As for the sudden increase in links, that would be kind of natural, no?

[deadsea]

As a open source software developer, I have submitted my software to these directories. I haven't seen any problems caused by duplicate content.

On the other hand, most of the directories don't seem to send many visitors. Some of them add your email address to their marketing lists and will remove your listing if you unsubscribe. My software ranks in Google for its own name, but usually not many terms beyond that, the backlinks you would get are probably not worth a whole lot these days.

[linkbuildr]

Just don't pick some "money" anchor text as your link either.