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Has anyone actually received a duplicate content penalty for noncompetitive local sites?

by Delta223
17 replies
Say I have two websites in the same niche, but different Geos (Cheyenne and Seattle). I'd like to focus all my writing energy on crafting a good sales message to use, word for word, on both.

In an ideal world, I could replicate that sales message across my two sites, and dozens more.

I know this creates a footprint. Is this a bad thing? Has anyone been penalized by Google for duplicate content on local sites that do not serve the same area?
#content #duplicate #local #noncompetitive #penalty #received #sites
  • Profile picture of the author iAmNameLess
    You'll be okay for the most part, especially if you're substituting local words and having proper tags. What a lot of people preach for duplicate content is kind of a bunch of crap anyway, news websites that rank for thousands and thousands of terms have duplicate content.

    I wouldn't worry about it on such a small scale. I have websites ranking for numerous cities within the same area and using landing pages with duplicate content. No penalty has ever happened to hurt that.
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    • Profile picture of the author Electrical
      Originally Posted by iAmNameLess View Post

      You'll be okay for the most part, especially if you're substituting local words and having proper tags. What a lot of people preach for duplicate content is kind of a bunch of crap anyway, news websites that rank for thousands and thousands of terms have duplicate content.

      I wouldn't worry about it on such a small scale. I have websites ranking for numerous cities within the same area and using landing pages with duplicate content. No penalty has ever happened to hurt that.
      What do you think about duplicate content on the same website?

      For example, I have a website for my local business and I make a separate landing page for each town in my service area. This has worked well for me.

      I would like to make more of these landing pages for 30 additional towns, but the only thing holding me back is not wanting to write the content of those pages.

      It's just a couple paragraphs to sell my service. But how many times can I spin the same thing around and still have it read well for the customers while also having proper use of keywords for the search engines?

      When doing the original set of landing pages I started to come up blank on my own so I paid a writer to spin 25 of them for me and I could tell which order she did them in because they progressively got worse and worse.

      So the question is, can I put the same content on each landing page and just change out some of the words such as the town name? Or will that hurt me?
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      • Profile picture of the author iAmNameLess
        Originally Posted by Electrical View Post

        What do you think about duplicate content on the same website?

        For example, I have a website for my local business and I make a separate landing page for each town in my service area. This has worked well for me.

        I would like to make more of these landing pages for 30 additional towns, but the only thing holding me back is not wanting to write the content of those pages.

        It's just a couple paragraphs to sell my service. But how many times can I spin the same thing around and still have it read well for the customers while also having proper use of keywords for the search engines?

        I finally came up blank on my own so I paid a writer to spin 25 of them for me and I could tell which order she did them in because they progressively got worse and worse.

        So the question is, can I put the same content on each landing page and just change out some of the words such as the town name? Or will that hurt me?
        This is a tricky subject, but in short... no it won't hurt you...you're more likely to be hurt by the content being spun to death due to awful user experience.

        There's a trick I use for situations like yours. It's very in depth and I don't really have time to get into it right now. I have the rest of my daily to-do list to finish then I may be able to make a separate thread for it because I'm sure a lot of people wonder the same thing.
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        • Profile picture of the author Electrical
          Originally Posted by iAmNameLess View Post

          This is a tricky subject, but in short... no it won't hurt you...you're more likely to be hurt by the content being spun to death due to awful user experience.

          There's a trick I use for situations like yours. It's very in depth and I don't really have time to get into it right now. I have the rest of my daily to-do list to finish then I may be able to make a separate thread for it because I'm sure a lot of people wonder the same thing.
          Thanks, I would appreciate it.
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          • Profile picture of the author savidge4
            This is a very interesting topic to say the least. Hubspot somewhere has a study that shows that a site that has 10+ landing pages is going to generate something like 55% more leads than a site with 5 or fewer landing pages.

            It went on to suggest ( they really don't "suggest" much at hubspot, they back with data ) that if base of 5 landing pages produces 100% results, increasing your landing pages to say 40 landing pages will overall increase your lead generation by a whopping 400%. - when I read this article less than a year ago, I was not so much a believer, but tested it. My personal results now over and over point to a result, that maybe the numbers are a bit shy, as in my experience has been greater conversion.

