Tell me why duplicate content marketing is bad for SEO?

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Why is duplicated content marketing so bad for SEO?

 

We get it, you’re in a rush, you’ve started the year by saying I will write 1,000 words a week for my company blog.

But you’re falling behind, you need to save time, so you think, well, can’t I duplicate some text- save some time?

The answer to that question should be a big fat no!

We will explain why.

Duplicated content and why it’s bad news for your SEO

 

To achieve super high rankings on Google, well, you can’t have duplicate content.

The reason is simple: “Googlebot” will know if the work is copied; if it is, it’s not valuable.

In fact, it makes you look like a copycat. It makes it clear as crystal and to Google’s algorithms that rather than dispensing your own advice, putting your own take on the matter, well, instead, you’ve just pressed copy and paste.

This duplicate content damages the quality score, plus, the Google EEAT score will be non-existent because, well, the work doesn’t belong to you. After all, it’s been copied.

 

What is deemed as duplicate content?

We would say duplicate content fits into four categories:

  • Internal duplication
  • External duplication
  • A mish-mash mess of duplication (we will explain what that is)
  • AI duplication and regurgitation
  • What is internal duplication?

This is when you have multiple pages selling the same or similar products, such as a product that comes in multiple colour options.

Therefore, the description of the purple skateboard is the same as that of the blue skateboard, meaning the text across the products is duplicated. Technically, the written work is unique to your website; however, it has been duplicated across multiple pages internally.

Ideally, in a perfect scenario, the best SEO agencies in the world know that you should have content marketing that’s original to each URL and each URL slug.

What is external duplication?

External duplication is when you copy or pinch text from someone else.

You might think, “Well, they won’t notice.” However, Googlebot will know. For example, Googlebot may have first indexed the original text in

March 2025, and you’ve gone and slapped the same text on your website in December 2025; it’s then obvious the latter work has been copied.

What’s a mish-mash mess of duplication?

That’s not an official SEO term; it’s something of my own creation. Let me explain what I mean.

Sometimes, people have the brainwave that creating content takes hours and hours, so they cut some corners.

So, they may take some content from one competitor, some from another, and then another.

They may then try to mash it all together in some mish-mash mess of content to try to fool Google’s algorithm into thinking it’s original.

It’s not going to be deemed original because if you have ever used a good plagiarism checker, they’ll show you where the work has been copied from. It’s going to look like a lot of copied text, obvious to Google that you’re pinching other people’s work, and you’re going to get a penalty, like a Google Panda penalty, if you do it too much.

 

Ai regurgitation

An AI regurgitation occurs when an AI platform rehashes the same sentences so many times that Google recognises it’s AI-generated rubbish.

For example, someone owning an SEO company and using AI to type “How local SEO can help your business”- the sentences that the AI platform spits out will most likely be so similar to millions of other sentences that have already written and published on the World Wide

Web, therefore causing duplication issues.

 

Can duplicated content be caused unintentionally?

Yes, a duplication checker or a new SEO consultant may say you have a lot of duplicated text on your website.
You may say, but I haven’t? Haven’t I done that? I haven’t added any duplicate content marketing to my website. I am hiring a new SEO consultant; you’re telling me porky-pies.
However, sometimes a CMS can duplicate content; there are many reasons this may have occurred, such as changes to URL slugs, redirects, domain name changes, and more.
The most important thing is that it gets sorted out.

How can this negatively impact my business’s SEO??

Google Penalties

If a website has a lot of duplicate content, this work may not be indexed.

The reason is that the page already exists in Google’s index, so there’s no need to index it twice.

However, sometimes duplicated text is indexed because the rest of the website has high-quality content marketing. However, the text might just be duplicated for say a few product descriptions.

However, in terms of best practice, it’s best to have no duplication. And if Google doesn’t need to index that page because there are hundreds of better pages, it won’t.

Then there’s the quality score. Too much duplication will lower the quality score.

And if it’s obvious that you’re adding too much duplication, this could trigger a Google penalty.

Broadly speaking, these penalties fall into two categories: algorithmic and manual.

However, you don’t want either, because Google could fully remove your business from its index, meaning it won’t show up anywhere on Google!

 

Confusing Googlebot

So, let’s say you sell a business that sells washing machines.

The washing machines come in white, silver and black.

Now, instead of just selecting a different colour option on one page, the 1000-word washing machine product description has been duplicated.

