Is Duplication a Problem?

In two words? Yes and No.
However, it's not as much of an issue as some people make it out to be.

When Is Duplication a Bad Thing?
Despite popular belief, not all duplication is bad. But when it is bad, it's really bad! For example, if you take someone else's work, like an article, and stick your name on it, submit it as is to all the article directories, you're just looking for a whole lot of time wasted (not to mention a lawsuit).

The search engines won't even consider your submissions as valid because the original author would have already posted the article somewhere long before you did. And all anyone has to do to discover your “dark secret” is do a search for the article title to find out that you aren't the original author, which will kill your credibility and level you to being the equivalent of a thief and a poacher.

Obviously then, things like using PLR articles or any type of “other peoples' work” could be a dangerous employment if you're not careful and know what you're doing.

But it goes deeper than that!

Not only do Google and the other search engines determine that articles are duplicate based on the same wording, they'll also deem them duplicate, even when it has moderated text, but has the same general information.

For example . . .

Not only do the search engines determine that articles are the same based on identical words, they'll also deem them the same, even when it has different text, but has the same general ideas. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that the above two paragraphs say the same thing, only a little differently. And with the right algorithms, you could easily render an entire article as duplicate information without very much effort. Right, Google? After all, an article takes a reader from point A to point B, or a logical conclusion to an issue or problem, right?

Well how many variations to the logical steps can there be? And if you're not going to base “your” article on the same logical steps, then why not just write an entirely new article yourself and save all that aggravation?

So much for article spinners. The point to remember in all of this is the objective.
1. You want to build credibility in your work as an expert
2. You want to create link popularity
3. You want to have source information on the search engines at all times for your relevant keywords.

Do you now believe you can accomplish this objective by using other peoples' work? So perhaps we can safely say now that duplication is a bad thing, when you try to fool everyone, including the search engines, that you know what you're talking about when you can't even use your own words to say it.

And in all actuality, if you use PLR articles or other forms of duplicate information that isn't yours, then you'd have to change it pretty dramatically before it'll do you any good. Just changing the title and a few words isn't gonna cut it!

Ok, so that's the bad news about duplication.

The good news is, that's pretty much the only way duplication will hurt you! Oh we know that a lot of people will disagree with this. They'll say, “if you submit too many of the same article you'll lose backlinks and the search engines will view you as a spammer. You have to change them, or at least the anchor text in the bio box to keep them from being seen as duplicate.”

They may also say, “you don't want to submit your article to too many article directories at once because the search engines will see that as an artificial “loading” of your information and scrap the whole thing as spam.”
They'll tell you that Google will penalize you for having too many of the same article. And that you might even get your sites banned from their listing. Well if this is so, could someone please dispute the answers to the following questions?


The Duplication Dupe
If duplication is such a serious problem, then why do the article directories climb in the Page Rankings at such a phenomenal rate? It's not hard to find article directories that start out brand new one month, and end up at a PR3 or PR4 the next. In fact, over the past month or two, we're seeing article directories reaching PR8 which puts them on the same level of importance as MSN.com and other major Internet players.

But when you think about it, at least 95% of all the articles posted in an article directory's index can also be found on hundreds of other directories. After all, people generally submit to more than one directory at a time, right? So statistically speaking, these directories are really nothing more than duplicate information. And yet they are the fastest climbers on the web!

Shouldn I change my article for every place I submit it to, to avoid duplication?
Well why do you submit articles in the first place?
Isn't it so others will see it and think, “wow, great info! I think I'll put this on my site!”
But if they do that, doesn't that cause a duplication?
So if duplication is such a big problem, then by the very act of submitting articles, aren't you shooting yourself in the foot?
And if you submit multiple variations of the same article, wouldn't that compound the problem?

But then there's the real reason why we submit articles.

Link popularity!
You see, every time someone goes to an article directory and grabs your article for their site, they're, in effect, casting a vote that says you're article is worthy to be duplicated to provide information for their visitors. The more people who do this, the more popular your article proves to be.

So the problem may not be so much about duplication, but it might very well be just another confusing of the issue so that people can make money telling you that it is a problem.