Duplicating content from within your site

[TheShortStack]

Does anyone have any views on how Google views content that has copied from other pages of your site?

For example on a Casino site, you might contain a standard paragraph in your slots reviews that explains what a Wild or Bonus symbol represents.

Or perhaps you list the same steps on how to register for rakeback on each of the review pages of your poker site ...

Does Google penalise you for this?

[Mark]

I don't know for sure, but I don't think they would as long as you have other content on that page in addition to the copied content. I have to imagine there are many sites like that, where they have to have similar content on many pages of their sites. Again, I would make sure you have other content on those pages that is unique.

Mark

[OPC]

As long as one is detailed and unique, it doesn't hurt - I'd speculate it would help reinforce the scope of the site/pages.

[Michael Martinez]

Depending on where you place the paragraph, it would probably be considered boilerplate text. If the page is placed in the Supplemental Index I would not expect the boilerplate text to be parsed and indexed. Yahoo! absolutely tries to filter out boilerplate text.

However, the search engines are not perfect and they might index some boilerplate text anyway. Also, if you get enough links pointing to your site, your internal (not Toolbar) PageRank may be sufficient to keep most of your pages in the Main Web Index. Usually every word on a MWI page is indexed regardless of whether it is boilerplate.

Your mileage may vary.

[TheShortStack]

Thanks very much for your replies guys.

Michael, could you just explain to me what you mean by "Boilerplate text"?

[Guerreiro]

I think explaining the same thing can not hurt you, but in the long run if you want to be super duper securely safe: then change even that small piece of text so it resembles it almost the same but in slightly different words

[Michael Martinez]

"Boilerplate text" is usually text you include on every page of a site. It can be a disclaimer, a promotional notice, a tag line or motto, a copyright notice.

Some boilerplate text can be very long-winded. For example, many people will populate thousands of pages with basically the same generic essay about travel and inject city names, hotel names, etc. It's a low-cost method of generating a lot of low-value content. Search engines generally don't like such sites.

I haven't seen anyone here talk about creating database-driven, keyword-injected poker affiliate sites. I guess that would not be so easy in this industry.

For the most part, if you use boilerplate text, it's okay to do so as long as each page has unique content that adds value to the page overall.

[MJ]

I haven't seen anyone here talk about creating database-driven, keyword-injected poker affiliate sites.

Hi Michael, can you explain what you mean by this?

Truly enjoy your replies here btw, thanks for helping us out!

[Michael Martinez]

Hi Michael, can you explain what you mean by this?

Truly enjoy your replies here btw, thanks for helping us out!

I could have sworn I elaborated, but perhaps I did that in another discussion elsewhere (or maybe I intended to and just didn't get around to it).

The technique is often referred to as "keyword injection". You write a "template" essay and leave markers in it where you inject names of states, countries, cities, etc. You then populate hundreds, thousands, or hundreds of thousands of pages with slightly different versions of the template, each targeting a different city (or something). This is considered to be a very spammy tactic. I don't think it would really be useful for the poker affiliate industry.

I've seen entire sites earn a full ban for utilizing this technique, so please understand that I really do not recommend it.

[MJ]

Ah ok, I was thinking of something else anyways thanks for the reply.