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There is a lot of debate over whether Google imposes penalties on duplicate content in their search engine rankings. I would personally be inclined to say that the penalties are probably not as strict as people think they are, but they are there. It makes perfect sense to me that they would be, with the thousands of spam blogs, or splogs, copying everyone else’s content.
Most people are just to lazy to create a meaningful unique website, and instead rely on copying other works and using black hat SEO techniques to try and get search engine rankings. This is the stupidest thing to do in my opinion, because these sites don’t last, period.
Same thing happens with PLR content, people are just way too lazy to rewrite and edit PLR, so you end up with hundreds of people posting the same content on their websites. Why shouldn’t Google discourage this?
Anyways, if you believe that Google’s duplicate content penalty is enough to harm your affiliate marketing efforts (and I hope it does), then these tips for rewriting content should help.
By the way, I have some PLR website tests running, so I should be able to bring you guys some interesting data about duplicate content in the future.
Synonym Replacement Tools
There is a wide variety of these tools, but honestly, they aren’t so great. If you are looking for the automatic rewriting solution, and you think that this tool will help you do it, think again. Here’s an example of a free rewriter tool online that I tried, and the results.
Test Text:
“There are many people who dread having to write papers or articles. Many just feel like it seems to be too much work and it all just goes to waste when no one reads the. To some people, reading articles seems like work to, especially if the article is boring and very bland. Well, articles are supposed to be read, that’s their purpose to impart your message and information. If it is not read then it is a waste of time and effort.”
Synonym Replacement Results:
“There are many folk who apprehension having to publish papers or articles. Many just look like it seems to be overly more job and it all just goes to squander when no one reads the. To some folk, reading articles seems like job to, particularly if the clause is boring and really bland. Well, articles are supposed to be learn, that’s their aim to convey your content and data. If it is not learn then it is a waste of moment and attempt.”
Pretty bad eh lol. It would take more work to write a completely unique article than to edit something like that.
If you use a non-automatic synonym replacement tool, like WordFlood, you can have better results, but it still takes more time than it’s worth.
Summarize Trick
You probably haven’t heard of this one before; I just heard of it a week or so ago, and it’s actually pretty interesting. You need Microsoft Word to use this trick.
The concept is that you copy paste about 2-3 articles with similar general topics, then use the “Auto-Summarize” option under the tools menu, and it will output an article that has parts of all 3.
It doesn’t actually rewrite any sentences or words, but the article as a whole is totally different. You still have to read and edit it a bit to make sure it flows (that’s the part that’s lost in translation), but it’s actually a pretty neat trick. Whether or not Google deems this as a new article is still unsure, but to me it looks like a plausible method.
I am running tests on this method right now, and again I’ll be letting you guys know my results.
Use PLR for Non-Web Content
If you want to avoid the Google duplicate penalty all together, then the solution is simple. Use PLR to create a free PDF report, or an email series or e-course. Then Google cannot issue you duplicate penalties, because it’s not on your site content.
Here’s a neat trick. If you don’t want to put unique content on a site to attract SEs and get rankings, then use a PPC campaign to send people to a squeeze page where they sign up for your newsletter. Then you can give them a bunch of information (as well as some affiliate promos here and there), all slightly modified PLR to fit your voice.
The chance of actual people knowing it’s duplicate content are slim to none. Just make sure the PLR is actually good 
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Hey Tim, was the automatic synonym tool that you used called Jetspinner? I’ve seen alot of people who talk about using PLR articles use it. However I have no experience with it myself.
In my niche of World of Warcraft guides I see alot of the multi billion dollar companies using freeblogs + PLR articles that have bad replacements.
For example Warcraft gold farming becomes Theory of war precious metal agriculture. With a link to sites like IGE or something.
Anyways if theres some other online free tools let me know. I’m still trying to spin about 50 more blog posts to avoid duplicate content penalty from my old blog to new one since I don’t want to do a redirect.
Hey Mitch,
Actually the synonym replacer I tried was WordFlood, which is free for 14 days. It was not automatic but at least you could get decent results with it. Anything automatic will never work though I really don’t think.
I was looking at JetSpinner the other day, and I believe that is used more for creating multiple versions of articles. You do this by giving the system 2-3 options for words or sentences, then it will create a bunch of different variations of the same basic article.
Like, {Weight Loss is|Losing Weight is|Shedding Pounds is} good for you.
By the way, if you are looking to just move content from your own site, I don’t really see why you have to spin it. I really doubt Google would be all that punishing of this; and the worse that can happen really is that one of the two pages, not sites, will just lower in rankings.
Don’t quote me on it, but I would say you should be fine. An experiment you could do is to post say 5 of the posts unedited on your new blog, then see if Google picks them up as fast as usual. That might give you an indication.
Good Luck!
