This article was originally published on my blog a number of months ago, and was written specific to article marketing but I feel it is especially relevant to the way I have seen people syndicating content here on Gooruze.

Articles Are Seeds of Knowledge - A Biblical Look at Duplicate Content

It is Sunday although I am not a very religious person, thus I was, horror of horrors, outside shovelling snow around. It was drifting, and if I hadn't done anything with it, it might have blocked the driveway for my wife Monday morning.

Does your mind wander when you are doing a physical job that doesn't require much other thought? Mine certainly does.

Duplicate Content of Biblical Proportions

I have been doing some research of "Top 10 Lists" for a new site. Whilst no list of the top 10 best selling books is exactly the same, there is one common feature. Every single top 10 list states that The Bible in all its variations has sold more than 6 billion copies.
That is close to the current world population, estimated by the CIA to be 6,525,170,264 (July 2006 est.)
Thus there are probably as many bibles in the world as people

That is an awful lot of duplicate content

Gideons

Gideons is an interesting organisation, whose work is evangelism and distribution of the bible. You will see Gideons bibles in every hotel room, and I was given a Gideons bible whilst at school in addition to a larger bible I was issued for Religious Education lessons.

With the help of the Gideons organisation, whenever you need a bible, there is one close at hand.

Spread the Word

This is a fundamental concept in all religion, not just Christian. It is not enough to have the knowledge and faith, you are also meant to pass it onto other people. Lots of the time the knowledge will fall on deaf ears. If the knowledge is out there, and easy to find even without specifically looking for it, such as in a hotel room drawer, it has a benefit.

Worthwhile Duplicate Content

I am sure many of those 6 billion bibles are in dusty attics, unused drawers, or buried at the back on shelves, long forgotten. Every now and then one copy gets rediscovered, unearthed or brought out of hiding.

The Bible and Duplicate Content

A church is not the only place you can find a copy of the bible. I am sure many religious people read more of the bible while in church than the cumulative total of all other places, but that doesn't make it pointless to have multiple copies in your home, school, library and even hotel rooms. All those copies of the bible are seeds, and every now and then one of those seeds gets picked up and begins to germinate, wherever the seed is located.

Your Articles and Duplicate Content

I recently wrote a mammoth blog post on my philosophy with article marketing. Many marketing experts believe that article marketing no longer works, or you should be highly selective where you publish your content.

I mentioned a strategy, that as long as you link back to the original source for your content that people can follow, it makes sense to spread your article as widely as possible.
I don't discount special publishing deals that will bring your article to the forefront of thousands of people, but that opportunity is often reserved for established writers.

Articles Are Seeds of Knowledge

Spread your articles far and wide. Sometimes they will land in fertile soil, and germinate and grow almost immediately. Whilst I wouldn't dare liken EzineArticles to a church, it certainly is very fertile ground for your seeds to grow.

Some of your articles will almost certainly end up landing on less fertile ground, or buried deep in a website long forgotten. It is a seed that hasn't germinated yet, but one day it might be uncovered and grow into a tree bearing fruit.

Sometimes your article may end up on even more unsavoury territory, with a link to you not being provided, or even worse plagiarised. It will happen, such is the nature of people. If the purpose of your article was to help people more than market yourself, then it really doesn't matter if occasionally the link to you is broken. A person reading your article is still going to look for further knowledge on the subject, and eventually find their way to respected sources of information, such as yourself, just as someone picking up a Gideon's bible might eventually find their way to a church.

If you don't sow your seeds, they don't have a chance to grow


I decided to introduce this article here on Gooruze for one specific reason... Duplicate Content

You see, that is a link back to where this article was originally posted on my blog, and this article probably appears on 500 other blogs and article directories, all with a link back to the original, on my blog.

I am now wrapping this article with some additional unique content but ultimately Google, because of the link back to the original will know which piece of content is the original work. Sometimes the Google algorithm makes mistakes, and it does take some time to work on its link attribution, but most of the time it gets it right, as long as you help it.

I have seen Gooruze members take articles from their blogs and post them in full here on Gooruze, without any link back to their original work. If your website or blog doesn't have a lot of authority gained from lots of incoming links, this could result in reduced search engine results not just for that particular article, but for your site as a whole.