15 thoughts on “Should Guest Bloggers Be Able To Republish The Same Post To Multiple Blogs?”
What about article directory submission? Many people submit one article to 100’s of direcotires. Is this not copied content?
I can quote duplicate content leads to penalty. Google takes this situation very serious.SO we should not have to copy content from other sites.
I will stick to my point that we should not. And share similar view as Shirley. But also it lot depends on the situation, the question is why and where we need duplicate content.
Definitely not! A link is plenty form a blog with a decent readership. Prehaps if you had a small blog, you could allow guest posters to publish the article in multiple places, but that’s about it.
My first comment is that Tom is correct about the “duplicate content penalty” being frequently misunderstood. Google Webmaster Central featured several articles about their perspective on duplicate content recently. No blog is going to be “penalized” because they have a reposted article. The article may not bring the same ranking as it would have were it original – but that is not the same as a penalty. Therefore, in my opinion, this argument is not relevant to the topic at hand.
My second comment is that the answer to the question depends on the circumstances. This is a hypothetical question that could have several correct answers. A blog owner/editor that is paying a guest contributor for an article has a right to require original content. However, this needs to be specified in the agreement and the compensation should be appropriate for this situation. There are many cases where a guest blogger is not being compensated for the article (or is receiving the equivalent of “coffee money”) and, in this case, the blog owner/editor does not have much basis to complain if the content they receive for free is redistributed.
The answer to the question depends on whether there is a contract/agreement in place that requires exclusive content. If the agreement requires exclusive content then the writer would be wrong (and in violation of copyright laws) to republish the article without consent from the editor/content purchaser. As has also been noted in these comments, most magazines choose to purchase only first publication rights. So, again, whether it is appropriate depends completely on the agreement between the writer and editor/publisher.
At most, bloggers should only post a brief abstract and then link to the full article. This way, there is no duplicate content issue. And if a guest blogger is paid, then the site owner won’t feel duped.
Here is what Google’s Matt Cutts has to say about duplicate content:
“My advice would be 1) to avoid over-syndicating the articles that you write, and 2) if you do syndicate content, make sure that you include a link to the original content. That will help ensure that the original content has more PageRank, which will aid in picking the best documents in our index…”
His point is that Google is more concerned about who originally created the text, not how many copies there are out on the net. You can read the entire post and comments at http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/duplicate-content-question
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Tom Bonner is the author of the Sony Alpha DSLR-A300/A350 Digital Field Guide from Wiley press. He blogs regularly at http://alphatracks.com.
“Forget the duplicate data penalty from google (which is a real concern)… when you do a guest post and write for someone else that are expecting original content, aren’t they? It would be like writing an article for Newsweek and then publishing it yourself somewhere else, that wouldn’t fly at all.”
I don’t know about Newsweek, but in the magazine industry it’s fairly common for an article to be published in another magazine at a later date. Generally only First Serial rights are sold to a magazine, allowing for Second Serial (and on to infinity, as long as someone will buy) to be sold by the author to another magazine. Some publications buy full rights though, or are done on a write-for-hire basis. I don’t know what Newsweek does.
But if someone writes a post for my blog, I expect it to be unique, for SEO reasons and because I don’t want some other blog to have the same content as mine. And if I’m paying for said post, it had better be unique. I’m not going to hand over money for someone to give me the same post they published on some other blog a month ago.
I would equate blogs more to the book publishing industry than serial publications, seeing as the content is up for virtually forever, rather than magazines where few read archives with any regularity.
ummm, like Hell no! That would absolutely piss me off. I would tear that person down. It makes me so angry when people actually do this.
There is still the issue with duplicate content.Re-writing the content slightly before submitting it to another site should be no problem.
I think the guest post issue should be between the blog owner and the poster — it should be settled up front, so each knows the other’s stance on the matter. If both agree at the outset, then the copy can be reposted at will. If the blog owner insists on exclusive content, then the guest poster needs to know that up front so he or she can decide if they want to submit a post under that condition.
I’m more concerned with The Fan’s raising of the “duplicate content” issue. Duplicate content worries are largely based on myth; Google has even said that publicly. As every article marketer knows, posting the same article to hundreds of directories does not trip any duplicate content filter. Google and the other search engines may elect to discount the “link juice” from articles that receive wide distribution, but they do not penalize sites from reusing content published elsewhere.
The search engine’s dislike of duplicate content stemmed from the practice of creating numerous doorway pages that clogged the search results with dozens of identical landing pages. Google and the others engines will not penalize a site for posting content that was published elsewhere.
–Tom
========================================================
Tom Bonner is the author of the Sony Alpha DSLR-A300/A350 Digital Field Guide from Wiley press. He blogs regularly at http://alphatracks.com.
I’ve been writing paid posts for another blog and its no problem to post a short excerpt on my own blog to let my readers know to click over to the other blog and have a read. Since they are closely related blogs its no different to linking out to a different author’s blog somewhere.
Republishing the full article would be a no-no though.
Isn’t the republication of the same articles on two different blogs considered duplicate content by Google?
Forget the duplicate data penalty from google (which is a real concern)… when you do a guest post and write for someone else that are expecting original content, aren’t they? It would be like writing an article for Newsweek and then publishing it yourself somewhere else, that wouldn’t fly at all. I guess if the buyer of the material has absolutely no problem with it (although how, I don’t know) and you don’t care about duplicate content, then sure, go ahead.
In fact when I accept a guest post I make sure the author knows that I don’t allow this, and a I will be checking via Google for duplicate instances.
I don’t want my blogs to be penalized by Google for duplicate content. . .especially when it’s a guest post and I didn’t even write it! lol
15 thoughts on “Should Guest Bloggers Be Able To Republish The Same Post To Multiple Blogs?”