It now has three separate pages to describe the product. Now, Google doesn’t know when someone is searching for, say, that brand of AEG washing machines, where to direct the customer.

However, competitor B, well, they have a web designer who has one product page, select the colour option on the page. No duplication, no different pages, so therefore that page is likely to rank higher.

The point we are making here is that it’s never a good idea to confuse Googlebot.
Googlebot will know all three pages are the same, but which one should rank high on Google?

Because of internal duplication, a competitor who is also selling the same washing machine, with no duplication of text in the product descriptions, could rank higher.

Copyscape or Siteliner

These are two tools you can use; they don’t cost much, and in a short time, you can start working through your pages and looking for possible duplication issues.

How do I fix my duplication nightmare?

Do not despair.

Make a cup of tea- perhaps in that mug that says “keep calm and carry on”.

Then sit down, use the plagiarism checkers noted above, and then rewrite the pages.

It’s your chance to turn a failure into a winning solution.

To do this, rewrite the work, make it better, make it more interesting, make it original.

So, don’t change the URL slug (that’s the website address).

Just roll up your sleeves and rewrite the content.

Put yourself into the shoppers’ shoes, and answer the questions they want answered.

Make it original, make it better, just don’t copy.

Use Robots.txt: File

Hmm, you could, but we would say its far better to fix the problem, but you could in theory ask Googlebot not to index that page.

Instead to ignore the replicated content by saying don’t crawl this page and mentioning it in your robots.txt file.

Will Googlebot listen?

Sometimes the answers no, so that’s why we would say its better to fix, that it is to add no-index tab.

 

Consolidate and streamline

You know earlier we gave the example of a washing machine coming in three colours, black, silver and say white.

Now a good SEO agency, well they may say, lets just make one page really good, as the same item essentially is being sold here.

Lets either then delete the duplication for other two washing machines, or re-direct them using a 301.

 

How we can help your business to improve its organic SEO

If you simply haven’t got the time or perhaps you just don’t want to do the SEO yourself, why not outsource it to us.

For over 10 years we have been helping businesses to improve their SEO.

We are really good at it, so why not call us today?

 

How can we get more customers via Google Maps?

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It’s a question many business owners will have pondered at some point in time: how can we get more customers via Google Business?

How can we get more local customers rocking up at a local hair salon by utilising the power of Google Maps?

Well, before we go any further, we hate to break it to you, but today in 2026, it’s harder than ever.

The reasons for this are multiple: increased competition, fewer businesses displayed, and the need to have accumulated many positive reviews over a sustained period. Therefore, for brand new companies entering the fold, well, it can be hard to get your business more business via Google Business (A lot of use of the word “business” there, but you get our drift).

So what is Google Maps?

Google Maps is a brilliant and free tool. Businesses of all sizes can use it, whether you’re a sole trader or you run a company with an army of staff. Google Business helps shoppers find you.

It’s generally used on a local basis, so for example, someone is looking for, say, a men’s tailor that sells a certain brand of shoes near me.

Google will highlight where you are, say, in Bristol, and then show you local businesses, normally highlighted in a 3-pack with a short stroll normally of where your stood.

This is massively important for businesses, especially SMEs that might be located just off the main high street.

For example, imagine your men’s tailor shop is located in an arcade. It might have been there for well, donkey’s years, but not all people residing in the fantastic city of Bristol will know you are there.

So, Google Maps presents an opportunity that when someone is searching to buy goods and services locally, your business can appear high up in Google’s results (The Google Business section) . These results will be higher than the organic results and will typically be lower than the Google AdWords results, so just underearth the Adword results will normally be a map with 3 businesses mentioned to the side of the map.

How do you go about optimising your Google My Business Listing

So how can we better optimise our Google Business listing, aka “Google My Business listing”

Well, as the National Lottery say’s, you have to be in it to win it.

The first stage is therefore to run a search to see if your business has an active Google Business listing on Google?

The reason your business may already have a Google Business listing is simple: sometimes Googlebot pulls your business’s NAP (Name,

Address, and Phone Number) and creates a Google My Business account without you asking it to so, so it does this for you sometimes automatically.

 

It’s then just a matter of claiming a listing.

What should we do if we don’t see a Google Business listing mentioned for our business?

Well, do not worry, it’s a piece of cake to set up an account. Just make sure you add the following:

  • Nap information
  • Unique business description
  • Your company’s URL
  • Picture of the storefront or say a picture of your team
  • Opening hours
  • Keep your Google Business profile updated, just in case the NAP details change.

