Duplicate content is a disaster in SEO as duplicate content is section of your content is same or similar to website others or importantly your website. When we write something we always write few words same or similar but here is a catch duplicate content focused in same manner for example I write for Websites and SEO and I published the content at our website. Then at later day I found something I missed in the content so I rewrite or edit the page and published again.
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Now we have two links of the same content though we not intended to write the duplicate but now days CMS uses technology to publish page URL differently in web so I have link :-
www.websitesandseo.org/post2/sample1
www.webistesandseo.org/post2/sample1edit
Both have same content but different URL how google, bing, other search engines will distinguish the two it results in lower ranking of your page search engines.
There are few example of various duplicate content as in forums uses thread mechanism, to gain more traffic (bad technique), printer only version.
Duplicate content can harm your trust on the visitor as well if he finds two three website with identical page hence will not sure which to follow.
- Ranking will drop as search engine will not allow lower rank page to display on first search result page.
- Visitor count will not increase as everyone wants a new thing to discover.
- Discussion if forums will be less viable leading to closure of the discussion in few days.
- Social media also effected like Twitter if follower sees the same content again and again so their counts drop.
- Authorship becomes one point in down.
- Lastly Someone searched for any query and your website search result displays two version of same page creating a confusion in the mind of the person which to click making visitor not to visit a site again.
