This week’s Ask An SEO comes from Abhinav in New Delhi, who writes:
How can article aggregators outperform the original source?
Google has different guidelines about wrapper copy not working well, and much is said about not serving duplicate content across the web.
However, the URLs of RSS aggregator sites are indexed, even knowing that they are 100% duplicate content.
Why would Google index them, knowing their duplicate content and how they can outperform the original sources? “
It’s frustrating when a site we consider “unworthy” ranks higher than ours.
I suspect that SEO professionals spend millions of hours each month trying to determine why a competitor’s site is outperforming them on a given query.
In the past, I’ve advised that if you’re spending more time worrying about what your competitors are doing than optimizing your site, you’re doing it wrong.
But I also understand the frustration of watching another site outrank you when you feel your site is better and your optimization scheme is superior.
Maybe not what you think
I have been analyzing websites from an SEO perspective for over 23 years.
I am more than happy to provide an informed opinion on why one site ranks better than another.
But more than half the time, my guess is wrong.
Many variables go into ranking a site for a specific query.
And while it’s sometimes obvious what places a site above another, other times it’s impossible to pinpoint the exact reason for ranking using Google or Bing data.
We all know that “I don’t know” isn’t an acceptable answer for most clients or bosses – at least not for long.
Trust me, I’m the king of guesses when it comes to ranking – and I’ll swear I know exactly what causes a site to rank even if I make an educated guess in most cases.
For example, what you describe as an RSS site may actually be a trending hub in a particular industry.
this is center It may have a significant backlink, even if it is just content compilation.
Remember, content aggregators are popular for a reason.
Aggregators, by definition, use duplicate content – in most cases, duplicate content that did not originate from the aggregator’s site.
Google knows this.
But this does not mean that Google automatically ranks all content on an aggregated site as inferior.
In fact, most experienced SEO experts can tell horror stories of their site being overtaken by another site that simply scraped their site’s content.
Frustratingly, Google doesn’t always know where the content is coming from.
Schema and other tools can help Google conclude that your original content needs to rank — but sometimes, that’s not possible.
what should be done
I preach to be a decent human being when dealing with other webmasters – at least until they give me a reason to project my more aggressive ego.
Find the site’s content information with your duplicate content and send them a note asking them to remove it.
Experience has shown me that they will remove content about half the time.
Most of the people who run these sites may cut some corners, but they often don’t think about the impact their actions can have on other sites.
Once they realize their transgressions, many will patch things up.
The other way to ensure your site ranks ahead of copycat is to work on it All SEO aspects of your site.
Simply be better than the site that steals your content.
You may not know exactly Why a site outperforms you But if you keep creating quality content, building quality links, making sure your technical SEO is up to date, and creating an effective keyword and content strategy, you may eventually outperform the overall site.
Be patient and have faith in your SEO software.
Search engine optimization is a grinding process.
Embrace the grind and keep pushing forward.
Good things will come.
More resources:
- A guide to improving Google News, top stories, and discovery
- 14 major reasons why Google won’t index your site
- SEO Strategy: A Complete Overview
Ask an SEO is a weekly SEO advice column written by some of the industry’s top SEO experts, hand-selected by Search Engine Journal. Do you have a question about search engine optimization? Fill out our form. You may see your answer in the next #AskanSEO post!
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