Googlewashing - Is It Really That Bad?

[bholus10]

Since I became involved with e-commerce 8 years ago, the "marketing experts" have been teaching that one of the best ways to increase traffic to your site and present yourself as an expert in your field is to write articles and submit them for republishing.

And with the recent mantra that "Content is King" being repeated everywhere, many website owners are scrambling to find helpful and informative articles to include on their site or blog.

While there's no doubt that having your articles published on dozens or even hundred of sites will create name recognition for yourself and strengthen the public's view of you as an expert in your industry, there is a black cloud that has arisen in the area of your published articles increasing your standings in search engine results.

That cloud is called "Googlewashing"...

To clean up their search results Google has really started cracking down on duplicate content. This means that if you have your original article published on your website, but it is also included in the content of dozens of other sites, you could concievably be decreasing the chances of your website showing up in the top rankings of search results for your article's keywords.

For example, let's say that you've written an article titled, "How to Groom Your Purple Poodle". You submit the article to article directories and ezine publishers giving permission for your article to be republished. 50 other webmasters and blog publishers with content that targets Purple Poodle owners like the article and decide to put it on their site.

This is great right? You're creating name recognition for yourself and your company and establishing yourself as an expert among people that own Purple Poodles.

But hold on Hoss, that upside could have a downside when it comes to pleasing the "search engine gods".

What if among those 50 webmasters that published your article is Mr. "my site has been number one in the search engines for Purple Poodles for the last year".


Your site shows up as number 22.

Now, when someone goes to Google and types in, "How to Groom a Purple Poodle" - whose website do you think is going to show up first in the search results with your article?

Most likely, it won't be yours... even though YOU are the expert who wrote the article.

But is that as bad as it sounds?

Of course we all want our site to rank high in the engines for our chosen keywords, and most webmasters do everything possible to have that happen, but in reality the majority of those reading this may never experience a top ten ranking.

But don't despair for all is not lost, at least when it comes to website traffic.

[bholus10]

In my humble opinion, traffic is gold - as long as it is targeted traffic - regardless if it comes from folks finding my site through a search engine, or by clicking a link to my website that I have included in the byline or resource box within my articles that are being published on other sites.

It is those thieves that use your articles WITHOUT acknowledging who the true author is that you have to look out for... but that's another article.