Google Duplicate Content Filter for SEO ? The Bad

Google is often touted as the leader in search engine technology and processes. In many cases, this is absolutely true. One fairly recent change, however, has proven to be a serious goof by the boys and girls at Google.

In an interesting move, Google has begun using a duplicate content filter to eliminate excessive listings based on the same content. In practical terms, this means Google filters out many of the pages on various sites that are reflective of a single article pulled out of an article directory. If 500 people pick up and publish this article, for instance, Google will filter out a majority of the pages on these sites that publish it. Lucky me.

Personally, I don't really have a problem with the duplicate filter as it theoretically should work. There is, however, one major problem. As any article writer knows, Google seems unable or unwilling to differentiate the original content source from those sites that pick up and publish the article. In many cases, this means your site is one that gets filtered out. This leads to the odd situation where this article on my site does not get indexed by Google, but other sites using it do! In a twist of the usual situation, Yahoo and MSN seem to be able to tell the difference.

If you are publishing articles, there is really only one way to beat this problem as far as I can tell. The articles you submit to directories should not include the keywords you are focusing on. Modified versions that focus on a particular keyword phrase then should be put on your site. Finding the dividing line between what makes these two pages duplicates is not an easy step, but it is often worth a quick re-write. Re-writing is, of course, much easier than coming up with the original content.

In truth, article writers should have been taking this approach prior to the duplication filter being instituted by Google. The reason, of course, has to do with the nature and rankings of the article directories. The big directories are valued highly by Google, so submitting any keyword intense article leads to problems with or without the filter. The primary issue is the article in the directory will outrank the similar one on your site.

At this point, the Google duplication filter is just something we have to live with. One can hope Google will make a tweak so it can recognize the original work, but this may just be wishful thinking.