Google’s John Mueller advises site owners that when content is syndicated elsewhere it may outrank the original source. That’s the trade-off that site owners need to consider when deciding to syndicate their content. The syndicated content can end up ranking higher than the original content, and that cannot be avoided. This information was provided during a Google Webmaster Central hangout on February 8th. A site owner submitted the following question:
The site owner also indicated there’s a canonical tag pointing to the original content, and the original content has been published for several months. Why is this happening?Mueller says there are a number of factors that go into determining which version of the content is most relevant for searchers. A canonical tag is a good way to indicate which is the original piece of content. However, a canonical tag might not always be “correct,” in the sense that the pages are completely different. Perhaps a block of text is the same across both pages, but everything else surrounding the text could be providing additional value. It’s possible that users are landing on the syndicated content and finding other relevant information elsewhere on the site. Those are things that Google takes into consideration when figuring out how to rank the two pieces of content. Can this be prevented?There’s no way to guarantee that syndicated content will not rank above the original source. Site owners need to take this into account when syndicating their content, Mueller says. On one hand, syndicating content allows it to have a larger audience. On the other hand, other websites may end up ranking above the original source. That’s the trade-off that site owners have to accept as a possibility when syndicating their content. Hear the full question and answer in the video below, starting at 8:57.
Subscribe to SEJGet our daily newsletter from SEJ’s Founder Loren Baker about the latest news in the industry! via Search Engine Journal – http://bit.ly/1paqDU3 via http://bit.ly/2WXJJ1p
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |