Google Duplicate Content Penalty. True or False?

Summary- Many webmasters and web developers live in fear of the Goggle Duplicate Content Penalty so what’s the truth, and can we publish duplicate content?

What Is Google Duplicate Content Penalty?
What is this? It is the possibility of Google identifying a second or a number of pages that are basically the same, and as a consequence, Google smacks you with a ‘penalty’, which could be banning you/your client from Google for a period of time or for ever! Pretty serious stuff!

But the truth is there is no such thing as a Google Duplicate Content penalty. If you have been thinking there is one, it is likely that you will have read various articles and blogs discussions that like to speculate.
But the only people who can comment are ‘Google’. And they say that there is none! And in Google’s own words “there is no such thing as a duplicate content penalty”
This comes directly from Google’s Webmaster Central Blog.

And people like Matt Cutts, Google’s senior software engineer has also stated this.

We have to remember that Google’s role is to provide a customer with the best and most relevant results for a search, based on the search terms (keywords), that the customer has used in the Google search box.

Google’s Purpose-Delivering Relevant Information

Google’s customers are looking for information, whether researching for a product/service, solve a problem, to purchase a product at the best price, locate a particular company, or get directions to a specific location.
In using Google, everyone starts off by typing a ‘keywords/phrase’ into the search box. Some will use a word like ‘ stairlifts’, whilst others, being more specific, will either add a location, like ‘stairlifts Wakefield’, or a long tail keyword phrase like ‘ find stairlift suppliers in Wakefield’.

If Google finds several pages offering exactly the same content, it will select that which offers the best information required. It may sometimes, list two or three pages that show exactly the same content.

Example of Google Selecting ‘Duplicate Content’

I recently published an article for a client “Maintaining Your Mobility-Choosing the Right Stair lift” across a number of article directories.
When I searched, today, in Google for “Maintaining Your Mobility-Choosing the Right Stair lift” of the five top results, four of them were my article!


So doesn’t this prove that Google does not operate a ‘Duplicate Content Penalty?’

You can check out the full article Google :here

Bob Snowzell writes as an Internet Business Consultant for e-BOB, providing expert advice on social media marketing And search engine optimization