            The "Warning" given using this model is not to replicate the same page, but to change the design and content 90% for maximum effect.

            HAAAA finally found the article: Why You (Yes, You) Need to Create More Landing Pages

            Electrical,

            Other than the fact you live in and probably primarily work in NJ, I cant speak of your personal specifics. Where I live in WV, it being a bit mountainous geographically things change from town to town. power stability changes. the age of the community and its homes and home systems change.

            So I would look at these kinds of patterns, and by geo location you may want to push generator installation more in some communities ( Sussex / Warrren County ), you may want to push Elecrical Panel upgrades in other areas that you see a more consistent use of fuses or under powered boxes. ( Metuchen / Edison area )

            Again looking at the article above, it is more about delivering a specific and personalized page to each customer you may deal with, and not a simple replicated page that has the city name changed.

            Targeting by city is one thing, but getting down a step further and targeting folks in a city that may be looking for a panel replacement is a whole other game.
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            • Profile picture of the author DABK
              I did not test. But I have several websites. A few with 1 or 2 landing pages; a few with 8 or more.

              The 8 or more outperform 1 or 2, sometimes by as much as 3 times. Always by some significant percentage (though I didn't closely analyze so I can't tell you the exact percentages. But it's there.

              [QUOTE=savidge4;9731125]
              It went on to suggest ( they really don't "suggest" much at hubspot, they back with data ) that if base of 5 landing pages produces 100% results, increasing your landing pages to say 40 landing pages will overall increase your lead generation by a whopping 400%. - when I read this article less than a year ago, I was not so much a believer, but tested it. My personal results now over and over point to a result, that maybe the numbers are a bit shy, as in my experience has been greater conversion.
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      • Profile picture of the author Claude Whitacre
        Originally Posted by Electrical View Post

        What do you think about duplicate content on the same website?

        For example, I have a website for my local business and I make a separate landing page for each town in my service area. This has worked well for me.

        I would like to make more of these landing pages for 30 additional towns, but the only thing holding me back is not wanting to write the content of those pages.

        It's just a couple paragraphs to sell my service. But how many times can I spin the same thing around and still have it read well for the customers while also having proper use of keywords for the search engines?

        When doing the original set of landing pages I started to come up blank on my own so I paid a writer to spin 25 of them for me and I could tell which order she did them in because they progressively got worse and worse.

        So the question is, can I put the same content on each landing page and just change out some of the words such as the town name? Or will that hurt me?
        I have plenty of clients with multiple locations. Each location (or city served) has its own page. We just change the contact information, the page title, a few keywords, and we place a couple of outgoing links to a high PR website...usually a city website. (different outgoing links for each page)

        Maybe we change the first sentence or two of the content. And these pages aren't heavy in content anyway. We use a different photo for each page, maybe a shot of the city. Maybe a different photo of the business, or owner.

        And, if there aren't too many locations, we shoot a different video for each location,, and place it on the page. We also take a couple of text links, and link back to the home page.

        Then we create some links, going to each page...to get them indexed faster.

        So......the "duplicate content" is very minimal.
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        • Profile picture of the author Electrical
          Originally Posted by Claude Whitacre View Post

          I have plenty of clients with multiple locations. Each location (or city served) has its own page. We just change the contact information, the page title, a few keywords, and we place a couple of outgoing links to a high PR website...usually a city website. (different outgoing links for each page)
          This is where my SEO amateurness really shines. I didn't realize that outbound links to high PR websites did anything for you. I'll get right on that.

          Maybe we change the first sentence or two of the content. And these pages aren't heavy in content anyway. We use a different photo for each page, maybe a shot of the city. Maybe a different photo of the business, or owner.
          Awesome, great info.

          FWIW, I currently use a unique image on each landing page like you said. I usually use a picture of the town sign that you find on the main road when entering that town. Or an attraction that the town is known for, such a water falls or parks.

          I also add the building department's address and the electrical code officials name and phone number. I was looking for unique info and thought that this info might actually help a customer.

          And, if there aren't too many locations, we shoot a different video for each location,, and place it on the page. We also take a couple of text links, and link back to the home page.

          Then we create some links, going to each page...to get them indexed faster.

