Avoiding duplicate
content filters is not
as hard as one would imagine; just a little bit
of creative thinking can go
a long way towards setting your content apart from the rest of the scrapers and those too lazy to create their own content.
There are things you can do even when using previously published content on your site or blog. Rather than just copying and pasting content and linking back to it as others already have, consider how the presentation of this content may work to your advantage.
The use of images such as charts and graphs for statistical data rather than text is one way to provide a few degrees of separation between you and others utilizing the same statistics. Adding your own analysis of the data can help to make what was once duplicate content different. While this content may not be original, it can be unique. 😉
Google also suggests that when syndicating your content on other sites that you confirm the inclusion of a link back to your original article on each syndicated article. While this will not guarantee that Google will show your version, it might help. Don’t be fooled into thinking that Google will always show the original or source; they generally list the resource they consider to have the most importance and relevance to a specific query.
Knowing this, it’s always a good idea to be sure that your article or resource is indexed and has a sufficient number of citations to avoid a copy from hijacking your rankings. I’d suggest that you never submit an article for syndication until that article is indexed, linked to and and ranking in the search results.
Keep these tips in mind when creating and distributing content on the web and I think you’ll find that it’s not so difficult to avoid the duplicate content filters, also referred to by many as a duplicate content penalty.