How to Handle (Important) Duplicate Content on Your Website

Question:
"Is it a problem to use duplicate content from product manufacturers on my site?
Since this copy did not originate with us, and is already on the manufacture's website, 
(as well as many other reseller sites) is Google going to penalize us?"

We get this question often, especially from e-commerce website owners. It's the right
question to ask when you are interested in helping your product pages rank higher.

Last week, Rand Fishkin of MOZ.com posted a set of excellent suggestions on handling duplicate content across multiple URLs on your website.

Allow me to give you a quick summary of what Rand had to say and then a direct link to his outstanding post and video. As always, it's trustworthy content and I think you'll benefit from it.

Here are 3 ways to deal with duplicate content on multiple URL's:

1. Create your own unique content — from scratch.

2. Place the content in an iframe. 

3. Apply your own images, and/or modifications to the copy in order to build something unique

I like Rand's last suggestion the most (and recommend it most often) because it gives you the opportunity to make the copy truly uniquely yours and worthy of higher search engine rankings. 

If all you do is place the manufacturer's copy on your pages - you aren't going to get credit for it because you were not the originator of the copy. It showed up somewhere else first. However, if you begin with the manufacturer's copy and then massage it to make it your own, it becomes valuable, relevant, and unique copy. This is a critical step to helping your individual product pages rank well on Google.

Without further ado, here's the direct link to Rand Fishkin's original post and video:
Handling User-Generated & Manufacturer-Required Duplicate Content
Across Large Numbers of URLs

I hope you find it useful. 

If you do, leave a comment below and tell us how you handle duplicate content on your site.

Here's to valuable higher rankings and increased visibility in 2014!

Kirk