The Duplicate Content Penalty Myth

One thing that has plagued the SEO industry for years has been a lack of consistency when it comes to SEO terms and definitions. One of the most prevalent misnomers being bandied about is the phrase "duplicate content penalty." I'm here to tell you that there is no such thing as a search engine penalty for duplicate content. At least not the way many people believe there is.

Don't get me wrong; I'm not saying that the search engines like and appreciate duplicate content -- they don't. But they don't specifically penalize websites that happen to have some duplicate content.

Duplicate content has been and always will be a natural part of the Web. It's nothing to be afraid of. If your site has some dupe content for whatever reason, you don't have to lose sleep every night worrying about the wrath of the Google gods. They're not going to shoot lightning bolts at your site from the sky, nor are they going to banish your entire website from ever showing up when someone searches for what you offer. The duplicate content probably won't show up in searches, but that's not the same thing as a penalty.

Let me explain.

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