Eddington writes:

Wow, what a great tip, truly demistfies the issue of duplicating content to some extent. What I understood is I can post original content from my website on EzineArticles right?

All this while I used to think that is considered duplicate content because it’s content which is already out there on search engines.

This tips are really helpful, I had given up article writing as some of my articles have been disapproved in the past without clear explanation as to why.

I have had a few approved first time ever since the introduction of these 2 minute tips.

Well done to you guys!

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Marc, Product Marketing Manager writes:

Glad to hear you like the 2-Minute Approval Tips! =) Your understanding is correct, you can indeed republish original content from your website on EzineArticles provided the author name stays consistent.

September 13, 2010 at 12:06 PM

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Christopher M. Knight writes:

Eddington,

You can submit to EzineArticles ANY article that you own the exclusive rights to… but the articles you submit to us do not have to be exclusive to EzineArticles.com.

Example: You write 1000 articles for your blog. You can submit these exact same articles to EzineArticles.com.

Many who fear the duplicate content penalty will say it’s better to rewrite the articles and/or submit only fresh articles to EzineArticles.com (as a campaign). Either way, as long as you own the exclusive rights to the articles you submit to us, we don’t care.

What we don’t allow and reject: Articles submitted to us where you, as the author, do not have the exclusive rights to your articles.

Example: PLR (Private Label Rights) articles are rejected and may even lead to account termination.

Hopefully this clarifies it a bit further…

September 14, 2010 at 10:34 AM

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Eddington writes:

Thanks for that Chris. I think this indeed further clarified things.

September 15, 2010 at 1:48 PM

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Marte Cliff writes:

Thanks for that clarification. Some of the people I write for are still working under the assumption that ANY republishing is a no-no.

I think they’re missing out on some good “guest posts” because they’re afraid they’ll harm rather than benefit.

So now… does Google penalize people for having two sites with the same message but different prices on the product they offer? I’ve seen this done and wondered about it.

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Christopher M. Knight writes:

Marte,

Imagine how selfish it is to withhold great content from your customers… all based on fears of something that is unproven.

As for what Google will or won’t penalize… as a rule, we don’t speculate…because, we’re not Google.

One of our ongoing goals is to become a massively comprehensive resource for the million+ visitors who surf EzineArticles.com daily. If we required all articles submitted to be EXCLUSIVE to EzineArticles.com… we’d be denying our members the benefit of content they’ve never seen before that can most certainly help them.

September 14, 2010 at 10:37 AM

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Keith writes:

I would disagree with the statement “There’s No Duplicate Content Penalty”.

If you search Google for a sentence that you have included in a repurposed article you are highly likely to see the “In order to show you the most relevant results…” statement, possibly with your own website one of the supplementary results.

It is bound to have some impact – the search engines want variety, they do not want a page of results that comprises of the same article on different sites.

There may be no direct penalty, but people searching might find your reprinted article rather than your own website, which can lose readers, PPC revenue etc.

But repurposing is still a good thing. Just maybe don’t release the article to all sources at once.

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Eddington writes:

I think you got a point Kieth, one has to be careful how you use the content.

September 15, 2010 at 1:51 PM

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Joe writes:

I agree with Kieth and your tips are great Marc, especially for those who tend to do things in a hurry. Personally, I like to at least change the article around a bit (+/- a little of the content) so as to make it a little different and not just a carbon copy. I would also definitely change the title and try to use different key-phrases.
I also like the idea of putting the entire article on EzineArticles and just putting a portion of it on my blog with a link saying “read more” or something like that, so the blog post is not too long.

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Mary Jane Hurley Brant writes:

When I repurpose an article I start with my monthly newsletter or EzineArticles. Once the article is written and carefully edited, one article can go a long away even as a link on someone else’s blog. I also have a picture, photo or clip art of some kind on my blog page which makes it terrific on FB because FB puts up that blog post in a smaller version. It’s just great. I’ll put up a link here as an example of keeping your articles moving http://www.wheneverydaymatters.com/?p=95

So thanks, Marc, you are getting us all there one-tip-at-a-time.

