Recycling may be the watchword in the modern world, but there are certain instances when it’s a flat out bad idea. Certain unsavoury things come to mind, but let’s add to them the concept of recycling online content for your website.
It’s possible that site owners who recycle content have the health of the environment in mind. Possible, but not probable. What they’re more likely to have in mind is the cost of acquiring original content, and their need for a steady stream of content to update their pages. When you add these two things together, it makes sense to get content that has already been used. When you think in terms of search engine optimisation though, it makes far less sense.
Google announced its intention to crack down on low-quality content at the start of this year, and the search engine has already made definite moves toward that end. In late January, the search engine updated its algorithm to cut out sites that scrape content from across the web. Now, Google has implemented another change in its US search engine, targeting ‘content farms,’ or sites that habitually publish low-quality content to get attention.
The re-use of content has never been the recommended path for search engine optimisation, but someone in a small firm from Ellesmere Port for instance, may give into temptation out of desperation for quick and easy content. Google is now effectively blocking this path now though, so site owners have no choice if they want to rank.
I am usually all for recycling, but this is one instance in which re-use is a bad idea. SEO recycling: just say no.
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When you use the term recycle I assume you mean more or less copy content onto your page. How would google otherwise notice if it is original or not? I doubt they will have employees check each page if the webmaster just re-phrased the content.
Michael
The article refers to copying content from one website onto your own, which is something Google can pick out very easily – if it couldn’t, its search results would be filled with duplicate results (like some other search engines we won’t mention).
There’s nothing wrong with rewriting content for your own website, so long as it is sufficiently rewritten. If you don’t rewrite the content effectively, leaving too much of it unchanged, you’ll run the risk of it being picked up as duplicate. Even a small percentage of the content unchanged can be enough to trip the all-powerful Google’s sensors (it doesn’t need employees for this part, although it does use them for manual reviews).