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?