Duplicate content

1. 0

   bobtyndallposted 9 years ago

   I am a little frustrated with the duplicate content thing as it applies to recipes. There are a lot of recipes hubs here. Anyone who is doing a recipe hub is taking a recipe they like and making a hub for it. With the millions of recipes online, you are going to have some problems trying to make it as individual as possible. There is no such thing as an original recipe anymore.
   With all the features built in to hubs, it seems to me that it would be a very simple thing to highlight the text that is considered duplicate.
   
   If they can tell me that my subtitles are not capitalized and I can click a link and it shows me how it should look, why can't they highlight duplicate content.
   
   If they can count images and tell you to the letter how many words you have in your hub as you create it. Why can't they highlight duplicate text???
   
   They have all kinds of neat little tricks they do. Why is highlighting some text so difficult?
   I create the majority of my recipe hubs with the same format. I see my recipes showing up on Google SERP's in the 3rd or 4th position on the first page. I must be doing something right.
   
   Ok, that's my rant.
   
   I know others have the same issues and this has been brought up before

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   1. 93

      lisavollrathposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      I realize your frustration is with not having a HubPages tool to show which content is duplicate. Until there is a tool that does that here, throwing the URL of the problem hub into Copyscape.com will give you exactly what you've requested: a list of places where you content might have been duplicated, which are clickable, and show you exactly which are the areas of duplication.
      
      It's not perfect, but it does get the job done. If the duplication seems scattered, you can always request a manual review, because you're right: recipes do get hit with unwarranted duplicate content warnings pretty often.
      
      I just hope to clarify one thing: when I write recipes. they are original. That is, I'm not "taking" a recipe I like and making a hub for it. I'm going into my kitchen, and creating something from scratch. Yes, someone else may have done something very similar somewhere else, but I'm not following anyone else's method.

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   2. 72

      Matthew Meyerposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      Fundamentally, it is your responsibility to make sure that your content is original.
      It takes resources to scan for duplicate content and it isn't as simple as highlighting it.

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2. 0

   bobtyndallposted 9 years ago

   Thanks for your reply.
   
   I'm not a professionally trained chef. I can put together basic foods from scratch. However, If I want something special I look online.  Very few people can create a decent recipe from scratch. Trying to put together a variety of ingredients in the right proportions isn't simple. That's why you have a multitude of cookbooks and millions of recipes online. The funny thing is, if you do a search for a particular recipe you will find dozens of the same recipe printed in all kinds of places. Duplication doesn't seem to be an issue. These same recipes all show up, one after the other in the SERP.
   
   You say that you may be creating something similar to some one else. That is the key phrase. Similar. If you make an apple pie, you can be sure that someone else has made the same thing. You might change the ingredients around and write your instructions a bit different, but it's still the same pie. And that's the problem with duplication in recipes.
   
   It isn't possible to be completely unique. In my humble opinion

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   1. 93

      lisavollrathposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      I would disagree that an apple pie is an apple pie. My apple pie would be very different than my mother's. She's an omnivore, and I'm an herbivore. We use different ingredients in our crusts. I use organic ingredients, while she wouldn't. Our spices might be slightly different. Our apple selections might be different.
      
      The very essence of cooking well is knowing that those minute differences make or break a recipe. Just because there are 8,220,000 recipes for apple pie online doesn't mean they're all the same.

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      1. 0

         bobtyndallposted 9 years agoin reply to this

         No, but 90% of them would be.

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         1. 93

            lisavollrathposted 9 years agoin reply to this

            If that's what you believe, perhaps we've found the real reason your recipes are being flagged as duplicate content.

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            1. 0

               bobtyndallposted 9 years agoin reply to this

               Lisa, it's all semantics.
               
               An apple pie is an apple pie. At some point in your life you where taught to make an apple pie. Or you saw a recipe you liked. Just because you use organic apples as opposed to non organic or change a spice or two, or have a different pie crust recipe( Which you would have learned some where) Doesn't make it less of an apple pie. It might taste a bit different or the crust might be a little flakier, no matter how you slice it, it's still an apple pie. There is no such thing as an original apple pie. Women and men have been making apple pie for hundreds of years. How could you possibly make a unique one.
               
               And it's the same for almost anything you want to make. People have been there, done that.
               And now that I have totally annoyed you I will leave this subject alone

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               1. 93

                  lisavollrathposted 9 years agoin reply to this

                  Changing a spice or two is the very essence of why my mother's cooking was dreadful, mine is edible, and my friend Regina's earns her a decent living.
                  
                  One of my recipes is my top ranking hub. It isn't original, in that the dish has been made for hundreds of years. It is original in that it has been veganized, and includes recipes for several fillings that aren't traditional. Google has liked it enough to keep it at #1 for quite a while when it was living at Squidoo, and consistently now that it lives here at HubPages.
                  
                  Should I have not written this recipe, simply because there were already non-vegan versions out there, without my filling ideas? Should someone else not write their version because they use different items in the dough, and different fillings?
                  
                  My answer would be that each recipe is different. To say there's only one apple pie recipe, or one veggie burger recipe, or one tamale recipe really doesn't embrace the variety and diversity of all the different ways people make those things.

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3. 73

   relacheposted 9 years ago

   Ingredients lists can't be copyrighted but preparation instructions can be. 
   
   I've written recipe Hubs, but never had dupe content issues because my instructions have always been original and comprehensive. 
   
   Now, whether what you are cooking is original in concept is another issue...

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4. 79

   Lionrhodposted 9 years ago

   I understand how frustrating this can be. With all the billions of recipe sites out there, it can be challenging. After all, how many different ways are there to fry an egg? Probably not too many.
   
   Baking is probably especially challenging, as there are mathematical formulae involved and the wrong proportion of ingredients will cause any recipe to crash and burn. 
   
   I haven't looked at your particular recipes, so nothing I'm saying here pertains to you or your hubs personally. (I might check them out later, since I'm a crazed foodie!)
   
   I also fully agree that it would be helpful if HP could highlight what they consider duplicate content. However it looks like that isn't happening.
   
   At the same time, I think the best way of dealing with it is to make sure that your recipe instructions are built from your own personal notes when building the recipe. (Looking at similar recipes until after you build the hub is probably not a good idea, because you might inadvertently phrase your instructions in a similar manner to a page you've seen.)
   
   Also focus on including "bonus content." For my Beet Green Saute I did some lengthy research on the vitamins and minerals present in Beet Greens, and pulled it together by not only saying what those were, but how they helped you, in my own words.
   
   I'm fortunate that I haven't had the same problem as you (YET).
   
   I do think that adding a different spice or even changing how much of that spice is added to a particular recipe can make a huge difference.
   
   Even though I'm a strong proponent of organic products -- and I feel they taste far better -- I don't think specifying "organic apples" or organic anything else, changes the recipe itself, if everything else is the same. (And again I'm not saying your recipes are otherwise the same as anything else.)
   
   If you specified a particular type of apple, a capsule or two on why you chose that particular apple might help. (LOL of course I don't know, since I'm not in charge of QAP, and I'm pretty darn new here.)

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