Yea I see the Google bots been by a few times, but nothing from the SERPS yet. Yahoo started sending me some traffic already though. I plan on spinning the posts for 2 reasons. All the blog posts point back to my old blog, which I don’t want it to since it leaks out Google Juice. Second my pics that I used are misaligned from the transfer so I have to fix them anyways.
I don’t want either of the sites to be considered a splog since its currently word for word all the same. Google hasn’t been to all the older posts yet, so I still have some time. I’ve just been busy with the real life stuff.
Thanks for the info regarding Jetspinner. Looks like its for PLR articles to send to article directories en mass. Still a good way to build traffic or if you have master resell rights you can spin, and resell.
Jetspinner definitely seems to be for that purpose, although I wouldn’t really recommend using PLR articles for directories.
Article Directories are already jammed full of PLR crap, so if you write your own articles, you will not only be able to spin them easier and better, but the people who do read them may like and republish them, giving you even more links.
I am still totalling p*ssed at Google for selectively searching for blogs that write for PayPerPost and reducing their rank to 0 (me). It makes Google irrelevant but as long as “the big boys” still use it to gauge how traffic we are doomed.
Damn man that sounds really harsh.
Probably has to do with their hunting down of payed links. That’s brutal though. Thanks for the warning, and I really hope you can get back on Google’s good side. I’ll let you know if I hear about anything that can help you out.
I’ve used jetspinner a few times to spin things. I have also just done it by hand.
I have been running an article directory for over 2 years - so I have also seen a lot of stuff come down the pike. You never know which ones will be popular.
You can get that Page rank back pretty easily. You just have to add rel=”no follow” to the posts that you did under the review section once the timer that you agreed to is up. Resubmit to Google via webmaster tools, and you should get your PR back.
The scarier thing about Big G now is that they are not just penalizing people who review, but also mention the company names now as well. I saw Lucia from Big bucks blogger get hit last month, and she made a post about it. (Lucia was the one who made Lucia’s Link Luv wordpress plugin).
I use Content Composer for spin articles. As a copywriter, I have found this to be one of the most effective pieces of “spin” software. It’s not cheap though and will set you back $297. Considering I write around 300 articles per week for my clients, it’s worth the moohlah and has saved me countless hours at the keyboard.
Wow, $297 is insanely expensive for an article spinner! But when you’re writing 300 articles a week, I guess it might be worth it
By the way, I have no experience here, but have you considered Dragon Naturally Speaking to help you with your writing? I hear it’s quite good now, although again I haven’t tried it.
I am really in doubt that you can find a non duplicate content without writing it yourself or hire a free lancer at affordable price….
I can verify that the penalty is real. I was hit by it. The thing is I was only copying my own work. I had a successful site and to get another site I was working on off its feet, I used copied text from the other site to get it off its feet with some SEO before the official launch. Then the penalty slapped me silly. It motivated me to write the content fresh for the new site.(Which I was planning on doing anyway)
@faculty jobs: how long did your penalty last?
I am hit by the same penalty, I’m afraid…
Have to rewrite the whole productfeed in my db…
Hope you’re back in by now..!
Cheers,
Robert
You are right, Tim. Apart from article spinning, the suggestion you gave for avoiding the duplicate content filter is a good one - which is to use the PLR articles outside of your websites. I know lots of people who get good results by the method you suggested. Thanks for sharing. And yes, you are also right about how using synonyms in article spinning only results in crap articles. If one wants to get good results from article spinning, then a great deal of effort is required in the beginning.
Dear Tim,
In your example of the Synonym Replacement paragraph above, you write the following: “Pretty bad eh lol. It would take more work to write a completely unique article than to edit something like that.”
I assume that you meant to say “less work” (at least less time) rather than “more work”, no? It would be a lot easier for me, in any case, to write that paragraph from scratch, having skimmed the original for its gist, than to edit it, but then I am a language freak who generally doesn’t need to plagiarize, though I sometimes write articles on specific topics of which I know nothing, and which writing requires some infosearching which runs the risk of violating PLR.
But even there, I rely on the old-fashioned way of crafting words into sentences, paragraphs, etc., because language is an organic thing, and one can’t just make substitutions based on literal meanings, since in doing so one runs the risk of a clash of meanings on a subliminal level. Prince uses lots of riffs from everyone from the Beatles to James Brown, yet no one would accuse Prince of plagiarizing (well, some may, but I consider him an original artist).
Regards,
Voleur
I guess I’m coming to this party late in the game…
Regarding Dragon Naturally Speaking, I bought version 10 - their least expensive version.
I love it. It’s not perfect, and it even seems tempermental - maybe it’s just my voice changing at different times of day.
Anyway - when I get going with it, I can dictate at about 3 times the speed at which I type - with few errors. And since I’m watching the screen as I speak, I catch most of the errors on the fly.
The trick is to not try too hard to correct errors by dictation. Usually, if it misunderstands you, it will continue to misunderstand you, and sometimes even “training” is to no avail.
But I’m thrilled to own it and highly recommend it.
Regards,
Bal