Re-cycling content from our sites on other sites

Problems with duplication?

[mikevanerp]

I've a related question. I have a couple of articles which other sites often want, but may not be willing to only link to.

Instead, some of these sites are willing to republish the same article on their own site, and include a link and credit to me because they want the content on their site.

A particular example is this page: how_to_heelbrake_stop.htm. (append to the site in my profile).

Should I allow other sites to republish these articles in return for the link, or simply take the loss and skip getting the link back? For the purposes of the discussion, lets assume equal(ish) PR rating.

These sites are generally on other hosting companies and have different IPs and domain names.

Cheers,
Mike.

[keyplyr]

I was using content supplied from another resource for a time. It was done with a javascript feed, which wrote the link-back into the content. This is pretty easy to set up.

In this manner, I don't believe your site would receive verifiable linkage but it is a safe way to control the look/feel of your original content.

[paynt]

I've had very good luck if the site in question on publishes 1/3 of the article and links back using appropriate anchor text to "the rest of the story". Meaning replace above with appropriate related keyword. It can be a win for both sites.

[Filipe]

I agree with paynt. I ran a game development website a few years back and I would reprint whole articles (with the authors' permissions) on my website. Since I amassed these articles, my website with their articles became the definitive source for information, devaluing their site.

If you want your site to be the hub of information instead of just a provider to another site, you want to get people coming to you for the full story.

[paynt]

Wow, nice response Filipe. Good to hear that type of feedback from others. Thanks.

[mikevanerp]

Thanks a lot, guys, that's really useful feedback.

Filipe, funnily enough like you I've reprinted a couple of articles, and perhaps because of my relatively bigger site size and popularity have become the source on those.

Anyway, that's pretty convincing stuff, so I don't think I'll be offering article swaps.

[Filipe]

mike,
I recommend also once in a while running a search on particular strings in your articles (ones that may be unique) on Google to see if anyone else is using your article without your permission.

Actually, I'll make a post regarding that to see if anybody has any good article-tracking ideas.

[Filipe]

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