          So......the "duplicate content" is very minimal.
          Great, I appreciate the info.
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  • Profile picture of the author iAmNameLess
    It's not so much linking to a high PR site as it is about linking to a relevant site to the page and keyword topic. It's becoming more and more about relevance than anything else right now.

    Still going to post that thread for you so you can get ideas on what's worked for me in many niches.
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    • Profile picture of the author shadow92
      Originally Posted by iAmNameLess View Post

      It's not so much linking to a high PR site as it is about linking to a relevant site to the page and keyword topic. It's becoming more and more about relevance than anything else right now.

      Still going to post that thread for you so you can get ideas on what's worked for me in many niches.
      I feel they are equally as important. They go hand in hand. Linking to a high PR site doesn't mean shit if the rest of your link structure is junk and irrelevant.

      It also depends on competition. Some places it's easy to rank just by linking to relevant content and the PR doesn't really matter. Higher competition keywords that doesn't fly.

      It's really a balancing act between the two. I just recently did a test on one of my dummy sites. It was brand new (as in no link building was done, just on-site), completely unique content, all on page was correct. I kept my keyword density LOW. My pages were 800-1400 words at around 1.6%-1.8%. The website was sitting at the bottom of page 2 for a mild competition keyword.

      I dropped it's link in my network. All relevant websites, with very low OBL. two PR8 and a PR9.

      My site tanked in the results (what I expected, just wanted to see what I could get away with) and didn't come up for air until I pulled both the PR8s and added 10 more low PR links in there.

      It's been sitting strong at #1 for a few months now. Folks always talk about PR, when in reality...a high PR link won't do shit for you if your other metrics are not in check. Specifically content and link relevancy.

      In the same breath though, high PR links add TONS of value when ranking for high competition words. Or trying to pass juice through a large website.
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    • Profile picture of the author Electrical
      Originally Posted by iAmNameLess View Post

      It's not so much linking to a high PR site as it is about linking to a relevant site to the page and keyword topic. It's becoming more and more about relevance than anything else right now.

      Still going to post that thread for you so you can get ideas on what's worked for me in many niches.
      I'm just trying to wrap my head around this.

      So if I have a landing page specific to Hoboken NJ and I put a link to Hoboken's city website that is pretty popular and has (I know PR doesn't work anymore, but for sake of discussion) a PR4 ranking, that will help my own website? The "link juice" won't flow out to the Hoboken website?

      I just want to make sure that I am following this correctly. If so, I will start adding the links tonight (manually to 55 pages and counting ).
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      • Profile picture of the author Claude Whitacre
        Originally Posted by Electrical View Post

        I'm just trying to wrap my head around this.

        So if I have a landing page specific to Hoboken NJ and I put a link to Hoboken's city website that is pretty popular and has (I know PR doesn't work anymore, but for sake of discussion) a PR4 ranking, that will help my own website? The "link juice" won't flow out to the Hoboken website?

        I just want to make sure that I am following this correctly. If so, I will start adding the links tonight (manually to 55 pages and counting ).

        You may be confusing inbound high PR links with outlinking high PR links.

        A couple of high PR highly relevant outbound links won't hurt you. A couple of high PR inbound links can tank your site, if they aren't relevant...or if it's a link from a spam site.


        When these guys are talking about bad links, they are talking about inbound links.
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      • Profile picture of the author iAmNameLess
        Originally Posted by Electrical View Post

        I'm just trying to wrap my head around this.

        So if I have a landing page specific to Hoboken NJ and I put a link to Hoboken's city website that is pretty popular and has (I know PR doesn't work anymore, but for sake of discussion) a PR4 ranking, that will help my own website? The "link juice" won't flow out to the Hoboken website?

        I just want to make sure that I am following this correctly. If so, I will start adding the links tonight (manually to 55 pages and counting ).
        Forget about PR altogether, I feel that is going to end up causing confusion for some people. Whether the city site is a PR4, 9, NA, it doesn't matter. What matters is the relevance of your overall page. That would send a signal to Google that since you're offering electrical work services in Hoboken, NJ, linking out to the city website is a pretty good indicator that the page is relevant to Hoboken. The PR is not a factor at all, however maybe the overall authority of the domain could be a factor, but there is absolutely no evidence to support this.

