The case for original content…

Long post ahead, beware. It’s worth reading.

Recently, someone asked on a real estate forum about a specific insurance site and how much use of duplicate content is allowed before (essentially) affecting things.

I noted that indeed the forum that even the forum that we were on at the time was strictly moderated for original content. And for good reason. But the question was raised that once a site became an “authority” site in the search engine’s eyes, then was more leeway granted as far as duplicate content.

My answer to that will be a non answer. Not because I don’t want to address the question, but rather because I think it is the wrong question to ask. I think the right question to ask is, “How important is orginal content to building the overall asset that is my site vs. the time and expense of doing it?”

I’d like to correlate that question with a previous post of mine about publishers going to Google and requesting preferrential treatment. These guys are primarily newspaper sites, and since the site I was asked about was an industry related news site, I think the comparisons are applicable.

The Newspaper sites claim that they are the ORIGINATORS of the news and thus deserve to be the canonical references to it online and that SEO’s are usurping that by posting an article (on an ad filled page) about it and systematically linking to it to get it to rank.

First off, most newspapers are not the SOURCE of news and therefore should NOT be the canonical reference. Most times they are regurgitating rip and read news off of the wires.

On that basis, how can they claim to be the most relevant? (i.e., the most worthy for the top spots?)

So my answer for any type of news or business related sites? Have a take. Have an angle. Spend (errr…INVEST) the time to post unique information. This does TWO very important things.

1) It makes it of more value to your readers. Plain and simple.

2) It encourages links to the story on YOUR site. Links to a news story ONLY come from being the first on the scene with a powerful microphone or having a FRESH take on a situation. (This is the money quote of the post here. Read it twice. ). Second place is TRULY first loser.

So based on the above, posting a news story and having a unique take on it from a site that is already AUTHORITATIVE is the ULTIMATE. You can RANK for it. Generate new readers. Generate more links. And your unique content will do ALL of those more effectively than “rip and read”.

Is this approach worth the time. YES. Is it expensive in terms of time / money? YES. Is it defensible? YES!

If you are going to succeed long term in the search engines, you MUST be willing to invest in a quality product that provides relevance. Search engines crave that and they reward it.

Duplication of someone else’s work can NEVER (in the long run) be considered RELEVENT. It simply can’t. Can you scam the search engines short term with it? Yes. But we here at EricOnSearch are into building assets…and building lasting authority. Spamming for short term gain? Not so much.