As you have landed on this article, we are assuming that you must have heard of duplicate content, and it might be it made you feel dread.
You might have heard a lot of horror stories about how duplicate content is being punished by Google and other search engines. You might also have heard that duplicate content is among worst SEO mistakes you can create.
However, all of them are not true. In most cases, people who spread negative news or rumors do not have or have really little knowledge and understanding about Duplicate content.
Here, in this article, we will provide you with the truth. For that, you first need to know what duplicate content actually is.
What Is Duplicate Content?
When content is present in more than one location or URL online, it is labeled as duplicate content. It means the same information has been made available on more than one URL. A study says that over 29% of pages actually have duplicate content.
If you want to check whether you are creating duplicate content unknowingly, you can download a tool from thenewpiratebay; it will keep you away from duplicate content if you are afraid of it so much.
5 Myths On How Duplicate Content Impacts SEO
We believe now you understand what duplicate content is. Now, let’s have a look at the most heard myths on how duplicate content is impacting SEO.
Myth No. 1: It Hurts Your Search Engine Ranking
Yes, duplicate content might affect your search engine rankings in some cases. However, the effects are not as serious as you might think. In reality, it has far less impact on your SEO.
You can not forget that a lot of factors come into consideration when Google is indexing, Crawling, and ranking pages. It is important to develop a reputation for creating valuable and unique content. This way, Google will be more likely to crawl your web page and rank it higher than other duplicate pages.
Myth No. 2: It Gets You Penalized
Seriously?
Google does not penalize duplicate content. What it does is penalize deceptive behavior. In case you are duplicating content just for manipulating search engines, they will definitely lower your rankings or remove the offering.
In reality, duplicate content is not something to stress about for most marketers. As long as you are publishing posts enriched with quality content and avoiding poor SEO tactics, such as keyword studying, you are not going to get penalties for duplicate content.
Myth No. 3: Scapers With Damage Your SEO
A number of bloggers hate scrapers; there are obvious reasons for that. The entire concept of a bot “scraping,” or, as they say, extracting data from your website, is indeed pretty alarming. Scrapers might not help your website, but at the same time, they also don’t harm you.
You should not really worry about a little scraper blog that does not have original content and visitors. Just by having a single look at that page, Google will immediately know that it is irrelevant. Thus it is not going to hurt your rankings.
Myth No. 4: Google Can Tell The Original Content Creator
Usually, search engines, such as Google, can not identify the original content URL or creator. That is one of the major problems with duplicate content.
Yes, Google takes plagiarism too seriously. In case you find out that someone else has copied your content, instead of thinking about search engines, you should consider an experienced lawyer and take legal action.
Myth No. 5: Reposting Your Guest Posts On Your Site Does Not Help
When it comes to getting more traffic and boosting your authority as an industry leader, guest posts are really great. You just need to make sure that you are not linking out too much from your guest posts.
On the online space, 52% of the guest posts consist of more outbound links than inbounds. It is harmful to your SEO. If you are thinking your audiences are not seeing the guest post and you want to republish it on your own site, you can do that, but with an additional tag, which will help Google to understand which one is the original content.