Google Adsense and Duplicate Content – Some Doubts
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"How to make money from Google Adsense" seems to be the concern of everyone who has got some writing skills today! There are countless articles of free advice floating in the web-world on how to maximize your income from Google Adsense, tips and tricks on SEO, hot key words, most paying Adword key words, key word optimization techniques and so on.
Many websites that invite authors to write web content, publish context sensitive ads from Google Adsense Program and share the “ad-click-revenue” in some proportion with the authors. Some such sites want only original, unpublished contents. On the other hand, there are also web sites that do not insist on original content but accept articles from authors previously published elsewhere (even in other web sites) provided the author is the copy right owner and the content is not plagiarized.
It is widely stated that Google’s ranking system for articles look for duplicate contents and under-rate such articles in the ranks if they are found published in more than one site.
Hubpages too “prefers” original content, though the articles are accepted on non-exclusive basis. Hubpages advises authors not to do minimal rewriting of their previously published articles and publish it into the site and also does not “prefer” posting the same article in some other site after publishing it in Hubpages.
Each site, in a similar way, has got its own terms and conditions about the unpublished or non-exclusive content. Suite101, for example wants original content only (not published in electronic form anywhere) but the author is free to post the content at any other place, after a period of 1 year.
If original content is so important, how is that a site like Helium can survive successfully and also be willing to pay upfront payment to even “non-exclusive content” that are published elsewhere? In Helium, you are free to post your previously published article there, provided the other site where you have published it originally has not regulations governing the republishing of the articles anywhere else.
I have been writing in many sites including Helium.com, AssociatedContent.com, suite101, howtodothings.com etc. What I write in Helium is mostly original articles, but about 10 to 15% of the articles I post there are also previously published ones. But whatever I post in Associatedcontent.com are 100% previously published articles only, under their “performance payment only” category. Incidentally, as I write from India, I am not eligible for getting upfront payments from Associatedcontent and hence I am not posting any exclusive content there.
Though I cannot claim that my articles are too great to get thousands and thousands of readers, they do, depending on the title, get read and I am getting my page view pennies from these sites. What I am trying to point out here is that my duplicate contents do get read in both sites (Helium and Associatedcontent) and I do earn my pennies from both the sites.
I have also observed an interesting phenomenon. Some of my articles get almost similar viewership on both sites. Some of my (same) articles are getting much more page views in Associatedcontent than in Helium. The converse is also true in some stray cases.
It leads me to wonder and theorize a few things about Google.
Nothing can be totally perfect
With billions and billions of articles and readable material in the internet with a dose of plagiarism too notwithstanding, I am afraid the capabilities of Google search engine to intelligently rank articles based on duplicity seems to be be rather exaggerated. Since Google shares very little proprietary information about their SEO technology, “spiders” cockroaches and lizards(!), I suspect people come out with lots of theories about the “imagined capabilities” of the Google search engine, what it does and what it does not.
I am afraid, the sheer mind blogging quantity of material lying in Internet and the exponential proportion in which the data keeps expanding can make any reportedly efficient system to turn inefficient.
Hence I personally believe duplicate contents may not make a very deep dent into getting readership to your articles. Perhaps some sites are more efficient and reputed than others to get you more traffic, but it need not necessarily mean that your traffic to another site will be drastically affected on account of it.
If it were not so, I wonder how Helium can afford to pay upfront payment to non-exclusive articles. The matter does not end there. Helium has another peculiarity. It gives a title for writing and if many authors are fancied by it, you will find hundreds of articles written by as many authors under the same title! All these authors are paid upfront for the articles, which cover the same subject! Think of it.
The question about key words and context sensitive ads too
In addition to "original content", people are driven mad about the relevance of key words in your article too. It is emphasized by one and all that the more your key words are optimized towards high yielding ads, the better are your chances of earning through Google adsense program. Does it mean that Google ads will always be optimized the best for your key words? Won't you get ads that are way off the mark to the context?
This seems to be another myth. In the site Suite101, there have been lots of discussions about this subject. Several writers in the site have been complaining that the ads they get in their articles that they write painstakingly after doing research about key words, are frequently fount totally off tangent to the subject or keywords in the articles.
I am afraid people are identifying Google adsense program similar to five blindmen identifying an elephant!
If you have any opinions, kindly share through your comments.
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Comments
Thanks Marisa. I learnt something new about popularity of web site vs getting more page views. This explains why some of my articles not doing well in Helium are getting much more page views in AC. From Alexa.com I came to know that AC is far more popular than any other content websites.
I am also a AC/helium author.
Some people say it does not make a difference on duplicates and other time they say it does. Google may be funny on what they rank over the other.
Marisa Wright is incorrect. Google knows precisely what material is the original. It's a matter of looking at the date - and not the publicly displayed date, but the date that's embedded within the page's code.
