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As long as the internet thrives globally, so will the evolution of SEO and its perpetual thirst for high-quality content. 

Google’s methods and algorithms may stay secretive with their constant updates. Still, one thing that has remained constant throughout the evolution of updates is that you ‘absolutely’ need to stay updated with the latest trends to stay ahead of the curve. 

That being said – search engine optimization (or SEO) remains at the top of the game, and high-quality content remains a rather crucial strategy to get the best of SEO in terms of organic search and link building.

You are aware that content is the kingpin in any SEO strategy, but what about duplicated content, AI-based, or plagiarized content? Do these harm your SEO game? 

What is duplicate content? 

The content that appears on the Internet in more than one place is considered duplicate.

 That ‘one place’ can mean a range of locations with unique website addresses or URLs, so if the same content appears in more than one web address, chances are – your content is duplicated.  

Think of such content as exact copies or ‘word-for-word’ on another website or other pages on the same website. It comes as a no-brainer that having large bouts of duplicate content on any website can adversely impact Google’s rankings.

However, it is quite important to note that 25 to 35% of the Internet itself consists of duplicate content!

Is Duplicate Content an SEO issue? 

Major search engines like Google tend to favor original and high-quality content – especially if it’s not duplicated. On the other hand, although Google doesn’t directly issue a duplicate content penalty it does certainly affect the general SEO ranking factor. 

However, Google certainly treats it as a red flag and this is why, such type of content inevitably affects SEO rankings and harms your business in the long run.  

You see, duplicate content causes some major issues such as creating confusion for search engines regarding which version of the content to consider (the original one vs the copied one) and ranking for search queries across the Internet. 

What happens if you have duplicate content? 

Since it is a known fact that over 25% of the content posted on the Internet is ‘actually’ duplicated, Google doesn’t quite penalize heavily or directly, but if you have A LOT of content that is ‘word-for-word’ copied and pasted from a different website then you are certainly in the red. 

Here is how duplication of content affects your business: 

• There is a loss of high rankings in search engine result pages (SERPs) 
• Users who come looking for new products or services are left dissatisfied because “everything is the same, everywhere” 
• There is an ultimate loss of website traffic, lack of leads, and overall loss of sales 

A lot of the content found online is indeed duplicated, but as an entrepreneur or a professional, you would want to avoid such a scenario which is why it is essential to to take a proactive approach. 

How can you fix duplicate content on your website? 

Fixing duplicate content issues may seem like a cakewalk – by seemingly just removing the content, but it boils down to the central idea of figuring out which of the ‘duplicates’ are the ‘correct’ ones. 

For instance, whenever content on a site can be found at multiple locations the best practice is to canonicalize it for search engines to understand. 

Here are a few pointers on how to fix duplicate content: 

Set up a 301 redirect signal 

More often than not, the best way to mitigate the issue of duplicated content is to set up a 301 redirect from the ‘duplicated’ page to the original one. 

The 301 redirect is a signal that you could send to Google and its bots to effectively ‘crawl’ to your page rather than stay on the page with plagiarized content. 

Use rel=’canonical’ for a quick fix 

The rel=canonical attribute is a part of the HTML of a webpage and is another great option for dealing with duplicate content as it ‘tells’ Google and other major search engines like Bing!, Yahoo! Etc.  about the authenticity of your page. 

Apply the ‘noindex’ tag on your page 

Another HTML tag, the ‘Noindex’ tag allows Google and its web crawlers to crawl the duplicated content. You could do so by instructing it not to crawl the duplicated content – meaning it will not appear on search results on Google. Only your content will appear on SERPs. 

Ensure that your content is fresh with a unique perspective

It is quite difficult to copy content that has a fresh perspective with an interesting take – because as you might have noticed it is quite the norm to copy and paste generic content on ‘what’,’ how’, and ‘why’.  With absolutely fresh, raw, and new content onboard, your SEO rankings will increase dramatically. 

Invest in Content Checkers online 

Plagiarism can be intentional – but not always. A lot of the time, it is unintentional thanks to the high volume of content on the Internet. This is why investing in a duplicate/plagiarism content checker tool is a great idea to ensure that your content isn’t duplicated. Some top-rated tools include 

• Copyscape
• Copyleaks 
• Duplichecker 
• Siteliner 
• ZeroGPT 

Conclusion 

Duplicate content is all across the web and you should keep an eye on your website to avoid issues on such duplicate content. 

Once you fix the issues, you will undoubtedly notice a huge difference in your website ranking as there will be a higher ROI for the efforts put in. 

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