Matt Cutts said it right, duplicate content is alright… sort of
Chris Mulvaney is the CEO of CMDS. I make things... I’m the creative entrepreneur with passion for (re)making brands and inventing solutions to problems no one knows exist.
Whenever I think of Matt Cutts, I think of the old E.F. Hutton television commercials (during the 1970’s and 1980’s)… “When E.F. Hutton Speaks, People Listen.”
A young professional would be sitting in a crowded room, and he would say something to the effect of, “My broker is E.F. Hutton, and he said…” The chatter is the room would drop into silence, and everyone in the room would listen intently for the words that E.F. Hutton had said. It was a very effective commercial letting the public know that E.F. Hutton was a brokerage firm that offered excellent financial advice.
Founded in 1904, by Edward Francis Hutton, E.F. Hutton grew to be the second largest brokerage house in the United States, (hold your breath…) until it was bought out for $1 Billion in 1988… by Lehman Brothers.
The only remaining element of the original E.F. Hutton still in existence today is one of its sub-companies that is now owned by Citigroup.
So back to our original story. When Matt Cutts speaks, people really do listen… They listen for what is said, and they try to read between the lines as to what was not said…
If you do not know who Matt Cutts is, then you have not been playing the “how to get ranked in Google game” for very long. He is the head of the Google spam department, and it is his job to search the Google results looking for spam, and then to devise ways in which to improve Google’s algorithms to filter that spam from its search results.
I hate to admit it, but some of us get a little bit obsessed with what Matt Cutts says and doesn’t say.
In March of 2007, Matt Cutts said that Google was going to aggressively target paid links that are designed to manipulate Google’s search results. From the response that engendered, you would have thought that Cutts set off a nuke in the middle of Times’ Square at rush hour. Oh my… You could sense the aneurysms ready to explode!
One of the most aggressively argued Matt Cutts quotes is the one about Duplicate Content. Some have interpreted Cutts’ words to mean that Google will penalize websites that host “duplicate content”. Others say that a Duplicate Content Penalty is just pure bunk.
Some knowledgeable SEO companies have lined up to say that any “Duplicate Content Penalty” is pure myth, including Jill Whalen of High Rankings and Aaron Wall of SEO Book.
In a recent interview with Web Pro News in June of 2009, Cutts was quoted saying, “Within one site, I wouldn’t worry as much about a duplicate content penalty. We’ll just try to pick the best page.”
He went on to say, “If you have the same content on 200 different sites… is it typical that we give a duplicate content penalty for that? No. Definitely not.”
You would think with those words, that the Duplicate Content Penalty would be put to rest… You would think… But people want to believe that they should only use original content for their websites.
Well, there is an advantage in original content. When there is only one place to go to get specific information, then there is only one place to go to get that information. When you are the host of information that is unique, and that content is good enough that others wish to share it with the world, then people have to link to your page to show their readers the information.
The advantage in original content is the fact that your site has the potential of becoming an authority website with more links pointing to it – when the unique information is also good information that people will be inclined to share with others.
Duplicate content can deliver value to your website, but original content can deliver more value to your website in the form of more link popularity.
I would suggest that to you that web sites that are comprised of only duplicated content rank lower in Google than sites that have original content… I would tell that… If it were true. But it is not. Some of the most linked websites in the world are sites that only produce reprint content. Therefore, in many cases, those sites have absolutely no original content on them, yet those sites can rank ahead of the sites with unique content on them.
Why? You may wonder…
It is simple really… If lots of people are linking to a website, then that website has lots of link popularity, and despite the absence of original content, that site will rank well in Google.
The reason you would want to create original content of good quality is so that you can attract links directly to your site, and perhaps so that your site could eventually become an authority website that the search engines trust better than the other sites in its listings.