Since Google introduced its Panda algorithm update last year, the search engine mega-giant has rolled out a series of “refreshes” aimed at removing undesirables from their search engine results. One refresh targeted article directories and websites with spammy, low-quality content; another blasted sites with too many ads appearing above the fold, before visitors scrolled down. These rapid-fire changes have resurrected the great duplicate content debate, and many marketers now question whether it’s still a safe practice to host articles that appear on other websites around the Web. Let’s take a look at what Matt Cutts, the head honcho of Google’s Webspam team himself, has to say on the matter.

Since Google introduced its Panda algorithm update last year, the search engine mega-giant has rolled out a series of “refreshes” aimed at removing undesirables from their search engine results. One refresh targeted article directories and websites with spammy, low-quality content; another blasted sites with too many ads appearing above the fold, before visitors scrolled down. These rapid-fire changes have resurrected the great duplicate content debate, and many marketers now question whether it’s still a safe practice to host articles that appear on other websites around the Web. Let’s take a look at what Matt Cutts, the head honcho of Google’s Webspam team himself, has to say on the matter.

Matt Cutts, Webspam extraordinaire, has repeatedly spoken out about the duplicate content issue on his YouTube Webmaster Help platform over the past few years. He has always maintained that most sites that publish duplicate content are not the highest quality sites, and the content that is being duplicated tends to be of equally low quality. Cutts is attempting to say, in the nicest way possible, that duplicate content is web spam, and Google hates it. He clearly points out time and again that one, or at the most, two, versions of a piece of content will be displayed in search results, and Google’s algorithm determines which version is the best fit to be shown. However, he also continuously maintains duplicate content will not penalize an entire site; instead, it will simply cause pages with the content to risk not being indexed.

Matt Cutts, Webspam extraordinaire, has repeatedly spoken out about the duplicate content issue on his YouTube Webmaster Help platform over the past few years. He has always maintained that most sites that publish duplicate content are not the highest quality sites, and the content that is being duplicated tends to be of equally low quality. Cutts is attempting to say, in the nicest way possible, that duplicate content is web spam, and Google hates it. He clearly points out time and again that one, or at the most, two, versions of a piece of content will be displayed in search results, and Google’s algorithm determines which version is the best fit to be shown. However, he also continuously maintains duplicate content will not penalize an entire site; instead, it will simply cause pages with the content to risk not being indexed.

The concern about duplicate content really boils down to how you want your site to perform online. If you’re concerned about your site’s ranking in search results, you owe it to yourself to routinely monitor the Web for duplicates of content for which you’re ranking. If you spot a version of your original content floating around on some random site, then you should immediately serve the site owner a Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) notice to have the stolen content removed from the offending site.

The concern about duplicate content really boils down to how you want your site to perform online. If you’re concerned about your site’s ranking in search results, you owe it to yourself to routinely monitor the Web for duplicates of content for which you’re ranking. If you spot a version of your original content floating around on some random site, then you should immediately serve the site owner a Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) notice to have the stolen content removed from the offending site.

Rand Fishkin explained in a recent SEOmoz video that a link back to your site is the key to making sure your version is the one that makes it into the index. Other factors play a role as well, such as the authority of the sites on which your article appears and the number of incoming links each site hosting your article has as well. However, the links that you place in the article that point back to your site are what will override all the other considerations and cause your version to win every time.

Rand Fishkin explained in a recent SEOmoz video that a link back to your site is the key to making sure your version is the one that makes it into the index. Other factors play a role as well, such as the authority of the sites on which your article appears and the number of incoming links each site hosting your article has as well. However, the links that you place in the article that point back to your site are what will override all the other considerations and cause your version to win every time.