        Yes... the link juice WILL flow out to the hoboken website. Some people say to make these links nofollow, but that's pretty much telling Google you're linking to a page that may not be relevant. Link juice passing through is no big deal. You can easily make up for that by making your contact page links nofollow.

        Don't worry about sculpting PR, or passing juice outside the website... It's all about relevance and on page optimization. For your needs, it would be unnecessary.

        Also... it's not necessarily effective to just start linking out everywhere. The reason it is a tactic in SEO is because it shows relevance. You also get added relevance when you mention zip codes, landmarks, etc. There's so much data at Google's disposal, that eventually backlinks won't even be that much of a ranking signal, but instead the association of the brand/website with the surrounding keyword topics.
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        • Profile picture of the author savidge4
          Originally Posted by iAmNameLess View Post

          Also... it's not necessarily effective to just start linking out everywhere. The reason it is a tactic in SEO is because it shows relevance. You also get added relevance when you mention zip codes, landmarks, etc. There's so much data at Google's disposal, that eventually backlinks won't even be that much of a ranking signal, but instead the association of the brand/website with the surrounding keyword topics.
          I very much agree with this. Link to and from "RELEVENCE" above and beyond all else.

          Link juice is a page by page thing. I don't think we as developers will ever know exactly what a link juice score is for any page. So to that extent we will never know what it is we are giving and taking. The general assumption is we are passing around +1 and -1.

          If you think of it this way, I think it starts to make a bit of sense. A page has a score, instead of a number we will just say that the score is 100% for the page. You have 10 links ON the page going to other pages on your site, AND going out to other relevant sites. EACH link on the site then carries a link juice transfer score of 10%. ( 100/10 )

          Now when I say EACH link, I mean the link to your homepage, the link to your about us page, etc. EVERY link on that page is distributing Juice.

          Regardless of Follow and No Follow, the score for each link remains the same.... 10%. So to no follow a link is not holding back the Juice factor given that link, you simply are not passing the juice. ( make sense? ) I believe a no follow link should only be used if the link is pointing to a non-relevant page.

          The theory that I have in regards to outbound linking ( on and off site ) is that dependent on the relevance of the page linked to you link carries that +1 or -1 value. More than likely the link to your homepage is a -1. But, a link to a piece of like relevant content on YOUR site will carry a value of +1. Same is true when pointing to a outbound source. If there is relevance in the link the link value to you will be +1.

          Basically what it boils down to... Every last link on your page matters. The fewer the links on a page, the stronger the juice.

          When you then look at developing "Landing Pages" these are in theory pages that will be receiving multiple +1 inbound linking. So overall the link juice for that page will increase incrementally dependent on the number of links coming into the page. The FEWER links you have coming off the page, the MORE juice you will be passing to the pages that you do link to.

          The best way to describe this is we are all familiar with a sales funnel... Multiple sources of traffic funneled right into 1 page 1 offer, "click here". So a wide base funneled into a narrow base, concentrating that traffic to 1 page. A link juice funnel is the exact opposite. A single point of concentrated juice ( landing page ) dispersed across your site.

          The tighter you can keep that dispersion, or better yet, the more relevant you can keep that dispersion on your site the better.
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  • Profile picture of the author mrmatt
    I had a buddy of mine ask me to look at his site. He pays for a monthly blog service. He gets 2-3 articles added to his blog monthly. The articles aren't bad but not all that great.

    Curious I just grabbed a sentence from one of these articles. Hundreds of these articles published all over the place on bogs in the same niche. The only difference was localizing the keywords. He was ranking for all kinds of terms locally with duplicate content. So where the other businesses using this content.

    Take from that what you will.
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  • Profile picture of the author Oziboomer
    If you are sending paid traffic from Adwords etc rather than trying to rank for local variants why not create one great landing page optimised and targeting a specific keyword set. and then use a geo-targeting script (geolify springs to mind http://geolify.com) to add the relevant copy to your page rather than duplicating everything...just a thought.
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  • Profile picture of the author misshang
    I have experimented with different city name only with others, pictures, videos, and wordings,whatever, staying exactly the same, and I haven't faced anything bad yet.
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