 

Choose the right business category

Now, this is super important: choose the right business category, as many businesses get this wrong. For example, you might choose a business category that’s too general, such as landscaping, when really your business specialises in tree surgery.

The point that we are making here is simple: take the time to choose the right Google Business category. The reason is, well, when your business does get displayed in the Google My Business results, you’re going to want to appear for the correct products and services you sell.

If, therefore, you specialise in tree surgery, make sure you choose that business category.

 

Write a good wordy business description.

A good wordy business description is needed for your Google Business profile, plus, don’t be lazy and copy it from, say, your LinkedIn company description. Instead, write something unique.

In marketing, we call this “unique copy.” It just means unique text. This basically tells Google and Googlebot that you have put a bit more effort into creating your business profile.

You’ve created a block of text that perfectly describes your business, what it offers, and that’s unique to Google Business.

Why does this matter?

Well, Google hates duplication, so if your website is a mass of duplicated text and pages, and all the business citation company descriptions are duplicated, well, this doesn’t look like the SEO agency has put much effort into it.

Keep things unique, written by you, the business, or, if you don’t have the time, hire a really good copywriter. The reason is simple: Google likes to see that you’ve put effort into describing your business, whether that’s on your website, business citations, or your Google Business description.

Keep it all updated

The key to local SEO is simple: your NAP information needs to be consistent.

This means that Google Business NAP must match your website’s NAP, which must match the business citation NAP.

Respond to customers

Whether customers are saying nice things about your business or bad, it’s a good idea to respond on Google Business to what they’re saying.

There’s a good reason for this, one, well, it helps protect your company’s reputation.

The second reason is that when you respond to business reviews, it shows Google that your business is active, that you’re trading, and that it’s still serving local customers.

How can we help grow your business

When it comes to local and organic SEO, well, we know our stuff.

Therefore, wherever you are based in the beautiful city of Bristol, we can help you to sell more. We do this using a multitude of different ways, local seo, such as building business citations, writing content marketing, improving the on-page SEO is a whole range of different ways.

If, on the other hand, you have ambitions to trade on a national level, we can help you with that too. We are rather good at organic SEO, even if we do like to blow our own trumpet a bit.

So, get on the dog and bone, and we can see how we can help your business grow.

 

Evergreen content marketing- can this still be used to improve a business’s SEO?

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Subject: Content Marketing

Table of contents:

• What is evergreen content marketing?
• How can our copywriters create evergreen content marketing
• FAQ’s regarding writing evergreen content marketing

Introduction

The bottom line is that if you want to sell more stuff online, you need to invest in digital marketing. Whether that be PPC (Google Ads) or, let’s say, organic search engine optimisation.

Now, if you’re going down the route of organic search engine optimisation, well, you won’t want the work to be a total flash in the pan.

Bringing in a ton of traffic, then well, not doing anything.

Therefore, businesses often want more sustainable organic traffic. To get that, you have to think about writing about topics people ask about all year round. Which, really, well, don’t go out of fashion, these are referred to in marketing as “evergreen content marketing”.

 

What are the benefits of creating evergreen content marketing?

Well, many businesses find that hiring an SEO agency increases organic traffic and visitor numbers.

Which is, well, great, that’s what you’ve hired the SEO business for, right?

However, the organic traffic can go up like a roller coaster, then dive back down. Therefore, the number of organic visitors can pretty much disappear, leaving the business back at square one in generating new customers.

However, well, things haven’t got to be like that.

You can generate more sustainable, long-term traffic through the power of evergreen content marketing.

 

How to create winning evergreen content marketing

What do your customers ask you that doesn’t go out of fashion?

Think for a minute or two, or maybe longer, what do your customers frequently ask you?

Which questions, well, don’t go out of fashion?

What can you answer that will help your customer today, and perhaps still be useful over the next 10 years?

This is what is called evergreen content marketing.

Have you got any tips for writing better quality content marketing?

 

Here’s our best advice for writing evergreen content marketing

– For it to rank higher on Google and the LLMs make the content marketing long form, which means a high word count
– Read about Google EEAT and make sure that this is reflected in your writing
– Implement good on-page SEO throughout
– Write in a conversational way
– Add an FAQ
– Make sure that the work can get indexed

Use SEO tools

Okay, so the best advice that our agency would give is rather simple; we’ve already alluded to it in this very article.

