Duplicate content has created a great deal of concern for most webmasters. One can consider duplicate content to be websites, web pages or blogs that share the exact same information. The issue arises if a search engine runs a search and returns several pages of the same content. This also means the search engine is unable to provide a fantastic service for their customers. A lot of webmasters will download content from article directories; write reviews about other websites and most of us will even promote the same products.

So how does this affect you and duplicate content on your website?

Fortunately it won't affect you or your website at all and this is typically where the confusion is caused. Duplicate content occurs within your own website or blog. If you continuously write or post the exact same content from one page to another within your own domain name, then yes you will be penalized for duplicate content, as search engines will conclude that you are producing spam. You cannot possibly be penalized for having the same content as another website, there are many malls online that sell the exact same cell phone or play station game, the same line of clothing etc yet they still rank very high in the search engine database.

What about articles from article directories?

Obtaining articles from an article directory is absolutely fine, in fact it is great for building an informative website or bog, the only thing is you may not rank very high in the search engines for that particular article as the original source of the article will endure the benefits of search engine ranking. The same will apply to any products you choose to promote online.

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