Digest...

Reposting can hurt your SEO if done wrong

What I learned is that reposting your content on sites more authoritative than yours, even if you publish it first on your blog and have them link back, can cause a duplicate content penalty. We fixed this potential penalty problem by getting sites like Entrepreneur.com to use a rel=canonical.

When you republish your content on sites that do not use the rel=canonical, even if you link back to the original article, eventually you will get penalized. In this case, you have a few options:

1. Rewrite the content – you can rewrite your blog post and then publish it on these sites so that the content isn’t duplicate.
2. Talk to the site owner – there is no harm in asking the site owner or editor to add a rel=canonical. We did this with Entrepreneur Magazine, and they gladly added it to their site even though it required development work on their end.
3. Post the content on the other site only – sometimes it’s best to publish your highest quality posts on other people’s sites and not yours. You will get branding, a link back to your site, and maybe some sales. In most cases, the big sites want exclusivity, so you won’t be able to repurpose this content on your blog or other people’s blogs.

Don’t repost a portion of your blog post

Resposting the first paragraph of your blog post is fine, but when you start reposting a few paragraphs or more, you are asking for trouble.

↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓

Receive a FREE daily summary

of The Marketing Technology Alert HERE

↑↑↑↑↑↑↑↑↑↑↑↑↑↑↑↑↑↑↑↑↑↑↑↑↑↑↑

Digest...

What to Do if You’ve Been Hit by Panda 4.1

1.   Revise or delete ‘thin’ and duplicate content

Prior to Panda, it was relatively easy for sites to rank by publishing short-form content targeting specific keywords or phrases. Since Panda was launched, however, this type of content (which Google terms ‘thin’) won’t get you anywhere near the top rankings. To identify whether you have thin content on your website, perform a site audit or search engine visibility audit via Google Webmaster Tools to determine which pages fell off the grid recently, and assess what you can do to improve the quality. 

2.   Focus on consistently producing high quality content

The most important thing to remember if you’ve been hit by Panda 4.1 is that it can take a while to recover. The issues that caused your site to drop in the rankings are not small ones, and fixing them and getting back on the right track can take months or years, depending on the severity of the penalization. Focus on consistently adding new, valuable content, and on providing a great user experience. Google tracks user engagement, so ensuring your site is delivering on its promises is paramount.

___________________________________

► Receive a FREE daily summary of The Marketing Technology Alert directly to your inbox. To subscribe, please go to http://ineomarketing.com/About_The_MAR_Sub.html  (your privacy is protected).