Hi David, Google doesn’t like duplicate content. So you’re right about curated content.

If you want to use other peoples content it would be a better strategy to create a few paragraphs briefly explaining the topic (in your own words) and then link to the original authors content that offers the full details.

This does 3 things…

1. Helps other authors
2. Keeps you from writing 400 words
3. Won’t be penalized for duplicate content

Hope this helps!

@glenandrews   That makes sense to me.   The video I provided a link to suggested setting up another install and creating a subdomain.   Not sure what to think.  

Let me give another perspective on this. I think Google has finally come around to reflecting reality a bit more. Instead of being the long-tail that wagged the dog… with “seo” experts feeding the dog bits of its own tail…yuck!… to understanding and rewarding sites that attract readers and viewers on its own merit, not because of something that Google has done.

And that makes it important to IGNORE Google and work to create your OWN traffic that does NOT come from a search engine. The term “seo” as it used to be used is now dead. Optimization is key, NOT search engine optimization. To me, if your stats show you’re getting more than 20% of your readers/viewers from search engines, you’re putting your business at risk. My goal is to get less than 10% from search.

Looking back over the last 10 years, I see we lost our best and brightest newspapers to Google’s search engine optimization fiasco. The ones that have survived, made their own path and created their own audiences and created their own income streams regardless of Google. Those are good examples to follow.

And as far as duplicate content is concerned, do NOT worry about that. The Drudge Report is a prime example of how to break ALL the popular rules and still RULE the internet. All it is is duplicate content with over 100 links on every page. According to popular seo “rules”… that’s a sure sign of failure. But in reality, that’s a 100% road to success… IF you know your audience and know what they want, will be intrigued by, interested in, etc… Just pick your audience well, give them what they want or what you KNOW they’ll click on… and you’ll be fine.

“Time on site” and “number of pages viewed by unique viewers” is a much better indicator to target and maximize than any other right now. What does your reader/viewer want to read or see… and… how many pages of that stuff can I fill to keep my hungry viewers/readers happily reading and viewing it on MY site?

SEO or “search engine” optimization can NOT answer those questions nor provide your readers/viewers with what they want. YOU must go look for THEM and bring them back to your site. No search engine will do that for you… until AFTER that search engine has discovered that the best party for your target readers/viewers is happening on YOUR site.

Chris Munch ((MunchWeb) has a knack for luring people to his sites without the search engines. His techniques and insights are always good to follow.

Just my thoughts…

Robin Carlisle

@dwillden David, don’t forget that YouTube is also just a search engine, too. In that regard, I’m putting a LOT of my eggs in their basket… which makes me kind of leery. Still, there is NO search engine like it that can boost your ratings and rankings and website traffic within hours… yes, within hours. Tame that beast, go back and add a video to every post you’ve ever written on your site, grab as many creative commons videos in your niche as you can and add a simple company name and website address intro and outro to it, and you will begin to see a HUGE change in your Alexa rankings, as well as Time on Site, Bounce Rate, and Daily Unique Viewers. I’m not kidding. Try it for one month and come back and tell us how your rankings improved… I would say “or not,” but the only way I see that happening is if you don’t take me up on the challenge.

Just my thoughts…

@dwillden  @atlantarobin Hey David.., I agree with Robin. I haven’t that hard on it myself, but every little succes I had was because of the content provided and the community in which I released it.

You have to work on your community, provide them with great content and stay on top of it.
And yes, I have to start working with video too… thanks for that Robin.