Google: First Indexed Does Not Mean That Content Is Yours

Oct 20, 2020 - 7:54 am 3 by

Race Google

Some feel that you need to ensure your piece of content is published first on your site and then syndicated later on third-party sites to ensure Google knows the original source of that content is from your site. That is not always the case said Google's John Mueller.

Of course, we have support for canonical tags that should be used by your syndication partners (good luck with that). But Google also understands that just because a spammer scrapped your content prior to Google indexing it on your site, it doesn't mean the spammer wrote that content.

John said on Twitter "Being indexed first doesn't make a site the owner of the content. There's no need to try to squeeze your pages in early in that regard. Spammers are sometimes very technically smart & fast, but that doesn't make their content original or useful."

It is a good question and a question some SEOs are concerned about.

Google has said scrapers only can outrank you if your site is penalized or has quality issues.

Forum discussion at Twitter.

 

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