Duplicating Your Own Content Will Hurt You
67Another Hubber asked if she would be penalized with her Hubs on Hubpages if she also publishes her original content on other sites. That's a very good question that we all need to be careful with.
We all write original content and we want to promote it as best we can. We may be tempted to publish it in more than one place. But we need to understand the negative consequences.
There are two aspects to this issue. How HubPages may penalize you and how Google will treat you. Let me elaborate on each of these.
How Google Treats Duplicate Content
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Google can immediately find duplications on the Web. But will they know that both belong to you? Or will they assume one is a copy of another person's work?
If you use the new Authorship Markup that Google introduced in 2011 they will know if two similar articles belong to you. But it doesn't really matter.
The fact of the matter is that duplication by the same person is a form of spamming.
Google doesn't respond to spamming of any kind very well and both your articles will be lowered in ranking.
Even if it is a well-written high quality article that otherwise might have ranked high, it no longer is considered original content when there is more than one version out there.
Google is working very hard at trying to deliver original high quality responses to people's searches.
For this reason Google ranks based on originality. You want to do everything you can to increase your ranking.
How HubPages Treats Duplicate Content
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I know for a fact that HP monitors for content duplication on the web for each and every hub, and I know how they do it.
I once read a Hub from someone that looked very fishy to me. The entire Hub gave me Déjà vu. So I did my own search to see if it was a duplicate of something I may have read elsewhere.
I use Copyscape for that. I use it mainly with my own business website. Every once in a while someone steals text or images from me to use on their site. So I need to keep a close eye out for that and get it removed from their site.
I use a free version of Copyscape which allows a limited usage. It’s enough for me. But when I checked that Hub with Copyscape, an error message popped up stating that HubPages had already used the maximum search for a free account.
That error message showed me that HP is using Copyscape to monitor for content duplication. That's how I know for sure how they do it.
Now of course I'm sure that HP pays Copyscape for unlimited usage. But I got that error because I have the limited account and I was trying to do a search for something on HP’s website. So I guess that I got the error because Copyscape already searched that Hub for HP beyond the number of times allowed for my limited usage.
I love that HP is so diligent about this because the biggest worry I have as an author is that someone will steal my work. Publishing on HP is safe because HP will let you know when they find a duplicate of your content on the Web.
If a copy of your Hub appears elsewhere at a later date, HP will not unpublish your Hub, but they will flag it with a warning so you can take action and report it to the webmaster of the other site.
However, if you publish a new Hub that is found elsewhere, then it will be unpublished and you will need to change it to be original before you can republish it or request reconsideration.
HP explains all this very clearly in their “Getting Started” section.
Conclusion
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You don't need to force your content on the public. If your information is useful and well-presented, people will link to it after a while and you'll start getting traffic from original backlinks. There's no need to try to put your work in front of more eyes by putting it in more than one place.
It’s best to avoid duplicating your own content on the Internet. It makes them both appear as non-original and that hurts your HP Score and your Google ranking. Having only one occurrence of your work on the Internet helps it's originality stand out.
My HubPages Support Topics Table Of Contents
Table of Contents listing of all Tutorial Hubs by Glenn Stok
What have you experienced? Please comment...Loading...
I was curious about this. Thanks for the info.
Thank you everyone for your comments. I didn't expect 5 responses overnight. Glad to have you all here.
OpinionDuck, per your comment, anything (pictures or text) on government web sites is in the public domain as free for us to use because we all paid for it in our taxes. But the bots that check for duplication such as Copyscape don't care about that. They still see it as duplication. If you change the text as you did, it still matches it because it uses a weighted algorithm. Meaning too much is still similar.
Very informative and good to know. I am still relatively new here and have had questions of my own regarding this topic. I believe that you summed it up very nicely. Thank you.
Chaotic Chica, Welcome to HP. Thanks for visiting and thanks for recommending me in the forum. I'm going to go and checkout your hubs.
I always paste and copy an excerpt from my Hubs on backlinking sites, and it doesn't seem to have hurt.
Enjoyed the read!
Good info. I've been concerned about this because I am really starting to heavily post to various blogs (that are mine) as well as sites such as SheToldMe.com, BlogEvolve, StumbleUpon, etc. and I didn't want to get penalized. If I feel the content is not good enough for a HubPage, I will start keeping it restricted to other sites. Thanks for helping me understand the process of how Google (and HP) finds duplication.
Susan, Thanks for your comments and thanks for following me. As long as you avoid posting the same content on two sites you'll be okay.
Great information. I too have puzzled over this and will head the advice herein.
Thanks
Great article, Glenn. A few weeks ago I started to place my articles with only fairly decent content to other web sites and my blog. What quickly began to happen was my thought as to why they weren't "good enough" for HubPages, yet "good enough" for other web sites.
I changed how I look at income generating sites. I now separate my articles by niches. Each income site has their own personality. Some articles I write would be better served in a specific, non-HubPages web site. At the same time, I find myself writing more for HubPages recently. I enjoy having a competitive spirit with the writers here. I believe HubPages authors make me rise to a high writing level that I want to achieve.
Whatever works for an individual should be pursued as long as the rules for each web site are respected.
Carolyn, What you just said in your comment was very meaningful. I agree that it is possible that one site might be netter aligned to one area of writing and another site can be more related to a totally different theme.
This is indeed a very important part to the puzzle of success and you may have discovered a pattern that, when followed, can make writing on line much more worthwhile.
Thanks for that vision.
Wonderful information. Not just on hubpages but on how I can check to see if I am being copied. Thanks!
ibbarkingmad, You're welcome. Glad it helped.
Thanks again Glenn for the information. I have voted this hub useful.
jean2011 - You're welcome. Thanks for the vote up and reading so many of my Hubs.
This is very helpful for someone starting out like me. Thank you very much for sharing! :)
thesingernurse, You're very welcome. There are many Hubbers here who love to help others who are just starting out. I am sure you will find this a very welcome place to write. Thanks for commenting and welcome to HubPages.
My timing is uncanny. I have just recently started to utilize the internet for my writing. It has always been print for me. I have some folks who want me to write on another site, and I figured, I could put my hub content in the blog.
Thanks, I will be back for more good stuff!
WD Curry, I'm glad I was able to help you before you made that mistake. Thanks for stopping by.
I am remedial. I am an artist. I can kick some graphics programs around pretty good, but this is new for me. Thanks.
janiek13 Level 2 Commenter 2 years ago
good things to consider.