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Duplicate content is one of the top concerns of online publishers and content marketers. In the SEO world, duplicate content means the same content is published on multiple web pages; and may negatively affect a website ranking.
SEOMoz, one of the leaders in SEO Testing, had this to say of duplicate content: “(Duplicate content) is a problem because when there is more than one piece of identical content on the Internet, it is difficult for search engines to decide which version is more relevant to a given search query.”
Here’s what Google had to say on the subject: “Google perceives that duplicate content may be shown with intent to manipulate our rankings and deceive our users. We’ll also make appropriate adjustments in the indexing and ranking of the sites involved. As a result, the ranking of the site may suffer, or the site might be removed entirely from the Google index, in which case it will no longer appear in search results.
So, we know that duplicate content is bad for SEO, and Internet Marketing as a whole, but does it really affect your brand? What if your website sells parts, or many different variations of a singular item? What is the actual effect of duplicate content?
Decrease in Site Traffic:
An experiment run by multiple SEO vendors in 2011 showed concretely that duplicate content decreases site traffic. They ran a test where people who went to a particular web address were randomly assigned to Site Design 1 (SD1) or Site Design 2 (SD2). The difference between the designs is that SD1 had the same first paragraph on every page, mentioning a mission statement and a return policy, whereas SD2 was completely unique on every page.
Google Analytics showed that not only did SD2 get more site traffic overall, but SD1 actually caused users to turn away. SD1 users saw on average 1 less page and spent 30 seconds less on the site than their SD2 counterparts.
Bad User Experience:
More important to site traffic, in our opinion, is maximizing the value of every visitor. We’d rather our clients have less traffic to their website every month if it meant a higher conversion rate. Having the right kind of people come to the site is far better than having a lot of random, uninterested people come to the site. In order to increase the conversion rate, we optimize the user experience; giving the right information in an easily digestible way via SEO Copywriting.
When a user comes to a site with a high percentage of duplicate content, the immediate thought is that the brand is lazy. The last thing that you want your customers thinking about your brand is how you took a shortcut to gain their business. This bad user experience will eventually cascade over time into an erosion of your brand’s credibility. For most businesses, a bad reputation is a death sentence.
Conclusion: Duplicate Content is BAD
At RumbleLink, we like to become your Internet Marketing partner, and therefore optimize for both search engines and your business to make your consumers the happiest they can be with your website.
When we partner with you, we will use SEO Code Optimization and proven user experience best practices to not only cut down on duplicate content, but to organize your website in an intuitive manner.
The moral of today’s Crash Course Wednesday is to avoid duplicate content. If preserving brand credibility, enhancing user experience (for higher conversions), and attaining higher search engine ranking is something your company is interested in, then you should give all duplicate content the boot.
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