Duplicate Content: Not a Negative Ranking Factor for Google

As a blogger, you must keep a check on plagiarism in your content. Just in case there are any phrases that might occur for people with similar thinking, we make sure they get rewritten. However, the new search engine ranking factors for 2021 and beyond had been released by Google. According to the current scenario, the misconception about duplicate content is clear. Duplicate content is not a negative ranking factor for Google anymore. SEO duplicate content rules are rather broad than we thought they are.

Why is Duplicate Not a Negative Ranking Factor?

Webmasters know it is unethical to copy and paste somebody’s hard work. Google algorithm keeps on improving. With such intelligent technology crawling on the browser, it is easy for the bots to handle such a subject.

It is nothing new that some phrases might match each other without any wrong intentions. It is fine by Google. However, when it comes to duplicate content, Google checks the authority, quality, and relevance of the site. It ranks whichever is the best while not show the other in page results. Therefore, duplicate content is not a negative ranking factor as per the search engines news at all.

Duplicate Content Myths

Reposting Your Guest Posts on Your Own Blog Will Harm Your Website

This is to say, you can freely publish your content on your website if you have guest blogged the same on some other website. The Canonical tag for the original content does the job. Add this add to the original post in this format: “<link rel=canonical href= https://www.urlexample.com />”

If you are adding value to the world of knowledge but republishing the same posts, there is no way Google will rank you down as SEO duplicate content.

Copied Content will Bring Down Your Google Places Rank

Sure. If you steal somebody’s content, your domain should be blacklisted by the search engine. This is more likely to happen with multiple copied content at the same time, especially on new websites. 

However, when we are talking about duplicate content myths, it is more about a website that has established itself completely. This website has relevance, trust, and authority since long back for Google to make it trash in the blacklist. Sometimes, reposting the same articles on different well made blogs would not raise Google alarms. The neutral point is that the post would neither rank high nor go low in the SERP.

Scrapers Online Will Damage the Website

Actually, no. If you are original and true, there are no reasons for you to fear scrapers. All they can do is copy and paste your content. But it is you who published the original content first, and Google bots know it. Scarpers are not good or bad for you. However, since they scrape you of all the content including the links, there are chances of you getting referral site views through those internal links.

If the scarpers get a higher rank, (which is unlikely to happen) you can always report them through Google Scarper Report.

Bottom Line on Duplicate Content SEO

There is no need for you to fear Duplicate Content SEO. The misconception on duplicate content as a negative ranking factor is quite clear. If you are of true nature with your website, this factor could barely harm you. There are many e-commerce websites that have the same description for the same products. There is nothing wrong with that. Google understands the need for it, and it does not hurt your business in any way.

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Sushma M.
Sushma M.
Hi, I am Sushma M. an experienced digital marketer with vast knowledge in related domains such as SEO, PPC, Social Media Marketing, and Content Marketing. I am also a Blogger and run my own blog, Digital Sushma. Lately, I have started researching and analyzing the latest innovations in the field of AI, ML, and Data Science and how these innovations can affect Internet Marketing.