Mueller: Copied Content Could Outrank Original Source Due To Poor Site Quality
- 19 March, 2021
- Jason Ferry
- SEO Company
The best SEO companies create original content for business websites, boosting their authority and relevance in the search engine results pages (SERPs). However, Google’s John Mueller told SEO companies that there could be a site quality issue if copied articles consistently rank above their original content.
Mueller discussed the topic during one of their Google Search Central SEO episodes. Mohammad Mehdi Abbas, a site owner, told Mueller that his original content was being copied and republished by other sites. The stolen content is currently ranking about his own.
He then sought advice from Mueller about protecting his website from such issues and preventing copied content from ranking higher than his original articles. Mueller replied, saying that there could be a problem with site quality if the situation keeps on happening.
Mueller advised site owners to look into the DMCA takedown process if they notice that their content is being stolen and reposted on other sites. This allows website owners to report stolen content on a per-page basis. If there is sufficient proof that other sites copied content without permission, Google can remove the offending page from the SERPs.
However, Mueller declined to give legal advice on DMCA process, particularly regarding when and how it should be used. He admitted that he does not know the legal process in detail, but he reassures businesses and webmasters that their legal team or systems will review their requests and take action on it.
And to be fair to the other party, Google will also let them know about the situation to determine whether they are the original source or the offending side. If it was proven that the complaining party was the one who copied the content, Google will find a different resolution for that.
Although the DMCA process is one way to solve the issue of copied content ranking higher than the original source, it will still not solve the problem of stealing articles. If a website consistently loses to a copied content despite being the original source, Mueller said that it could be due to a site quality issue. He suggested that SEOs and webmasters should reassess their overall site quality.
It could be that Google’s algorithms are having trouble perceiving a website’s quality overall. Mueller said that their systems determine a site’s credibility based on its overall quality. Therefore, if a random site that copies content ranks higher than the original source, it implies that their site is of higher quality. Mueller suggested that SEOs take a step back from the content copy issues and think about strategies to improve their overall website quality.
It has always been a difficult task to determine the status of a website in terms of quality because there is no tool that specifically calculates this factor. However, businesses and webmasters do not need to use a tool if copied content consistently ranks higher than the original site – this clearly implies that they need to improve their website’s quality.
Hiring an experienced SEO company is crucial to improve not only the quality of a website but its content as well. Professional SEO agencies are usually well-rounded in manpower and expertise, and they consist of content creators, fully trained SEOs, social media marketers, and many more.
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