With the new trend of article sharing there has been raised concerns about duplicate content penalties.  So now that everyone is in a fuss about whether or not to use widely spread articles on article submission sites fears begin to rise as to how search engines will react to this. Well, consider this, the author probably submitted the article to a 100+ article directories. Plus, we’ll assume the article was actually used by a good 10 websites a month. By end of a Google update(3 or so months) thats 130 sites that have the exact same article as you do on your website.

This is bad for several reasons.

1) Your site stands much smaller chances of ranking for small phrases and keyword that aren’t used much, but bring good traffic simply because many articles = lots of potential phrases for people to search for. No matter how small the phrase that fits your article you still have 130 sites competing for it.

2) Possible duplicate content penalties. These are a gray area. None of the research I found has been able to accurately explain if or how search engines penalize a site for having the exact same content as another site.

3) You have to link to the authors site and sometimes the article directory you received it from. Search engines then know you are not the original author and they rank the article directories high and the author’s site highest. You get lost in the middle.

Question of the day: How do we get expert content that is truly fresh and not going to be used on any other sites?

This is so stupidly obvious I can’t believe it’s not already ragingly popular. Ask an expert! Can’t find one? Try using chatrooms like IRC. It’s easy to find a chatroom on almost any subject, and chances are if there are people in it. Not only are they bored, but they truly enjoy talking about the subject at hand. Ask them a long pointed question, that will induce a rant. I’ll give an example.  What dogs are most impressive in a dog show and why? A question of this manner will induce a huge rant and probably a debate. With a little editing and cleaning up you have yourself an unique expert article on subject.

This tactic is advantageous for several reasons.

1) The content is completely unique. You will be the first to have it. Chat room content generally doesn’t get posted on websites or forums. No one will have content like this.

2) With a little fact checking it will be useful and reliable content for your visitors. This helps if you already know a little bit about your field.

3) It’s MUCH easier than writing your own articles.