Will Google ban me because I use the same content over and over?

[Mtlinfo]

Ok just a simple question that I want to ask you since this is the week-end and I know that the Adsense support won't reply until next week.

Let's say I write a nice article on my landing page to help buyers of homes from making a stupid mistake and use "Warning Miami, FL Home Buyers..." in the title...

Now can I duplicate this page and then simply change the name like "Warning Atlanta,GA Home Buyers..." or if Google will ban me because I use the same content over and over?

I don't see why these warnings could apply to 1 city but not to 2nd or 3rd one!

What's you take on that?

Rick

[mainspot]

Actually it's a good idea... :P

Never try that before and curious for it's result.

[mzanzig]

I guess this is more related to Google search forum, right? I know that Google Search has penalties for duplicate content. I don't see Adsense having a problem with duplicate content (well, except getting the dreaded "solely made for adsense" label applied to your site).

[The Contractor]

If you don't mind the risk then try it, it may work for awhile. When your site(s) gets dropped from the serps, don't whine though. These type of sites/pages become rarer and rarer to find in the serps over the long-run.

[edited by: The_Contractor at 11:55 am (utc) on Mar. 4, 2007]

[gamiziuk]

There is no reason for Adsense to ban you for this.

But the Google-search area will likely treat this as duplicate content and your traffic shall plummet.

[Quadrille]

Google does not have a penalty for duplicate content, but may decide to only fully list one version of the page.

This could end with severe damage to the pages Google chooses NOT to fully list.

Content is King; and Google takes that very seriously. Read it as "Unique Content is King".

It is best practice to develop each site searately, on its own merits; indeed, it is asking for trouble not to.

Especially in a highly competitive area, where every downside is a cliff edge.

[nomis5]

I have done exactly this - weather stuff for each of the major cities in the US. The pages are exactly the same except for the city name which appears in the <title> and at the top of the page. I'm not trying to get people to come to the pages from Google though, it's just convenient internally to the site.

As far as I can see it has had no effect on rankings, earnings or anything. There are roughly 70 pages like this on an 800 page site.

[MThiessen]

Yeah it's not a pnalty, but it IS a filter, and you duplicate the snot out of your pages and they won't appear in the serps. But you won't get banned.

Personally I think it's a bad idea. A good idea would be to totally re-word it for each city.

[Mtlinfo]

I remember when I was an SEO back in the 99 or so, there was such a software that would take 1 page and make 100 copies of it and insert the name of the different city for every new page.

It's sort of a find and replace tool but where you insert a list of city names and it would replace each city with the new ones.

Ever heard of such a thing?