Recycled content is when a site owner takes content from another location, usually rewords it and posts to their site as if it was their own. This practice is most used for mini-sites and blogs.
Is this practice ok?
Within reason, yes.
Mini-Sites
I have several mini-sites that I have definitely done this with. A perfect example would be a poker site of mine. The site provides information on how to play games like Texas Holdem and Omaha. Using my site as the example, there are only so many ways I can write an informational piece on Texas Holdem and make it understandable.
Blog
I am sure I have used this for news, again, how many ways can you report the same story. I cannot say that I have used this for my blog articles. I may get an idea or believe something to be useful to my readers by visiting other blogs. In those situations, I will normally test out what I have read and create a new article based on my experiences.
I have two words for those that recycle content, public domain. Public domain is a term for intellectual properties not owned by anyone. The full definition is way to long, visit Wikipedia for the full version. From what I was recently told anything written before 1923 is considered public domain. You can actually take an entire book written before 1923 and resell, reword, retitle or anything else you want and call it your own. Before using this technique please do your own research, I visited a site called copylaw.com.
I think copyscape is another good site to use if you are not sure if content original. Good article
Yes mini-sites are a culprit of this known by many domainers. The other side is used for blackhat SEO. People might recycle their own content and place a link in it and submit it to many article directories or feeds. This in return makes everyone else have the recycled article with your link in it. In the end it will boost your rankings because everyone will be smashed with the same article while yours is the original. While getting backlinks in the process you are hurting everyone else but boosting yourself essentially. This is why it is considered “blackhat”, i would put it at the borderline though IMO. Legal and search engines do not mind at all
!
Whitehat is by those pitching / selling the service.. Blackhat is considered by those who are unable to pull it off
If it is not illegal and it works, go with it.
Who cares what others think?
Best,
Mike
Black hat is considered gaming the search engine, which is the method i described above(sort of). White is when you abide by the search engine terms of service. There is also DeepBlack hat SEO (Blackhole SEO), BlueHat(Advaced SEO techniques), and GreyHat(which is what i would consider the above tactic).
Want really ticks me off is when someone scrapes your entire full RSS feed and strips HTML and all backlinks.
Example: http://dngator.com/index.php?id=9574
Very unethical in my opinion.
Yes i saw this as well. You have to go through like 3 screens/links to get to the originators website. Which is messed up because the links the aggregator is giving your are next to useless in terms of SEO and value.
Mark, the RSS feed is what you provide. We don’t “scrape” anything. If you restrict the feed to 200 chars, that’s all there is and that’s the case with Patrick Chef’s feed here.
If you have any questions or concerns, contact me via DNGator.com
Thanks for stopping by and clearing that up. Like you said my feed is only xxx amount of characters. Not that I knew what I was doing with my feed, it was just setup that way, lol.
I provide a full feed as a service to my readers and will continue to do so. If you would simply enable HTML there would be no problem as backlinks and proper credit would be given as deserved.
OK so I came back because I like constructive conversations. My intention is not to strip anything with malice in mind; as I already explained at DNForum, the reason the HTML is not there is to format the text accurately (we even strip unicode beyond printable ascii). Now, as I explained DNGator is in public beta. Blast it to pieces if you must from a technical standpoint, so that improvements are made. Not sure at this point about the HTML but definitely more clear marks / links will be in place “connecting” articles and authors. In fact, there will be a section that author bios will be added. Now, before you all get too excited, I don’t plan this to become the next Domaining.com – each to their own. DNGator.com is a domain news aggregator; Domaining.com is a platform for business, according to Francois. I will try my best to please everyone and the bottom line is that domain bloggers should receive credit and the spotlight they’ve earned.
You didn’t mention reprintable articles from article directories. I use them extensively. In fact, I just wrote a utility for anyone who uses WhyPark that helps you quickly and easily import reprint articles to a WhyPark site as a custom page, timmyth.com/page.cfm/id/104894.