How different is different enough?

[marxes]

I have been reading these forums for awhile now, I really feel that forums such as these are the best form of information exchange for topics as dynamic as SEO.

One thing I have seen is that some posts touch on the problems with duplicate page content and how it negatively affects your site. One recent topic asked how different page titles have to be. http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/...ead.php?t=2536

The question I pose is how different must content be from one site to another to prevent penalities and blacklist. In particular I would like to hear some stabs at whether it includes the coded sections of the pages or just the visible content. This question is difficult to answer without resorting to some percentage (80% of the page needs to be different than another site, for example). Does that 80% include code and content?

When would this come up? Say you had a great deal of specialized content and some sites wanted to pull that content from you (RSS feeds, etc) and incoporate it into thier site. In essence they could really be merely skinning the interface around the same content. Sure graphics would be different, navigation, CSS, javascript, etc... all could be different, but does that really count.

I was also wondering how or if the sensitivity to duplicate content might change as newer alogrithims are used by the search engines?

I appreciate any of the insight
-marxes

[Anthony Parsons]

One thing I have seen is that some posts touch on the problems with duplicate page content and how it negatively affects your site.

There is no real negative affect, in that duplicate content is simply filtered out. It exists to not exist. The engines will only list the most important and disgard the rest, ie. the one that has the most links pointing to it.

The question I pose is how different must content be from one site to another to prevent penalities and blacklist. In particular I would like to hear some stabs at whether it includes the coded sections of the pages or just the visible content. This question is difficult to answer without resorting to some percentage (80% of the page needs to be different than another site, for example). Does that 80% include code and content?

Ok, the coded section actually has nothing to do with it in this instance. I have tried this and failed in every instance. Inserting tables, etc do nothing, as the engines read the content in raw. The simple change of the header, footer and navigation will actually generally get you round the filter. You can have the same article posted from site to site, but each is slightly different. A simple addition or deletion of a paragraph is enough to get round it.

When would this come up? Say you had a great deal of specialized content and some sites wanted to pull that content from you (RSS feeds, etc) and incoporate it into thier site. In essence they could really be merely skinning the interface around the same content. Sure graphics would be different, navigation, CSS, javascript, etc... all could be different, but does that really count.

Again, it is the content in its raw mode that matters. Navigation is content, so that does matter. Change the wording in that and you begin to change the content.

I was also wondering how or if the sensitivity to duplicate content might change as newer alogrithims are used by the search engines?

No doubt they will get harder to get around.

[marxes]

Thank you, I appreciate the response.

[Chris Boggs]

I'll have to get back to you on this subject, marxes. I actually am asking myself that same question as I perform SEO for a group of sites (4) with similar content. There are three that are locally-targetted and one "mother site." There are many tools available on these sites (no this is not for the SEO industry ) that intertwine, so hopefully the page content and the URL differences will be enough to avoid penalties. I'll let you know in a few months!