The Duplicate Content Filter

Google dislikes presenting multiple search results that contain the same content. Instead, it decides which is the most authoritative original source of that content from all the duplicates it has in its index, and presents just that one. The rest are filtered into the supplementary index – all that extra content you can see when you see something like this at the end of your search results:

In order to show you the most relevant results, we have omitted some entries very similar to the 1 already displayed.
If you like, you can repeat the search with the omitted results included.

An experiment to become the authority

I wanted to test the power of backlinks as an indicator of authority above all else. The outline of the experiment is straightforward:

1. Create a brand new website
2. Fill it with content that already exists on other, more established websites
3. Create back-links pointing to it
4. Do not market the site in any other way

I am not going to link to the site itself here, as I am now isolating it from normal, organic link targets to perform another experiment.

Content for the site was selected from some freely available PLR (Public Label Rights) articles which can be legally reproduced. Such articles are also generally already published elsewhere. In my case, a search for specific chunks of article texts showed most articles had already been published across 6-10 other websites, some new, some quite established.

Getting indexed

Adding a link to the footer of a very healthy blog got the brand new domain added to the Google index within 24 hours.

Building back-links

In addition to the main purpose of this test, I also used it to try out link building service Linkvana. A full review of my experience with Linkvana will be here soon, but in a nutsheell, it provides the ability to create unique backlinks from a plethora of specially managed blogs, but without the potentially damaging drawbacks of usinga link-farm.

Over a period of three weeks I used Linkvana exclusively to create just 15 back-links into the new content, both deep-linking and to the home page.

The outcome

After just a week of link-building, searching for specific chunks of my published PLR text returned my site at the top of the search results, with all the other pages containing the same PLR article, pushed into the supplemental index as duplicate content. This despite all the other sites having the advantage of greater domain age and having already published that content.

The conclusion

Duplicate content is one of the most discussed, and misunderstood, aspects of Google’s search alorhythm, but can be overcome with pure link bulding.

The number of quality links pointing at duplicate content, seems to be the primary metric for assessing that site’s authority. Of course, this assumption must be tempered against any existing authority held by other sites with the same content.

In a nutshell, just to catch you up to speed, PageRank has no direct relationship with how or where your site appears in Google’s search results. But that does not mean it has no value.

A web page temperature guage

PageRank (PR) has a direct association with the number of incoming links to your webpage, and to some extent is also affected by the number of outgoing links from that webpage. Incoming links increase PR, while outgoing “leak” it.

One of the most important factors in gaining search result visibility is the number of incoming links to a page from elsewhere. See the connection? If your PR is increasing, that’s a good indicator of the general health of your site or page. If it is decreasing, get out there and build more links!

Page rank sculpting and the passing of influence

With the number and potency of incoming links as important as they (currently) are, it is easy to see how PR can be considered an indicator of influence and authority. High PR pages “pass on” PR to those pages into which they link. This is easily tested: have several high PR pages point to a low PR page – using your selected keywords in the correct manner, of course – and watch not only that page’s PR increase, but also watch it climb the SERPs. You may not achieve the ultimate goal, but you will see positive movement.

With a large site containing many pages that have their own PR, it is possible to “push” this PR influence to target pages, thus raising thir SERPs visibility purely with internal linking. Internal linking… now is not that a great deal easier than external?

Creating silos, or living in the PR culdesac

PR “leaks” out to pages when you link to them. The rate of leakage is low so there is no fear of completely draining a page’s PR. Controlling the “Flow” of influence within a website is a very potent tool in building higher SERP visibility.

Silo pages take all the incoming PR they can get their grubby little hands on and hold it tight, not letting a single drop seep out particularly outside the site, but also within it. To build the influence and authority of a particular page on your site, have many incoming links to it while reducing its outgoing links to an absolute minimum. If you do need to link out, use the “nofollow” attribute to prevent passing (leaking) the PR influence.

There is some discussion around fears that silo pages may appear to be unnatural entities to a search engine and may be penalised as a result. In experiments with directly managing the PR flow around a site,I have not personally seen this, in fact, very much the opposite.

Do not keep it all in the family

Internal linking to control the PR flow around a site is increasingly important to ensure the pages you want to float higher in the SERPs, do. But it must never be an exclusive linking technique.

Incoming links from elsewhere remain vital, particularly from unconnected sites with highly relevant content – and a big, juicy PR to boot. Such links are hard to acquire, but when combined with strong management or internal linking, may land you within striking distance of the top.