Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Reposting my articles on other blogs - good or bad?
-
Hi there!
Our blog is full of really good articles on consumer finance topics. Recently we established contact with some local media and even government agencies who said they will be happy to repost our articles on their sites.
Question: is it ok to repost our articles as they are and link back to us, or shall we rewrite them to make them 100% original?
The media doesn't insist on original content, but I'd like to get SEO benefit from it (the sites are really good). If original content gives us more SEO value, we're happy to do it
Please advise.
P.S. Using rel=canonicals is not an option (it's government websites and some old school media - they are very not tech savvy).
-
Hi Tom,
I wonder if I might question you on this point you raised:
"If Google notices that you're syndicating content with dofollow links to your site within them, it will think that the only reason you're doing so is to pass more PageRank to your site."
Is content syndication therefore an absolute no-no these days? I'm aware of many of the best practices for syndicating content such as getting the content partner to specify the originator as canonical version or getting a link back to your original version in order that your article is not usurped in SERPs, but is it really the case that syndicated content with dofollow links to our own site would lead to some sort of penalty?
Our quality content is used by many sites (quite often sites with high authority) and these sites will link back to us. Are you suggesting this could lead to some sort of penalty or even a site-wide penalty?
Thanks in advance.
-
I agree with the others. 'Remarketing' is the way to go. If you have a loose idea, try and think of the multiple routes you could go down, or what different examples you could use to make a point.
I'd suggest reviewing old content. It's probably out of date anyway, so it's a perfect excuse to make it relevant oncemore and use hand it over to a another website you use.
If there is an opportunity to relate your content to what's going on in the news (i.e. up to the minute relevancy), it's good for indexing, sharing and hits.
-
Generally, I'd say as original as you can make it.
But I'd definitely take on Doug's advice as well and see if you can incorporate your content into an article that directly serves each blog. If you can accommodate it to their target audience, that would be fantastic.
Invariably, I often find it easier to write something completely new rather than rewrite something multiple times, so I think if you can take the general meat of your content and serve it specifically for each blog, I think you're going to see more than just SEO strength, but genuine, positive user engagement and probably traffic.
-
Thanks for your suggestions, Tom!
I suspected Google might not like it, but didn't think it was that serious.
To what extent do you think we should rewrite our original articles? Is tweaking couple paragraphs enough, or should it be a complete 100% rewrite?
-
I'd echo Tom's response. Allowing your content to reported does expose you to risk.
Chances are these outlets have much stronger sites. How much traffic is landing on your blog articles? Is there a likelihood that you might start competing against your own content in the SERPS?
I would look at the the publications concerned and try to understand what matters to their readership, what kind of demographic do they have and then rewrite you articles (or create new content) specifically targeted to their audience.
If you've got a nice library of old blog posts then it might be worth creating an ebook of the very best content and using that as a link building or lean-gen asset.
-
Hi there
It will take a bit more time, but rewriting the content to be unique would be so, so worth it.
If Google notices that you're syndicating content with dofollow links to your site within them, it will think that the only reason you're doing so is to pass more PageRank to your site. It won't think that you're offering as much worth to the other blog and subsequent referrals if you're regurgitating what has been said.
Now, the obvious exception to this rule are Press Releases through sites like PRWeb. This is a well-known anomaly in the industry (some say it passes juice, Matt Cutts tries to say it doesn't), but it's so far down the line now that it seems unlikely that Google is going to penalise your site for it. The worse that would happen would be not passing any SEO value.
It is not safe to assume that this would be the case for sending your articles to these other blogs - it may very well penalise you.
By rewriting the content, you negate any risk of this and also ensure that the uniqueness will most likely pass the SEO benefits from the separate blogs.
To me, it's a matter of risk management, and all signs seem to point towards rewriting the content. It's a bit of an annoyance, but a small price to pay considering the benefits. It's also a great compliment to what you've written before, which has obviously proven to be very valuable, so congratulations on that!
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Is it okay to post my blog posts to both an internal blog on our domain and an external blog?
We have a blog internally at kay-grant.com/blog and also created an external blog at ActiveRain.com Is it okay to post the same blog posts to both sites or should I have different content for each blog?
Link Building | | geoff81510 -
Reposting Blog posts on 3rd party sites
We have a few informational blog posts that are valuable to some readers. We have posted them in our blog but were contemplating posting them on 3rd party blogging websites such as Blogger, Squidoo, etc.. Ideally we would continue to maintain these accounts with multiple blog posts, but would all be reposts of the original blog. These are not half english blog posts just hoping to gain a better Google rank. They will provide value to the readers who might not be finding their way to our website directly. Is posting these blog posts on the 3rd party websites, linking back to the original article and maybe some products that are related to the specific document going to negatively affect our rankings due to the duplication of the content?
Link Building | | wishmedia0 -
Is tiered link building a good thing?
I think that I have watched all the webinairs and online courses available on the web, but I still don't seem to know how and where to get links from. I know what type of links I should be getting and what type I should be avoiding, but that little luck so far. I came across the website of Matthew Woodward about tiered link building where he explains how to do this type of link building in depth. It seems quite interesting but also a lot of work so I don't want to invest my precious time in something that will be penalised by Google in the near future. Is there anyone that can give me some reason why I should or shouldn't do this?
Link Building | | BridalHotspot0 -
Adding backlinks in old articles?
I am trying to get a few more links to get a few of my pages to rank and I am thinking about adding some more backlinks on my own site on some of the old blog articles as well as some of my other related blogs. My question is - is it still beneficial to link from these articles that are say 1 year old or more, or would it be far more valuable to write new articles on the blog containing those same links?
Link Building | | bloggingyourpassion0 -
Any good site for Blog Submission (without any waiting/approval) ??
Is there any good blog submission site which does not have long waiting period before article is published and which allows followed link from blog? I have a list of such blog submission sites but they all either need weeks delay till it gets approved or never gets approved. So I would really appreciate If you can tell me some of such sites that you are aware of..
Link Building | | Personnel_Concept0 -
How do I remove bad web directory listings?
I am starting SEO for an E commerce website. I guess like 1 year or two ago they had another SEO company working for them. After looking in Site explorer I realized that they have like 2000 links (almost all from website directories) that have the correct anchor text but are all in the wrong categories, and most from countries like china and india. Many of the Titles are even in Chinese. This company sells packaging supplies and they are in categories like real estate, animals, and so on. I am changing the domain name, so I guess any links to internal pages will be lost, however I have to forward the main domain to my new domain, so any links to the home page will still be there. Does anyone know how I can remove these links??
Link Building | | DTOSI0 -
What after I place a blog comment
I have started commenting on high PR DoFollow blogs more strongly off late. I don't do it just for the heck of it. I comment on relevant posts, go through them nicely and make sensible comments. This way I make sure my comments are not removed by the admin, What I want to know is... What after I make the comment and put my website's URL there? Does that mean I have got a backlink already? Or do I need to do something else too to make sure Google recognizes that as a backlink? I have the same question regarding forum postings too.
Link Building | | KS__1 -
Blog commenting
I have been doing a little bit of testing in regards to blog commenting on high authority blogs that no follow comments. The comments have all been manual and added value to the blog. I have noticed quite a big jump in rankings for some keywords. I was wondering if anyone else has a view on the effectiveness of these links when combined with other link building methods?
Link Building | | PeterM222