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Some amateur content workers often think that it’s better just to copy-paste content from other website than to create one from scratch. It’s easier, it takes less time, and it could vastly enrich your site. Yeah, we wish it’s just that simple.

Content duplicating is never a good idea for updating your website. The first consequence is related to search engine result. Search engine bots has explored the internet world further than you can imagine. It counts and index trillions of pages that exist in the entire online world.

Not only indexed, the bots also put pages with same content in one group, and they pick one best page to be displayed to the search engine result. How about the other pages that aren’t picked? They’re not appearing at all. Nobody knows exactly how the algorithm works.

Is it the most relevant, or the one with most page rank that is picked? Either way, it is best to create genuine content rather than just copy paste existing content from other site.

The other bad thing about content duplication is that it is no different to piracy. Good content workers may create content based on research from other existing content, but we always write it with our own style and idea. So duplicating is equal to stealing idea. Bad reputation for the thief, bad reputation for the site.

If you find an interesting content in other site and want to share it with your site visitor, the best thing to do is copy-paste a part of the content to your site, and put a link back to the full article on the original site. Ask visitor to visit that site if they want to read more. It is still acceptable (though isn’t encouraged) to copy paste the whole content to your site as long as you still put a back link to the original site.

The back link is credit to the original content workers. They work hard and smart to create the content. We can’t just claim it’s ours. That’s just unethical. And how about duplicated but translated content?

The same. You may not steal the language but you still steal the idea. It doesn’t make you less a thief.

Image: www.sitepoint.com