What about article directory submission? Many people submit one article to 100’s of direcotires. Is this not copied content?
I can quote duplicate content leads to penalty. Google takes this situation very serious.SO we should not have to copy content from other sites.
I will stick to my point that we should not. And share similar view as Shirley. But also it lot depends on the situation, the question is why and where we need duplicate content.
Definitely not! A link is plenty form a blog with a decent readership. Prehaps if you had a small blog, you could allow guest posters to publish the article in multiple places, but that’s about it.
My first comment is that Tom is correct about the “duplicate content penalty” being frequently misunderstood. Google Webmaster Central featured several articles about their perspective on duplicate content recently. No blog is going to be “penalized” because they have a reposted article. The article may not bring the same ranking as it would have were it original – but that is not the same as a penalty. Therefore, in my opinion, this argument is not relevant to the topic at hand.
My second comment is that the answer to the question depends on the circumstances. This is a hypothetical question that could have several correct answers. A blog owner/editor that is paying a guest contributor for an article has a right to require original content. However, this needs to be specified in the agreement and the compensation should be appropriate for this situation. There are many cases where a guest blogger is not being compensated for the article (or is receiving the equivalent of “coffee money”) and, in this case, the blog owner/editor does not have much basis to complain if the content they receive for free is redistributed.
The answer to the question depends on whether there is a contract/agreement in place that requires exclusive content. If the agreement requires exclusive content then the writer would be wrong (and in violation of copyright laws) to republish the article without consent from the editor/content purchaser. As has also been noted in these comments, most magazines choose to purchase only first publication rights. So, again, whether it is appropriate depends completely on the agreement between the writer and editor/publisher.
At most, bloggers should only post a brief abstract and then link to the full article. This way, there is no duplicate content issue. And if a guest blogger is paid, then the site owner won’t feel duped.
Here is what Google’s Matt Cutts has to say about duplicate content:
“My advice would be 1) to avoid over-syndicating the articles that you write, and 2) if you do syndicate content, make sure that you include a link to the original content. That will help ensure that the original content has more PageRank, which will aid in picking the best documents in our index…”
His point is that Google is more concerned about who originally created the text, not how many copies there are out on the net. You can read the entire post and comments at http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/duplicate-content-question
================================================
Tom Bonner is the author of the Sony Alpha DSLR-A300/A350 Digital Field Guide from Wiley press. He blogs regularly at http://alphatracks.com.
“Forget the duplicate data penalty from google (which is a real concern)… when you do a guest post and write for someone else that are expecting original content, aren’t they? It would be like writing an article for Newsweek and then publishing it yourself somewhere else, that wouldn’t fly at all.”
I don’t know about Newsweek, but in the magazine industry it’s fairly common for an article to be published in another magazine at a later date. Generally only First Serial rights are sold to a magazine, allowing for Second Serial (and on to infinity, as long as someone will buy) to be sold by the author to another magazine. Some publications buy full rights though, or are done on a write-for-hire basis. I don’t know what Newsweek does.
But if someone writes a post for my blog, I expect it to be unique, for SEO reasons and because I don’t want some other blog to have the same content as mine. And if I’m paying for said post, it had better be unique. I’m not going to hand over money for someone to give me the same post they published on some other blog a month ago.
I would equate blogs more to the book publishing industry than serial publications, seeing as the content is up for virtually forever, rather than magazines where few read archives with any regularity.
ummm, like Hell no! That would absolutely piss me off. I would tear that person down. It makes me so angry when people actually do this.
There is still the issue with duplicate content.Re-writing the content slightly before submitting it to another site should be no problem.
I think the guest post issue should be between the blog owner and the poster — it should be settled up front, so each knows the other’s stance on the matter. If both agree at the outset, then the copy can be reposted at will. If the blog owner insists on exclusive content, then the guest poster needs to know that up front so he or she can decide if they want to submit a post under that condition.
I’m more concerned with The Fan’s raising of the “duplicate content” issue. Duplicate content worries are largely based on myth; Google has even said that publicly. As every article marketer knows, posting the same article to hundreds of directories does not trip any duplicate content filter. Google and the other search engines may elect to discount the “link juice” from articles that receive wide distribution, but they do not penalize sites from reusing content published elsewhere.
The search engine’s dislike of duplicate content stemmed from the practice of creating numerous doorway pages that clogged the search results with dozens of identical landing pages. Google and the others engines will not penalize a site for posting content that was published elsewhere.
–Tom
========================================================
Tom Bonner is the author of the Sony Alpha DSLR-A300/A350 Digital Field Guide from Wiley press. He blogs regularly at http://alphatracks.com.
I’ve been writing paid posts for another blog and its no problem to post a short excerpt on my own blog to let my readers know to click over to the other blog and have a read. Since they are closely related blogs its no different to linking out to a different author’s blog somewhere.
Republishing the full article would be a no-no though.
Isn’t the republication of the same articles on two different blogs considered duplicate content by Google?
Forget the duplicate data penalty from google (which is a real concern)… when you do a guest post and write for someone else that are expecting original content, aren’t they? It would be like writing an article for Newsweek and then publishing it yourself somewhere else, that wouldn’t fly at all. I guess if the buyer of the material has absolutely no problem with it (although how, I don’t know) and you don’t care about duplicate content, then sure, go ahead.
In fact when I accept a guest post I make sure the author knows that I don’t allow this, and a I will be checking via Google for duplicate instances.
I don’t want my blogs to be penalized by Google for duplicate content. . .especially when it’s a guest post and I didn’t even write it! lol
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