Hi, I'm new here, so hello to you all! I have been reading the site for a while and have found it VERY useful! I have a question though. When building back links by submitting articles, does it matter if the content you are submitting is already on your site? For instance, I have submitted articles to various directories that are almost a direct copy of content that I have written myself and is present on pages of my sites. The submitted articles always link back to the original page as I think I remember reading somewhere that this would let google know who originally wrote the article. Is this thinking right? Does the weight of new in links outweigh the duplicate content? or should I really be thinking of re-wording the content on my sites! Cheers! James
Most of directories dont approve the duplicate content - for submit to good directories you need to have unique content to be submitted... hope this helps...
Hmm, Well I have not had an article rejected as of yet.. but i will certainly bear this in mind in the future! even if this was not an issue, would the article "authority" be passed back by the directory linking back to me?
It is always advisable to submit unique articles to different directories because there are some that do not allow duplicate content. Even if you were able to submit duplicate contents, only one source will be given credit by search engines.
This is why I always included a link back to the original article, as I was under the impression that the back link would pass the authority to my article.
Unique content is always best option. Anyway, it seems somehow Google is able to find the original content . I used to write original content in my blog, and submit the same content in many places with link back to my blog post. Always, Google gives high rank for my blog content even when I have submitted it in famous sites (including Google's knol). Only thing is, I used to start submit it only after 2 or 3 days from the blog post publish date. So, I think we need not worry much about submitting the duplicate content. i-e Submitting the duplicate content is better than NOT submitting it. I am just telling it from my personal experience. I am not sure whether it is applicable for everyone.
Avoid duplicacy james. Its not necessary you link back to original article. In fact try to bring some variations with in your article and use synonyms so it don't appear to be duplicate. You can always take a content writer's help if you want.