Google Duplicate Content

[Tina Fountain]

We have a newspaper article that we'd like to put on either our website or blog, and reference the newspaper and the writer as the source. Knowing Google can penalize a site for duplicate content, does anyone know if this is considered acceptable or should we not do it?

[John Allen]

Tina,

Duplicate content does not cause your site to be penalized by Google. The page where you post the article just probably will not rank in the search results because it is not the original source of the article.

For more information: googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2007/06/duplicate-content-summit-at-smx.html

Best practice is to reference the source and place a link back to author or newspaper

[Eric Blackwell]

Ditto to everything John said...and another tidbit.

It is always good form, if you are going to post something on a blog that comes from another source to not only link to it on their site, but ADD your take to it as well.

If you agree with the article, then maybe a little bit about why. Or maybe you are gathering information from several sources to form your own conclusion...That sort of thing.

Linking to it eliminates the need to plagiarize it since they can go to it directly IMO.

Best;

Eric

[Tina Fountain]

John and Eric,

Thank you for your help, we'll be sure to quote our source and even include a link back to it. Hope to repay the favor soon.

[Sam Chapman]

You need to also be careful about federal copyright law. Use a quote or two, give credit to the source and summarize in your own words.

[curtisreddehase]

remember cite the the publication, author and date at minimum

[RonnieG]

Giving credit to the source may not be sufficient. You need written permission of the copyright holder / author if you plan to duplicate it. "Fair Use" says you can quote or excerpt from the article, with appropriate attribution, but does not allow you to copy it in its entirety, even if you cite the source / author.

[Tina Fountain]

Sam, Curtis, and Ron - Thanks for bringing up a point that I had not considered. I was thinking that if we credited the source and writer we were OK. I think our best approach is to sum up the article in our own words while mentioning the source and writer. That should cover us for both copyright and duplicate content. Thanks, I'm glad we asked!

[John Allen]

Ronnie brings up a very good point. Many article and newspaper sites have a written policy on how their content can be used. If you are going to republish an entire article, make sure you have permission.