Does google index sites like scribd?

Hey guys.

I read somewhere that it could be smart to also post your article on sites like scribd and docstoc for extra traffic. However I thought this would be duplicate content so not really smart to do. Than I read somewhere that google can't read the uploaded documents on those sites but just the describtion like youtube. Is this true? Because than I think i should post my articles there also.

 

What Google cares about is if you are trying to get backlinks just by posting articles, they frown upon this. Most article sites today are using nofollow links exclusively so there isn't the backlink problem. Scripd just indexes the description, not the article, so it should cause you no problems with duplicate content. The same as the Look Inside feature over on Amazon, that won't be counted as duplicate content by Google. Regular article sites though like Ezine can cause duplicate content problems, but that also is only a problem if you also put that same article on your site.
My suggestion, articles still work well for exposure and for getting traffic. Just don't put the same article on your site and make sure that the article site uses nofollow links. And don't forget, Google is only one of the search engines out there, Bing couldn't care less about duplicate content.

 

Scribd ranks well in Google and has for a long time

Google is weird, that I can tell, a lot of dupe content sites rank as well, other factors make them rank, so the story with dupe content is pretty much a story now that is shared on forum, just my two cents.

 

@George Peirson do you think there's a preferential treatment for some major online news outlets? Seems like they post and repost the same regurgitated news, yet still rank well. I mean, an average Joe can't post two identical articles in fear of being demoted, yet dozens of well-known news outlets do exactly the same - and it's fine.

 

I wouldn't say flat out that there is preferential treatment of news outlets (although it looks like it). What I will say is that news outlets are seen as major authority sites and major authority sites are pushed higher in the listings. From what I have read the current Google algorithm kind of works on a point system, if you get lots of positive points for having lots of the content that Google likes it pushes you way into the green on Google's scale. So for news sites who will naturally be way into the green they can afford some negative points with little to no damage. But for smaller sites that don't have the huge amount of positive points just a few negative points will push them towards the red end of the scale and it will impact their ranking.

Google loves fresh informational content and lots of it, that is exactly what news sites provide. That is also why news sites can have their sites covered with loads of marketing with little effect to their rankings. The trick now a days is to either spend a lot of time constantly putting up new fresh content on your site, or do what Google really wants you to do, buy AdWords. All of these algorithm changes are really designed to do just one thing (no matter what Google says), push advertisers into AdWords.

I have only seen two loopholes in the current Google system, one is to make your site look like an informational site to Google (lots of fresh, original content), the other is to go for the really long tail keywords where the Google algorithm has little effect. Or, do what I do, put your attention into Bing and social media.

 

Appreciate your insights. I am in the same boat. I mainly do AdWords, Bing and a ton of social media (mostly Twitter & G+).

 

Hi quckad, with social media I am currently having the most success using a combined approach involving YouTube, Pinterest, and Twitter. Even though I have the most followers on Twitter I am seeing more activity from my followers on Pinterest, they seem to be more motivated to share my content.

 

I see many internet marketers using doc sharing sites, ex: slideshare, docstoc, scribd to rank very tough keywords, GG love these high authority website, but pay attention to the TOS as the admin would remove the content without any notification.

 

Absolutely! We own a press release biz that makes it a point to add the news releases to the top tier sites like Docstoc, issuu and Slideshare