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Perhaps naively, its just occured to me the that the duplicate content filter may also serve as an affiliation filter. Originally I just saw it as something which ensured a single results page didn't get filled with repeat information.
If a site has X amount of content identical to another site, Google could also take them to be related. This would effectively trim near identical domains owned by one company in different regions - e.g. .com/.co.uk/.ca etc.
It isn't a big step from here to suppose that only one page among the duplicates will pass the benefit of any anchor text, be it internal or external.
Until today I'd also only presumed duplicate content to mean on-page text. Duplicate content could also mean crossovers of substantially similar file names/directory structures, page titles, internal and external linking tendencies. Can anyone think of further possible factors?
Lastly, if you have a site with a large amount of content found on other sites (e.g. standard technical information on products), and you weren't indexed first, could this dampen your ability to rank on anything you have that *is* unique because your site is substantially duplicate content?
Prairie is very worried!
I have also thought duplicate content is a signal that a site is an affiliate. However, being an affiliate site does not matter IMHO, it is the duplicated content that causes the problem.
I don't think additional content suffers, as long as it is unique. Being indexed first may not be the rule, the pr of the page and quality of links to that page may win through.
Be afraid. Be very afraid. Or, don't worry, be happy. Not sure which is better advice in this environment.
Presumably, from a SE's view anyway, dup filters address all sorts of evils, including but not limited to aff sites with no unique content. And yes duplication comes in all shapes and sizes. Add WHOIS data to your list of what might be looked at be the SE's, and do a G search of WW. There are lots of threads about dup filters and lost sites.
The good news is that if you cover all your bases, you should have nothing to worry about except ranking well. :-)
<Cliché count: 6+>
My experience here leads me to beleive that Google is unable or was unable to decide which site was actually the first site.
A site I built was copied and launched under another domain last December. We then had to battle for position with a copy of our own site. In March/April this year our pages started to drop, they are all in the Google index, just seem to be confined to much lower ranking like page 10+. The copy of our site has the ranking we used to enjoy.
Our site has a PR 5 on the main pages and PR 4's on the directory pages, we have good links and descriptions on both DMOZ and Yahoo directories and the other 2 MSN and Yahoo rank us fine.
Would love an explanation and a what to do guide, because at the moment nothing seems to work.
My biggest concern over dup content is that the drop down boxes used for certain states like New York, Texas, Florida etc. are very large on their own, up to 50k for a large drop down menu. Even though I built this navigation, the copied site stole these too and how do I get around many pages that are 50% dup even before the content is examined.
Can anyone help, Please?
My site is similiar, I don't care about the main pages as my sites traffic comes from searches like "widget sellers in widgetville" or "Widget Company in Widgetville".
In another thread we've talked about whether or not adding a significant number of new pages can sink an entire site. I have received all sorts of feedback.
What I know: Some previously healthy sites that have made no changes other than adding 10%-30% new pages have been badly hurt in the SERP's. BUT others have done same with no ill effect at all.
Since the addition of pages in and of itself did not necessarily hurt all sites, it must have something to do with other factors, where the addtion of pages was only some sort of red flag (if there is anything to this at all).
Possible issues connected to adding lots of new pages: Too many similar pages (dup filters); too little or difused PR such that the new pages dropped the site below certain hurdles; rate of growth that was too fast for G's liking; other?
User-agent: Googlebot
Disallow: /shopping/
That (in robots.txt) will keep Googlebot from seeing the directory that includes the duplicate content, but will allow G to see shopping.htm, which has unique content only. Additionally, it won't keep anyone else from seeing it. Right?
