by Martin Lukac

Most of us been there when it comes to duplicate pages. You may have news, or articles from news companies that provide you with the news feed. Or you might have your Website designed by a third party that uses the same tools on all of their clients' Websites.

But, did you know that this duplicate content can LOWER your search engine rankings? In today's SEO (Search Engine Optimization)-driven Website world, it is important to avoid duplicate content as much as possible.

What are duplicate pages for search engines?

It is obvious that duplicate means the same as something else. For search engines, this means the same exact page, the same exact title, the same keywords etc. Search Engines send spiders -- for example Google's spider is called "googlebot," Yahoo has "yahoo slurp" -- to crawl your Website looking for and gathering content or information.

These spiders look for certain information: What is this page about? Is it relevant to your Website? etc.

If any of these search engines find the same content on a different Website, they start to compare the content. First they look when this content was indexed and from which Website it was submitted first to the search engines.

Then they start to look for links.

Are there any links on these pages that point to the same source? This way, search engine can determine who is the priority Website and they assign a higher rank to that site.

But -- what about rest of the Web-sites? What will happen to them?

If you have articles or news that are duplicate content, you Website will go lower in search engines. It may take some time until the search engines actually visit your Website and assign a duplicate content filter. But, eventually, the search engines will simply filter your Website out of their search.

What if you pay a licensing fee for these articles?

The only way for search engines such as Google to understand this, is when you E-mail them and explain your content. To do this, you will need to do a re-inclusion request.

What if you like free articles published on different article sites?

No matter what you do, the search engines will hit you with duplicate content, however, you can teach search engines about your content.

First, reduce the number of articles that you have copied. Get some new fresh well-written articles. Make sure that the majority of your content is your own and the rest is articles from other sources.

Second, articles must be related to your field. If you write about real estate, make sure you stick with real estate and finance articles only. Show search engines that you have categories and your readers benefit from these articles.

Third, do a re-inclusion request and wait.

In few weeks, you should see some movement in your site rankings. If it is not improving, reduce the number of articles again.

With free articles, it's a cat-and-mouse game all over. It's hard to figure out as how the algorithms are set in Google, for example, for duplicate content, in addition to the way Google deals with re-produced articles that you can freely post anywhere.

What if you have a Website that was designed by third party company?

Most Website companies use the same templates or similar templates. That's what they give you and rest of their clients -- the same and exact FAQ pages, About Us pages, etc.

You want to avoid this as much as possible. Always re-write these text blocks by yourself. This way, you will create unique pages for your Website.

Duplicating content is one of the biggest mistakes many Webmasters make when it comes to creating their Websites. Always try to create your own posts and, if you really want to expand your article base, make sure you provide valuable content to your users, not just another article Website.

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