What should I do if I want to add a customer testimonal on my blog that I know is used by other sites?
If it is a short testimonial, I see no reason why you will get penalised for dupe content just for that short piece. Go ahead and put it Why do you need to put other testimonials, or fake testimonials though ??? Try something original, only then will your future customers place trust in you
just don't make people angry, it's sensitive issue when whey're putting other, eventhough its from the same product , just put yourself in their shoes..
If the person giving the testimonial knows and is ok with it, go ahead. That's too small for penalties.
Testimonials are usually short so no worries about duplicate content. However, I think a client won't be using one single generic testimonial to all his vendors.
There is no penalty for duplicate content. Google filters duplicate content. Take a look at some joke sites or article sites. Take a joke or an article and run it through copyscrape.com Sites that Google trusts are the sites that the duplicate content will be indexed. I have articles on my web design site - all are duplicate content and all are indexed. Of course duplicate content can cause your page to go into the supplemental index. Iin this example as long as the rest of your page is unique there should be no problem.
how big is the testomonial? People quote people everyday and don't get penalised for it, nor will you! (as long as it's not an Essay )
No - what I am saying is Google does not penalize duplicate content. Some trusted sites may be able to post duplicate content on there site and have it indexed. I am not recommending adding duplicate content. For a better understanding on how Google deals with duplicate content look at sites were it is nearly unavoidable i.e. joke sites. Was looking at some other web designers who have stolen my home page text for there sites. A few have had it indexed. I suppose I should take it as a complement.
I don't think it'll hurt you as long as that testimonial is really for you and the person who did it knew that you'll put it on to your site...
The thing about duplicate content is that if it's useful to your readers then search engines shouldn't be penalizing you. Think about press releases. I think duplicate content as being more like duplicate sites. That's not big, clever, ethical or plain old simple good business practice.
wow thats a great tool. what if I remove all the duplicate content that I found using copyscape from my site, will I rank higher?
The tool's really meant to check whether or not other websites are copying you or some people use it to check whether or not articles that they have purchased are original. Apart from that you shouldn't have any pages on your own website that are duplicates.