If you don’t know what duplicate content is, then you are in the right place. In this article, we will tell you all about content duplication, its major causes, and how you can avoid it like a pro. Content duplication is a common error which you would face in modern-day search engine optimization. If you want to find duplicate content, then we would suggest you read this post.
What is duplicate content? Understand what it is!
Duplicate content, as the name tells us, is the content that has similarities in it. The term duplicate content defines the text that has similarities with the text already published on other web pages. Duplication can be within the same domain, or it can also be across different domains.
Now, when duplicate content is found on a website, the search engine simply gets confused and demotes both sources in the SERPs’ lower ranks. This is major because the search engine cannot determine which content it should rank higher. Both of them provide the same information and in the same preference.
Now you must know that there are dozens of reasons behind content duplication. Not all of them are intentional; rather, some of them are based on technicalities. Let us go through some of the reasons why you might face duplicate content issues.
- Someone might be stealing information from your site
One of the common reasons behind content duplication is that a webmaster is stealing from your site to create content capital on their pages. Newbie web admins who don’t know about the consequences of duplicate content often make this mistake and lose their authority.
- Your site’s content is getting syndicated
Scrapping and syndication are getting very common these days. When your site wins higher ranking positions in the search results, it would simply attract more people and visitors. Now people tend to steal information from high authority websites. If the content they use on a public source is not used with proper credits and backlinks, then it will piss off the search engine and end up in penalties.
- Misunderstanding the URL concept
Many web developers use content management systems today for retrieving specific posts via their article ID. Well, you must know that the search engine doesn’t consider the article’s id; rather, it considers its URL. Many web admins make the same mistake of adding the articles under the same URL address, which brings up the problem of duplication.
How to fight duplicate content? The best way to avoid duplication
If you want to avoid the penalties and consequences of duplicate content, you should go for these ways.
Always use an online plagiarism checker
Using an online plagiarism checker can help you authenticate the originality of your work. Plagiarism checker are web-based programs capable of scanning text and comparing it with the text already published on different web pages. You can easily find dozens of free plagiarism detector that can help you check whether your content has similarities or not. Modern-day plagiarism checker are also capable of scanning complete websites using their URL. By scanning websites, you can easily determine if someone is stealing from your site without proper attributions.
Adding canonical tags
The most important and professional element in fighting duplicate content is canonical tags. These tags are the snippets of HTML code that can guide Google about the original publisher of the content. Even if the content is duplicated and used on another source, the canonical tag would inform the search engine about the main version of the article. This helps the search engine understand which version is the duplicate one and which is the original one. You can save your original content from being penalized because of these tags.
Use online paraphrasing tools
Sometimes you are bound to use the content that you have already published online. Well, in cases like these, you can use an online paraphrasing tool instead of duplicating content. A Paraphrase tool can help you to rewrite sentences into multiple unique versions, which you can use on your site. Rephrasing content is very helpful in avoiding plagiarism issues. If you find plagiarism in the content you have created with an online plagiarism checker, you can easily use an online paraphrasing tool to spin the duplicate sentences into unique content.
End words
In this article, we have discussed duplicate content and some of its major causes in detail. Face duplicate content issues and suffer consequences because of content duplication. You can easily use the different ways that we have explained above. As a webmaster, it has become very important for you to have a plagiarism checker and paraphrasing tool with you at all times. This is because the amount of content on the search engine is increasing every day. There is always a chance that two writers working on the same topics would face duplication issues.
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