Duplicate content and its effect on search rankings
The search engines want to deliver the best results to their users; and hence it is required that each result needs to be unique and useful. If some
of the results contain the same information then that lessens their value. For example, if a company has two sites containing the same content then even if
it is the best content around for a particular Search Term ,the search engines don't want to display both copies - they will attempt to establish which is
the original and will list that one and drop the other.
Consider a similar situation where a .com version of a name and a .co.uk or a .uk.com, all point to the same server and there is no redirection taking
place then they are likely to be seen as separate sites with identical content. In this case, you can either rent more server space for the other domains
and again have separate content or choose which is to be the main domain. Then apply a Redirect which tells any browser or search spider which requests a
file from the subsidiary domains to get it from the main one. Thus only one domain name will be seen by the search engines but the value of any existing
links pointing to the others will be maintained.
It is important to employ the correct type of redirect. Some Hosting companies offer different types of redirect built-in but these are often of an
undesirable type. For instance a framed redirect simply loads one address within a frame in another address. Another type of redirect results in a server
response called a 302 temporary redirect. Search engines generally don't like these and if they appear on an address for longer than a few weeks then they
are likely to be treated with suspicion. The correct response to set up is a 301 permanent redirect which can be done using an htaccess file on an Apache
server. It used to be more of a problem setting up a 301 on an IIS server but the more recent versions should provide this via their control panel.
If you find that someone has copied your content then if they are within your legal area you are fully entitled to pursue them and request that
they remove the content or face legal proceedings. Whether the existence of stolen content affects your search ranking depends largely on who the search
engines believe was the original creator. Search for a section of text (about 15 words ) inside quotation marks. If your copy appears first in the results
then there is no need worry about your ranking.
Lastly, if you syndicate any of your content then make it sure that your version is being spidered first before you release it, otherwise it may
appear that other sites had it first.