From 99% ‘duplicate content’ to 15 editors and back to ‘duplicate content’

By Martijn Scheijbeler Published August 3, 2017

Duplicate content is (according to questions from new SEOs and people in online marketing) still one of the biggest issues in Search Engine Optimization. I’ve got news for you, it for sure isn’t as there are plenty of other issues. But somehow it still always comes up to the surface when talking about SEO. As I’ve been on both sides of the equation, having worked for comparison sites and a publisher I want to reflect on both angles. Why I think it’s really important that you see both sides of the picture when looking into why sites could have duplicate content and if they do it on purpose or not.

When I started in SEO about 1211 years ago I worked for a company who would list courses from all around the globe on their website (Springest.com, let’s give them some credit), making it possible for people to compare them. By doing this we were able to create a really useful overview of training courses on the subject of SEO for example. One downside of this was that basically none of the content we had on our site was unique. Training courses are often a very strict program and in certain cases are regulated by the government of institutions to provide the right qualification to attendees. Making it impossible to change any of the descriptions on contents, books or requirements as they were provided by the institutions (read: copy pasted)

Having worked at the complete other side with The Next Web where I had the privilege of working with 10-15 full-time editors all around the globe who write unique, fresh and (news) content on a daily basis. Backed up by dozens of people willing to write for TNW where are presented with the opportunity to chose what kind of posts we publish. It made some things easier, but even at TNW we ran into content issues. The tone of voice over time devalues/changes as editors come and go. But also when you publish more content from guest authors it’s hard to maintain the right balance.

These days I’m ‘back’ with duplicated content, working at Postmates where we work on on-demand delivery. Now it makes it easier to deal with the duplicate content that we technically have from all of the restaurants (it’s published on their own site and on some competitors). But with previous experience it’s way easier to come up with so many more ideas based on the (duplicate) content that you already have. It also made me realize that most of the time you’re always working with something that is duplicate, either it be the product info you have in ecommerce, the industry that you operate in. It’s all about the way you slice and dice it to make it more unique.

In the end, search engine optimization is all about content. Either duplicated or not. We all want to make the best of it and there is always a way to provide a unique angle. Although the angle of the businesses and the way of doing SEO for them is completely different there are certain skills required that I think could provide you with a benefit over a lot of people when you’ve worked with both.