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Eddington writes:

Social bookmarking and networking sites are great for that purpose Mary if I may add my 2c.

September 15, 2010 at 2:04 PM

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Tom writes:

Good heavens I must be thick.

Marc, originally I thought that Google had a problem with duplicate content. When I found my articles all over the net on scraper sites I suspected that wasn’t the case.

Then I thought that EzineArticles didn’t like it if I simply pasted an article verbatim from one of my sites to your site (so I’ve never done that). Now I see this tip from you and I stand corrected again. So is there any downside to publishing all my articles to EzineArticles (as long as they’re of adequate length, etc.)? I guess that’s rhetorical; I guess there’s not … right?

Regarding the pen-name caveat: I sometimes just leave my ‘pen-name’ on my sites as ‘admin’: publishing on Ezine as Tom Mullaly won’t bother EzineArticles, will it? I really appreciate it Marc. I might be posting on Ezine a whole lot more…–Tom

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Christopher M. Knight writes:

Tom,

We would like 100% of your articles please. Submit them all and I am certain you’ll see more traffic because of it.

As far as leaving your pen name as “ADMIN”… I think that is the worst thing you could do. It destroys your market credibility. It also tells us several things: 1) That you’re not proud enough of your content to put your own name on it. 2) That you probably didn’t write the article. 3) That you probably don’t own the exclusive rights to it.

We assume you do NOT own the exclusive rights to your article submissions if we find the exact same content you submitted to us, on another site (including your own) when you use the author name “admin”.

Articles submitted to EzineArticles do not have to be exclusive to EzineArticles.com; but you do need to own the exclusive rights to the articles so that we won’t find them anywhere else on the Internet under anyone or no-one’s name. Hope this makes sense.

September 14, 2010 at 10:47 AM

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Tom writes:

Hi Chris–(first, thanks for the platinum-level gift!) Well you won’t find any article I’ve submitted to you on my sites: as I say I always assumed that was a no-no so I’ve never done it.
I have seen my EzineArticles on scraper sites, as I like to know where links are coming from, but what can I do? I think you have convinced me to put my name on all my sites; I really have no good reason why I leave the ‘admin’ in sometimes…
Thanks for your response Chris, EzineArticles has been a big part of the success of my sites (to the extent that they are becoming successful!)—Tom Mullaly

September 14, 2010 at 11:25 AM

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Robert writes:

The problem I run into over and over again, about 70% of the time when I’ve checked on copyscape, is that my EzineArticles get ripped off without any attribution to me, or, worse, they are modified in bizarre ways (inserting random nonsense words in the text, for example) AND attributed to me. It’s very rare to see my EzineArticle out there with a backlink to my site. I have about 480 articles up, but I’m not in a hurry to write 480 more.

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GimmeADream writes:

This is fantastic! I have never re-purposed articles, thinking I would be penalized by google and EzineArticles. I love this approach!

Wynn Currie

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Pet Supplies writes:

Well, bam goes another notion. I’d always thought that Ezine copyscape checked all submissions for originality. I even go to the trouble of re-writing blog content by at least 30% to get over the restriction.

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Christopher M. Knight writes:

We do not use Copyscape as they are inferior to our software technology.

We use our own anti-derivative software that has been tweaked and improved significantly over the past 6 years.

In the coming months & years, you’ll be seeing an increased restriction in our attempts to weed out derivative content in high fluff topical areas (that we won’t list publicly what that is). Bottom line is that we don’t need 20,000 articles on how to get a 6 pack of abs…as an example…but we’d love to see 20,000 individual experts each give their opinion/story/tips on this topic.

September 14, 2010 at 10:52 AM

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olapeju writes:

This is fantastic. I now have rest of mind on what has being bugging me for a long time. i can re-purpose so far my name is consistent on the articles. beautiful tips.

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Rik writes:

Hi

Great post and video and I too have just learned something new and very valuable. I was always under the impression that you shouldn’t post / submit the exact same article on two different platforms because of the duplicate content penalty. Have I been wasting my time with and money with awful rewriting software and freelance people to rewrite articles for me? It would seem so!