Ask management or the staff who have been with the company the longest what some of the most frequently asked questions are. Then use tools such as Ahrefs, Ask the Public, and Moz Pro to identify which keywords have the highest search volume.

Then start with the evergreen content marketing that is likely to generate the most clicks.

For example, from your keyword research, your dental practice might instantly spot that the most-searched question on Google is: “How can

I get out of dental pain when the dentist is closed?”

When answering questions like this, well, they will never go out of fashion; they will always be evergreen. That’s because people will always have tooth pain.

Write your content marketing as if you’re offering the very best advice you can

So, whether you’re writing the content marketing yourself or you’ve hired a local agency. You have to write the best quality work you can because of Google E-E-A-T. This means Google will check whether you offer good advice. If you really know what you’re talking about.

Address User Intent

What this basically means is that, well, you have to answer the question that was asked.
But let our SEO company give you some extra advice: to make the work stand out in the LLMs and rank high, you should answer as many supplementary questions as you can. For example, when you know a customer asks a certain question, they normally go on to ask another question straight after. If your content marketing is to rank well, then answer as many relevant questions as you possibly can.

Be comprehensive but don’t waffle

This is a hard one to do: you need a high word count, but you don’t want to write waffle that puts the reader to sleep.

Therefore, you might need, in some cases, to write close to 3,000 words. However, with that said, you don’t want to be writing text just for the sake of it. If the reader can, for example, see that the article is not offering helpful advice, it’s just waffle, they will leave without visiting another page, and this will drive up the bounce rate considerably.

Therefore, to rank highly on Google, a page typically has a high word count. Yet at the same time, it’s not a waffle, but jam-packed with helpful advice. This does tie into the point we made earlier about Google EEAT.

That is, if you cram the work with useful advice, Google’s algorithm can clearly see that you know your stuff! In terms of offering a comprehensive, detailed answer, your work will rank higher on Google. So, basically, to rank high on Google today, you need to write comprehensive work that will have a high Google EEAT score.

 

Be unique, add your own perspective.

Another piece of top advice would be this: when you’re writing your content marketing, whatever commonly asked question you’re answering, well, millions of businesses will have also done the same.

The point we are making, therefore, is that for your content marketing to stand out, well, again, you have to have a very high Google EEAT score. Now, to do that, we also recommend putting your own perspective and offering advice that no one else is offering at this time.

For example, let’s say you run a family law practice and you see that everyone is writing blog posts on similar topics. However, no one is adding, say, an integrated YouTube video with a solicitor offering a bit of advice to complement the blog post. This might only take the family lawyer, say, 3 minutes of their time, but guess what?
If you’re able to retain that average shopper on your blog post in Bristol for 3 more minutes, well, this could be the edge you need to improve dwell times.

Dwell times

No matter if it’s a main page on your website or a piece of evergreen content marketing. What you’re always aiming to do is also improve the dwell times. The reason is that this can show Google that you are offering quality advice.

Let’s answer some FAQ’s about Evergreen Content Marketing/

Why Is Evergreen Content Important?

So, when you go, for example, to the top SEO agencies’ websites, you often find they mix in topical content marketing, talking about a recent Google update. At the same time, they often mix in some evergreen content marketing, as they know it will stand the test of time.

Therefore, when you’re sitting with your copywriter to create your 2026 content calendar, why not mix in some evergreen content marketing?

This means that, in Google Analytics, rather than organic traffic going up and down like a yo-yo, you can even out traffic by adding evergreen content marketing to your site.

Just make sure the content marketing complies with the Google Helpful Content Update. Plus, don’t use AI to write the content marketing, it just won’t work!

 

What Are Some Common Evergreen Topic Examples?

Yes, use your Google Search Console and your chosen SEO tool to look at some of the commonly asked questions about the products or services you sell.

Then write some content marketing around that.

Just make sure that the work is really good, well-written, and white hat. And if you really want to push the boat out and get that piece of work ranking higher in Google, get your thinking cap on and think about how you can build some better backlinks to it.

 

What Isn’t Evergreen Content?

Well, if your writing covers something like a Google algorithm update, then that’s likely to get a surge of views.
However, in, say, 3 months, that work is unlikely to be gaining any visits at all, because, well, it’s no longer relevant. Therefore, with evergreen content marketing, it’s about being relevant for longer.

Sometimes it’s possible to write a piece of content marketing that serves the business for the next 10 years.

 

How our agency can help

If your looking for a high experienced SEO agency that can write the evergreen content marketing for you, then why not give us a bell?