Q: I heard that duplicate content can get you banned from Google. Does this mean that I shouldn’t use reprint articles or private label articles?

A: I’ve been seeing a lot of discussion going on about this on many different forums and I think the answer is quite clear nobody outside of those organizations knows exactly how Google or any search engines treat duplicate content across the board. Many people will shout from the rooftops that you must significantly alter the content before you publish it (which you can’t do with reprint articles) and that you are asking for trouble if you reprint an article.

This is what Google says: “Don’t create multiple pages, subdomains, or domains with substantially duplicate content.” Reference: Google Webmaster Guidelines

Now that certainly isn’t particularly clear, but to me, it doesn’t sound like you’re going to get in trouble if you take reprint articles from here and there and publish them on your site. But I certainly won’t claim that I know the truth, unlike those people who are spreading fear about using other people’s articles. What I can tell you is that I use reprint and private label articles all the time as do many other well-known websites like MSN and Yahoo that syndicate the content of other websites. It’s nothing new and with the growing popularity of RSS, it’s certainly going to continue to be a viable content delivery strategy. For me, if I add an article that I didn’t write, I usually add my own introduction to the article and optimize it for my own chosen keyword phrase but outside of that, I rarely make any changes (and never make any on reprint articles that MUST stay intact). And you know what? I get plenty of traffic straight from the search engines.

One Example: Article -> How to Write Sales & Marketing Letters Online is a reprint article. I added my own introduction to the article and this article receives in excess of 500 search engine visitors every month. It ranks well for a few different phrases (which I’d prefer to keep under wraps, as much as possible…even though I’ve opened myself up by publishing this article!). Not bad for a few minutes of putting a reprint article on my website, hey? So, no I’m not ranking for ultra-competitive phrases like “Viagra”, “online casino” or “weight loss” by using reprint articles. I’m using a strategy of using numerous articles to rank for low competition phrases that have highly targeted traffic. It only takes a few moments to add reprint articles and, in return, you can get long term search engine traffic. But overall, let’s remember, content is not only for search engines. If you see an article you like and you want to share it with your website visitors, don’t let a big bad search engine keep you from doing so.

Resources:

- All Mom Content

- All Health Content

- All Private Label Content

- 25 free private label articles

- Ezine Articles – for reprint articles

- Lady Pens – for articles written by women

- Get Your Articles – new reprint article database.