And Mr. Rajan's basic assumption is deeply flawed. Good SEO is not based on theory; it's based on studies and research. It's not difficult to do a few experiments and gather data to determine what strategies work.
I've just started to write and I am absolute amazed about informations I pick-up. Thank you all. I am learning and learning and love it.
It's all rather mind-boggling, isn't it? Duplicate or not? Keyworded or not? And the great Google god smiles mysteriously and strides on!
Very interesting article.
There are a couple of things you may want to consider in your analysis.
First, the duplicate content penalty is not "unconfirmed." Matt Cutts all but confirmed it in his blog postings, one of which is here: http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/duplicate-content-qu
Second, keep in mind that this is a "penalty" similar to a deduction of points in a judged sporting event. It is still possible to win, even if you get penalized for stepping out of bounds, for example. Sites like Helium, Associated Content, and HubPages are all based around the idea that being big enough and having enough content will reap its own rewards. Obviously there are different strategies on how to use the huge size advantage.
Third, regarding the capability of detecting duplicate content, I'm not sure how it works, but I know it can't be that hard. There are a dozen plagiarism detection sites that can quickly and easily find duplicates. Every one of them is much smaller and has less networking and computing power than the Google data centers.
That being said, I have recently begun thinking along similar lines as you, wondering if some of what Google publicly and repeatedly flogs as "banned" or "penalized" may be neither, and that the way Google prevents those things from ruining its indexes and rankings is by scaring people into believing they are true.
Thank you for your insight, particularly in how your page views look at those sites. I've considered re-posting some of my "old stuff" from time to time where originality is not required as a way of leveraging my writings, but have never taken the time to investigate how that might work out.
I've just started using these big anyone can write anything sites as a way to punch out some extra content, so it's nice to get a head start on some of the mechanics.
I've just published 3 hubs, but so far, so good. You can check out my first hub at: http://hubpages.com/hub/AP-Style-Writing-What-Is-I
Interesting hub CV. My same articles on AC do much, much better than on helium. I do very little on the site (23 articles) and will soon hit 100,000 views. Still, I like Hubpages better than either AC or the infamous Helium site.
Randy,
I don't know when you started writing at AC, but 100,000 views on 23 articles is a very impressive figure. That means your articles are well researched and written on popular subjects. (Mine is almost half of it only, with 90+ (all duplicate) articles there. According to Alexa.com, I think AC gets more than twice the number of visitors to the site when compared to Helium.
Excellent information!
Hi Rajan,
This hub is selected for Hubbers India as a quality hub.
Congratulations!
Jyoti Kothari
If duplication is such a problem why are sites like Ezine Articles so highly rated when their primary business is publishing articles that anyone can take and publish as long as they don't change anything, including the original resource box of the author. In other words you can duplicate the article as many times as you like, providing you don't change it in any way, and use it as part of the information you provide on your website/blog.
This is a hugely popular way for authors getting back links to their websites or blogs. Sort of contradicts the duplication theory. Of course when this is done to a large extent i.e. the article is reproduced in its original form on many different websites, it isn't plagiarism it is actually referring to highly valued original content whilst giving the proper credit to the original author.
Much can be said of the use of YouTube videos and there are plenty of other examples, it is normal Internet business.
Hmmm...well, CV, you've given me someting to ponder. Now my head hurts! Great hub!
Hello sir,have you created google adsense account via hubpages?.Shall i also create?i want your answer sir.
Hi Xavier,
You can start Google adsense account either from Hubpages or directly. As for me, I opened the account long before I started writing in Hubpages.
CVR
Thank you sir.I have created six hubs.Shall i apply for it?
Xavier,
Yes. Very much. With that account no., you can earn from any other site that shares adsense revenue with you. You can create your own blogs (like in google blogger) and set up your google ads. You can also joint howtodothings.com and write "how to" articles there. They will share 50% ad click revenue with you.
Another excellent hub. I have gotten penalized by Google for duplicate content before, so I try to publish new stuff whenever possible. Also helps me keep my web presence updated and ensures I don't get lazy!
Marisa Wright says:
6 months ago
Hi CV. You are not the only one who questions whether duplicate content really matters. However, there are many "internet gurus" who will tell you it matters very much. Google will not confirm or deny, but personally I respect the views of internet experts whose information has proved valuable in other respects.
It is very easy for Google to tell if something is duplicated - there is plenty of software that will find duplicated content automatically in seconds.
One thing which is often misunderstood, is that Google does not always choose the right article to penalise. For instance, say you published an article on our own website, which has a low page rank on Google. Later, you published the same article on Helium, which has a high page rank. Google is quite likely to give preference to the Helium version, because that site has a better "reputation" in their eyes. I think that is why Helium doesn't mind accepting previously published articles.