However, could I please ask a question of Marc or Christopher? One final point I’d like clarity on. I appreciate and agree with what was said above regarding PLR articles however, what about the following scenario, as I sometimes use it to create my own blog posts. I sometimes simply use a PLR article as a kind of template. I take that article and having read it a few times I rewrite it in my own words. So the message of the article is basically the same but I have used my own words to express that same message. I don’t just change a few words here and there, I totally rewrite each sentence and paragraph and expand on it in my own language. Would EzineArticles consider my new article acceptable? (all other things being equal of course as there may be other issues within the article that would mean it perhaps being refused but hopefully you get my gist.)

Many thanks once again for the post and what could be one of the best bits of information I’ve ever received online and for free! I look forward to hearing back from you.

Cheers
Rik

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John J. Adams writes:

This is strange because I have done this and I believe followed your tips here and had an article turned down because it was on my blog already. I did not sign it at the bottom of the article but my author bio is always on the sidebar. Will have to go back on my emails to check this but thanks for the tip anyway. Luv these videos.

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Marc, Product Marketing Manager writes:

Jeff Smith provides an interesting commentary on this topic on his Higher Trust Marketing blog.

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Emmanuel Nwaeke writes:

This is an informatively enriching article. These little tips are very important particularly for new writers preparing to submit articles for the first time.

I suppose that if the article was lifted from a blog where the name of the author did not appear, the website address of the source appearing on the article should serve same purpose.

Thanks for clarifying the issue of multiple submissions.

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Patricia writes:

I had the same problem as John J Adams.

I thought I had followed all the tips but my article was rejected as duplicate content and my account suspended. Ouch!
When I contacted support I had an immediate apology for the error and the article was accepted and my account reinstated. Thank you!
Bit scared to try again though…!

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Frankie Cooper writes:

This is clear and concise tips on repurposing articles across multiple platforms.

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Wesley ivins writes:

Thanks for these tips. I have recently submitted my first article from my blog, however I had my author status as admin until I read this. My page now shows my name next to every blog entry.

I hope I discovered this in time to avoid being rejected.

Regards,

Wesley Ivins

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Zach writes:

Is it legal to take an article from EzineArticles and posting it on my blog with a link back to the EzineArticles article?

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Marc, Product Marketing Manager writes:

Yes, all we ask is that you keep the author’s Resource Box of the article intact.

January 21, 2011 at 9:33 AM

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William Post writes:

These are great tips – I can populate my blogs with articles from here which I wrote earlier. Keep the resource box intact – check!

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Wynn Currie writes:

This is an interesting and informative video but in light of Googles last algorithm changes, is it not completely outdated?

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Olive writes:

Hey Guys,

I was just going to ask the same thing.

Can you clarify that if we use the same blog post and make it into an article, it will still be accepted by EzineArticles?

Thanks for your help.

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Marc, Product Marketing Manager writes:

Olive – Yes, your repurposed blog posts can be turned into articles provided:
1) They are stand-alone articles.
2) You have exclusive rights to the material.
3) The author name on your EzineArticles account matches the author’s name on the blog post.

March 28, 2011 at 9:12 AM

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Joseph Riden writes:

Hi, All, and thanks for all your thoughtful commentary.

I spent this entire work day researching the duplicate content issue here on EzineArticles, on Google Webmaster Tools (GWT), and other web locations. My take is that the duplicate content penalty issue is not as buttoned up as what is being said and implied here.

What I see is general disarray and a lot of conflicting opinions and no definitive policy from Google or other SE’s. Chris K. and EzineArticles are very clear about their policies and their beliefs.

However –

“As for what Google will or won’t penalize… as a rule, we don’t speculate.” — Mr. Knight, above.

Check out this article on GWT — http://bit.ly/cACohS

The tone is cranky and the message very direct and detailed. This forum is closely moderated by Google so I assume it’s as close as they will come to a pronouncement.

Here is the current Google policy on duplicate content — http://bit.ly/9dFnMV

G states therein — “Duplicate content generally refers to substantive blocks of content within or across domains that either completely match other content or are appreciably similar.”

