11 June 2009
SEO Tip #2: Create Unique Content
Today's SEO Tips entry was via Colin Richardson at Datadrum.
"Create unique content! Beware the copypaste my son, the jaws that bite, the claws that catch!"
A rather colourful submission on the benefits (or rather dangers of not having) unique content. Duplicate content is something that gets discussed a lot within the SEO community, commonly it's incorrectly referred to as a "duplicate content penalty", more accurately it would be described as a filter, rather than a penalty. This means rather than a page or site being actively penalised in the SERPs, it is just filtered out for a specific request.
The logical reason for duplicate content filters is tied to Google's goal of returning the most relevant results as quickly as possible for the searcher; meaning there is no point in showing two identical (or near enough) pages for the same search term, if the first one wasn't helpful, it's highly likely the duplicate won't be either.
Creating unique content will provide you, at the very worst, more possible long-tail terms to have your site ranking for. So, as Colin suggests, resist the temptation of copying and pasting (or scraping for that matter), as you won't be doing yourself any favours for search engines, or adding value for users (another discussion in itself).
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Previous SEO Tips:
SEO Tip #1: Stop! Keyword Research