Published on November 21st, 2017 | by Sunit Nandi

The Great Debate – Should You Repost Your Blog Content on Other Sites

In school, you were taught not to plagiarize content. Outside of school papers, plagiarism is still a major issue. It runs rampant on the internet, and not just because of someone wanting to steal someone else’s ideas and take credit for them. Instead, people repost website content to improve their own site’s page rankings unethically. The good news is that Google recognizes this is a spam issue. The bad news is that it can affect your site’s ranking when you repost your own content.

The Dreaded Duplicate Content Penalty

The Google experts do enforce a duplicate content penalty for sites where huge blocks of content have been republished. However, Google is smart. It can typically distinguish between sites trying to be deceptive and spammy versus a website that is simply republishing a blog article to another website. For example, when Google notices a substantial chunk of a home page is copied on multiple sites, this raises the alarm.

The Short Answer = No

Even so, it is still more advisable to avoid reposting your blog content to other websites. If you think reposting your blog content to another website will lead to more traffic to your own website, you are mistaken. It can help with your brand, but it will not necessarily improve your site’s traffic. Furthermore, if it is not done correctly, you could receive the dreaded duplicate content penalty. Keep in mind, social media duplicate content rules are quite different.

How to Repost Correctly

However, anyone who has spent time on the internet knows some content appears on more than one website. Many blog writers will tell you they do repost their blog content, but the true professionals know how to repost correctly. For instance, you should avoid reposting content to a more authoritative website. Instead, if you do want to repost, you should only repost on websites that will allow the use of rel=canonical. The term canonical in this tag means “official version.” By using this tag, it lets Google know where the original version of the post is found.

Additionally, bigger websites will often ask guest bloggers to republish the blog to their own websites after a bit of time passes. By attaching the rel=canonical tag helps both sites to avoid duplicate content issues with Google.

What to Do Instead

If you are still feeling perplexed about what to do with the awesome blog you just wrote, here are three tips to consider:

Rewrite the blog. Do not just repost the blog. Instead, rewrite the content in a new way. Use the same ideas, but avoid writing the text verbatim.
Contact and ask for the “official version” tag. Speak to the site owner and ask for him/her to use the rel=canonical tag when reposting your blog. This option works out best for everyone – just ask those with link-building experience.
Do not post it to your website. Post your well-written blog on another website first. After time passes, seek permission to repost the blog on your own website with the rel=canonical tag.

One last important note – should you notice spammers are linking to your blogs and affecting your rankings, Google provides clear guidelines for how to disavow backlinks.

Tags: blog, content, debate, great, other sites, report

About the Author

Sunit Nandi I'm the leader of Techno FAQ. Also an engineering college student with immense interest in science and technology. Other interests include literature, coin collecting, gardening and photography. Always wish to live life like there's no tomorrow.