Does Google Have A Duplicate Content Penalty?

There is still some confusion about Google’s duplicate content penalty. The truth is there is no such penalty. Google’s policy states that it will index the first instance of specific content on the web, but not the same content at multiple websites. What that means is if you submit your article to 100 article directories then Google will pick one of those directories as the original content location and not index all 99 instances of the same article.

Google says it will index the first publication of the same content, but that isn’t exactly accurate either. If you submit your article to 100 directories on the same day at the same time through a mass submission process then Google may make a good faith effort to find the original, or first published, article but its robot will not be able to discern small time nuances in the submittal process. It is likely that Google will give favor to the article directories that it considers higher authority websites, but that’s just my opinion. Still, Google’s policy is to index one instance of a particular content and to discount all the others. That’s different than imposing a penalty.

Even then, if that article is held in 100 different directories, you stand a much better chance of having it picked up by other publishers than you do if you list it in only one directory. Plus, other search engines may list each article that it finds online regardless of whether or not it exists on a separate website so submitting your articles to multiple directories is always a wise choice.