Question

My client has multiple websites because of its nature. They are all different venues. But they’re all very connected (as in someone can go to Venue A B & C in their stay). They want to post their blogs on all 3 websites but I’ve made them aware of duplicate content. We’re not sure what the best solution is because the venues all connect together and would make sense to mention together. But from an SEO standpoint I know it wouldn’t be good to just copy and paste all 3 blogs. If we edit the blog slightly for each venue, will Google penalize for duplicate content?  

Answer 1

Great news! Google doesn't penalize for duplicate content. But if you want to minimize anxiety, just canonicalize the duplicate posts on 2 of the blogs to the 3rd.  

Comments

@narcotize oh ok thanks! So are we ok to put the blogs on 2-3 without canonicalizing? Only because the clients 3 website TECHNICALLY compete with each other and they are all equally important. I don’t want to go into too much detail but the blogs are the same because they are a lifestyle themed blog that gives you a glimpse of “a day with XXX” that includes all our venues

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@utley23 Technically Google doesn't care about duplicate content. That's just another SEO myth that arose from people forgetting about (or never having learned about) the Supplemental Results index. Google will happily display the same content from 100 sites in search results if that is all it has to work with. BUT - and this is the important part - if they can canonicalize duplicate content to a single URL they will. They will do that with or without your help. There is no penalty for publishing duplicate content but there is rarely any benefit.  

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@narcotize that makes sense! So with 3 different websites in the same industry that are technically competing, but the venues live under an umbrella brand (which is why we like to cross-promote), is your recommended course of action for optimal performance to be 3 totally blogs? For example the topic and KW at hand is spring break since we’re a hot destination for that - do we just want to write about it 3 different ways?  

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@utley23 It depends on your resources but I would probably set up an editorial policy that tried to vary the topics across the 3 blogs. Let each develop its own strengths. It's 6 of 1, half dozen of the other to me.  

Answer 2

@utley23 yes, michaels right there isn’t a penalty for duplicate content and canonical would be the best solution since you want to publish to all 3 sites.