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About Stoney deGeyter
Expertise
Any questions regarding search engine optimization (SEO) and website marketing. I can answer specific questions regarding keyword research, link building, website development, website usability, and social media, as well as general small business questions.

Experience
I have been working in the Search Engine Optimization and Marketing industry since 1998. I run a successful website marketing company that employs an elite team of SEO/SEM professionals.

Organizations
Member of the Better Business Bureau and Reno-Tahoe Young Professionals Network

Publications
Author of two Website Marketing Books: E-Marketing Performance: Effective strategies for building, optimizing, and marketing your website online, and Keyword Research and Selection: The definitive guide to gathering, sorting and organizing your keywords into a high-performance SEO campaign. Regular contributing author at a wide variety of Search Engine Optimization and Marketing websites, including Search Engine Guide, Search Engine Land, ISEdB, WebProNews, and EzineArticles

Education/Credentials
While no official credentials exists in our field I have written numerous SEO articles and tutorials that are published in highly traffic SEO sites, blogs and forums.

Awards and Honors
I am frequently asked to speak at Search Engine conferences nationwide, including SEMpdx, Webmasterworld's PubCon and Small Business Marketing: Unleashed.

Past/Present Clients
We have clients throughout the US and some in Canada. www.eternalsnow.com www.batterystuff.com www.winterkids.com www.sierrainstruments.com www.dcmentors.com www.cooperaerial.com www.eskill.com

You are here: Experts > Internet/Online > Internet Technologies > Search Engine Optimization > Duplicate pages and search engines.

Search Engine Optimization - Duplicate pages and search engines.

Expert: Stoney deGeyter - 10/27/2009

Question
QUESTION: Hi Stoney

I read that if someone uploaded a duplicate page to a page on my website, it could downgrade my search engine rankings as the search engines could see it as spam. What if someone created a page with only a copy of the text in my page and did not include the html tags and other things on the page? Someone wrote to me and asked if they could copy and paste all the text on my page on their website or on their blog. Could that lower my search engine ranking for my page?

There is some information about duplicate pages at
http://www.google.com/search?ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&sourceid=navclient&gfns=1&q=dupli...

I also have many websites with new ideas, including separate free groups, unique inventions with advantages, and rare information with solutions to help people. Please see http://www.advantagein.com/community.htm for a brief summary. I would appreciate your feedback and help.

Your help will be appreciated,
Regards Richard.

ANSWER: Hi Richard,

There is some truth to this but its not all black and white. When search engines find pages with duplicate content the one that tends to rank better is either the original version, or the version on the higher-powered website. The search engines try to rank the original but it doesn't always turn out that way. While the duplicate content technically won't affect your rankings against other sites you're competing against, the duplicate content can outrank your original content which can be troublesome. If you don't care which version of the content ranks better (yours or the duplicate) then I say go right ahead and let them copy it. But if you do care then I suggest not.

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Hi Stoney

Thanks for the letter.

I read that the problems can be overcome if the person copying the content on a page included the link and reference back to the original page.
For example, they could write on the bottom that
“This information is sourced from the page at http://www.truechristianity.com/prophecy/”

Someone wanted to copy all the text from my page at http://www.truechristianity.com/prophecy/ except for the headings and the links on the page. They wanted to paste all the black text in the body into their blog.

However, if they add the link and reference it should be all right. Do you think so?

Your help is appreciated,
Regards Richard.

Answer
Yes, that is *sort of* a solution, but it doesn't always work. If their site gains in popularity then even though yours is the known originator theirs can still rank higher.

You can ask that they add a canonical tag to their page which references back to the originator. This also isn't a perfect solution as it only provides the search engines with a guideline they can choose to ignore.

<link rel="canonical" href="http://www.truechristianity.com/prophecy/" />

This is a a better solution than what you suggested, though I'd recommend doing both the link and the tag. The link will be pass value to your site and let their visitors know you are the originator, the canonical tag will tell the search engines that your page is the originator.

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