Duplicate Content For Resellers, Manufacturer solution for resellers involves duplicate content Options

[Therese Lane]

Hello,

I'm wondering what the ramifications are of duplicate content across several different online stores, each selling the same products.

I'm working with a manufacturer who is interested in offering resellers of their products with a "solution" that involves an online store featuring their (the manufacturer's) products. Each separate reseller website would have the exact same products in their online store (all authorized by the manufacturer and pulled from the same database).

I feel as though this would absolutely be duplicate content; however, I'm wondering if there's a way for this manufacturer to provide multiple resellers with accurate & up to date product information, while avoiding duplicate content.

Your industry expertise & advise would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks much!

[Jill]

Yes, it's obviously duplicate content. Doesn't mean it's bad, but chances are it won't show up in the search results since other websites that have more authority probably will instead.

[Therese Lane]

Yes, it's obviously duplicate content. Doesn't mean it's bad, but chances are it won't show up in the search results since other websites that have more authority probably will instead.

Thanks so much for the prompt feedback Jill!

With that said, do you think this is something search engines, Google in particular, would penalize for / would there be any other, more serious ramifications in addition to not showing up in SERPs?

[Jill]

No. They don't penalize for duplicate content. (Please see the pinned thread on that topic in this section.)

[www.NissanMods.c...]

No. They don't penalize for duplicate content. (Please see the pinned thread on that topic in this section.)

This is more of a question than anything...
but I have a friend who has a website that is ranked about a PR3. He duplicated the HTML of his entire website and changed the logo, look, and feel to attempt to get not only the 1 and 2 spots on a particular term but also the 3 and 4 spots. Since Google appears to only allow a domain to receive two spots per key term. His other site has quite a bit of links to it from other pages, but it simply doesn't do as well in the the search engines as hist first site.

Was his other site penalized for duplicate content or is it something else?

[Randy]

Was his other site penalized for duplicate content or is it something else?

I doubt it's penalized at all. It just looks like one. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink1.gif)

Penalties happen before the searcher ever conducts their search. Duplicate filtering happens well after this, at the time of the search when the results are getting sent to the screen. And they're search term dependent.

That little trick your friend tried hasn't worked very effectively with Google for several years now. So it was rather silly to even bother attempting it.

[nethy]

Duplicate content is often misunderstood. The concept is simple:

Google don't want a search to return a top page with 10 pages that all contain the same content. No point & a waste of space. They want to give users a choice (hence multiple results). So they only show one.
Imagine a Reuters article. It gets published by 100s of papers. Google return it once.

It's not a penalty. They don't hate you. They just don't need your page for that particular search, so they leave it out. That's all. No reason to take it down. But also no need to put it up for the search engines.

Another way to look at it is this: That article is already in the SERP. if you want to be there too, you need to bring something to the SERP that they don't already have.

Was his other site penalized for duplicate content or is it something else?

He might have been (it is a little spammy). But probably not. Probably just filtered for above reasons.

[torka]

I'm wondering if there's a way for this manufacturer to provide multiple resellers with accurate & up to date product information, while avoiding duplicate content.

Possibly. Instead of just giving them identical sites that pull from the manufacturer's product database, give them customizable sites (that pull product information from the manufacturer's database).

Here's what I mean: set up a content management system that gives them a space to enter unique text on each category and product page and on the main pages of the site (home page, contact page, about us page, etc.). Assuming all your resellers don't target the exact same national or international target audience, each reseller can write targeted content focusing on their specific audience or their specific geographical location. On the home, contact and about pages, they would of course fill in information specific to them -- their address, their company history, etc.

Make it possible for them to create new pages, so if they want to add a testimonials page, or case studies, or articles, or links to valuable resources, or whatever... they can.

On the category and product pages, they can explain why that product is perfect for the type of customer they've decided to focus on. They can explain why people in their town, city or region just love this product. They can reference case studies posted elsewhere on their site (or outright include shorter case studies right on the page) featuring their own customers, in their own target market. They can go out and get their own testimonials from their own customers -- which would, of course, be different from testimonials other resellers get from their customers -- and include those. Whatever they do, they need to put it in their own words (or their customer's words).

You can pull the product's image(s), features and specifications from your own database. Yes, those parts of the pages will be duplicate, and it's still just as unlikely all the resellers will rank well for more generic/global search terms. But with all the different demographic and geographical targets in play, each reseller's website may have an opportunity to rank well for more specific search terms related to their selected market (where the other reseller sites -- with a different demographic/geographic focus -- would be less relevant).

The more you allow them to customize the information around your product details, the less likely it is those pages are going to be considered duplicate. (Primarily because they really will be less duplicate.) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/mf_type.gif)

If you also include each reseller's street address in the footer of every page, this will help reinforce any geographical distinctions they decide to draw between themselves and your other resellers, which may make it more likely they'll show up in geographically-specific searches. They can also set themselves up in Google and Yahoo's local search databases, which will further help in this regard.

The point is, you can make the sites unique (or more accurately, your resellers can make their own sites unique) even though some of the information is pulled in from a common database.

Will this be more work than simply handing out cookie cutter sites to everybody? Yep. Is it guaranteed to work? Nope -- nothing is guaranteed in SEO -- but IMO it likely will.

Something to consider, at least... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/dntknw.gif)

--Torka (IMG:style_emoticons/default/mf_prop.gif)

[Therese Lane]

Thanks for educating Jill! I'll check out the pinned thread.

[www.NissanMods.c...]

Thanks for the info... makes sense

[webstream]

Hello,

I'm wondering what the ramifications are of duplicate content across several different online stores, each selling the same products.

I'm working with a manufacturer who is interested in offering resellers of their products with a "solution" that involves an online store featuring their (the manufacturer's) products. Each separate reseller website would have the exact same products in their online store (all authorized by the manufacturer and pulled from the same database).

I feel as though this would absolutely be duplicate content; however, I'm wondering if there's a way for this manufacturer to provide multiple resellers with accurate & up to date product information, while avoiding duplicate content.

Your industry expertise & advise would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks much!

I have actually created such an animal. If you think about the product specs, they are going to be the same even for totally different reseller's web sites that are not pulled from the same manufacturer's database. Product specs are product specs. The key is to create the site pages (home, about us, etc...) all slightly different with different geo-targeted local keywords and the ability for the site admin to modify all title tags and meta description tags and site page content. This will help improve individual website organic rankings when someone does a geo-targeted search for the manufacturer's products. But as others have said... IMHO, Google wants unique content for any given search phrase rather than displaying 10 listings with all the same content.