Since there’s no definitive answer as to what the SE’s will or won’t allow, there is significant risk associated with putting dupes online. You stand to lose your hard earned search rank or you could be excluded entirely from search results. How much risk is anybody’s guess, but apparently it has happened to some people.

Guess what? You have to make a decision. Nobody will do it for you. It’s a hard decision because you have confusing, conflicting, and partial information. You’re being called upon to educate yourself and make your best guess about what to do in a high stakes game. On one hand you stand to gain considerable value if you repurpose content. On the other hand, nobody can tell you if you repurpose content online the SE’s won’t penalize you.

As for me, I’m a writer through and through. I consider it almost a divine right to own, publish, and repurpose my content freely. After all, it’s MINE. Google doesn’t own the internet, but they do dominate it, and upon that distinction I reserve the right to do as I please with my content as long as my actions are not illegal, immoral, or unkind.

Writers have been repurposing their writing forever. Let them penalize me for doing as I please with my content and I will penalize THEM. I know how to write eloquently and how to make what I write visible and vivid.

My own decision (and I don’t recommend you do this unless you reach a similar position on your own) is to repurpose my content in a limited, rational and businesslike way and if Google uses that to discriminate against me they will have to answer for it because it will damage my business. Everyone hates a bully and the SE’s don’t want that reputation, I assume.

Will I splatter my past blog posts all over the web in a desperate attempt to get a link or two here and there or a couple site visitors? Well, no. If my content is deserving, I only need to post it in a couple or a few well chosen venues. It will grow legs and walk about on it’s own via viral lift.

Will I repurpose some blog posts because I think people need and want to read my thoughts? You bet. It’s an issue of freedom of expression and I don’t think Google’s blogs outrank the US Constitution.

So, given the risk/reward scenario, what’s your own decision? Sorry if my comment here has made this harder for you but I’d really like people to think this through completely and do the right thing. As a writer seeing and saying your truth you could change the course of history, under the right circumstances. Choose wisely and well. After you truly understand the issues.

Here are a few more snippets to make it particularly difficult for you, from the Google policy –

“Google no longer recommends blocking crawler access to duplicate content on your website, whether with a robots.txt file or other methods. . .

So they can tell it’s a dupe and nail you?

“Duplicate content on a site is not grounds for action on that site unless it appears that the intent of the duplicate content is to be deceptive and manipulate search engine results.”

Really? Who will decide the intent?

“If your site suffers from duplicate content issues, and you don’t follow the advice listed above, we do a good job of choosing a version of the content to show in our search results.”

Well, shut up then because the issue is solved. No need to bully the little people so your job gets easier, Google.

“If you find that another site is duplicating your content by scraping (misappropriating and republishing) it, it’s unlikely that this will negatively impact your site’s ranking in Google search results pages.”

What a mystery! How did Google acquire this amazing psychic ability? Is there a widget for understanding other people’s thoughts now?

Here’s the deal. If you post half decent content anywhere on the web you run a substantial risk of having it scraped. Don’t let that stop you or nothing good will get published any more. People have been stealing copy for as long as writers have been republishing! Expect and enjoy it. Just be sure to use your name when you publish.

I say the bottom line is serve yourself but be fair and kind to others. I plan to keep on repurposing freely but without intent to manipulate search results unfairly. My intent is to help people. I will keep trying to gain high search position using fair and honest means. IMHO repurposing within reason is one of them.

BTW, using your own true name is one of the best ways to assert legitimate ownership. The time of publication is recorded on your blog unless you remove it. If you’re the first, you own it.

Thanks to all at EzineArticles for providing a very good publishing platform for writers to repurpose on.

And thanks for listening,

Joseph

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Dorothy Gauvin writes:

Thank you all for such a variety of responses that do, still, come to a clear consensus. Joseph puts it well – the responsibility for our decisions and actions is ours alone. It’s a great help to any of us new to blogging, social media and such, to have instruction such as given by Chris, Marc and other editors. Many thanks.

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