Hi all, If you build a webstore or affiliate store...do you use the same description of the products from the manufacturers website or do you re-create the description in your own words? If you build a full store with product descriptions from the manufacturers, will google punish you and kill your chances of good SEO? Thanks
short answer: unique description means you have a good chance to rank well as your product page will receive some weight because of unique content but using the same product description as used anywhere else means you're pretty much out of luck, at least for Google (pretty much, not absolutely because there is much more into SEO and some tricks can totally override uniqueness of content.)
If you just copy product descriptions from elsewhere you may find Google wont even index those pages, let alone rank them.
A unique description always gives you a chance for getting indexed in Google and SE will rank it well also.
Thanks for the replies. What I don't understand is..say I create my own descriptions for polular products on todays market. A few other sites copy my descriptions for their own site...then my rankings go down due to duplicate content. Seems like a lose-lose situation.
Google should detect that these descriptions were first introduced on your site, all you need is to be indexed fast. But yes, it is possible to be filtered out if the site copied your content has good incoming links and reputation. Anyway, 1. Your content not stolen (and written?) yet 2. You have the right to complain about it
My theory on this is that yes you need your own descriptions where possible, however if you have a number of other products on the same page then it is unlikely your content will be the same as another sites.