Syndicated Articles and the Original Source

Your article, their address

A trade magazine, an association or a bigger website in your field asks to republish an article you wrote. It feels like a compliment, and it usually is.

A month later, someone searches for the subject and finds the article on the partner's site. Your own copy, the original, does not appear at all.

Nothing dishonest has happened. The search engine saw the same article in two places and chose one of them, and it did not choose yours.

This is avoidable, mostly with a few lines in an email before anything is republished.

Why the copy can win

Search engines avoid showing the same text twice in one set of results. When they find duplicates, they pick one version to show and filter out the rest.

They try to pick the original, but they judge it from signals: which copy they found first, which one more sites link to, and how strong each site is overall.

A larger partner site is usually crawled more often and linked to more. Its copy can be found first and judged the stronger, even with your business credited at the bottom.

That credit line does not help. A search engine reads it as more text on the page, not as an instruction about which copy came first.

The ways it happens

• A partner republishes in full, with a credit line at the end.
• A trade magazine prints it and posts it online as well.
• An association newsletter runs it on its website.
• A content service licenses your articles to other sites.
• You republish someone else's article on your own site.

The first is the most common, usually agreed in a friendly phone call where nobody mentions search engines. That call is the moment to settle it.

What to ask a partner for

The best request is a canonical link: one line in the code of the partner's page that tells search engines which address is the original.

Google treats it as a strong hint, even when it points to another site.

If their system cannot add one, ask them to mark their copy noindex, an instruction that keeps the page out of search results while their readers still see it.

Either way, ask for a plain link to your original article near the top, not just to your home page. Google's own advice on syndicated content asks for the same.

Publish first, share later

Put the article on your site and give search engines time to find it before anyone else publishes it.

Searching for an exact sentence from the article, in quotation marks, shows whether Google has picked it up. Search Console's Fetch as Google tool can request a visit to the page sooner.

A week or two is usually enough. Partners rarely mind the wait if it is agreed at the start.

Give them something different

A partner does not always need the whole article. An introduction of a few paragraphs, ending with a link to the full piece on your site, gives their readers the substance and you the visit.

It also gives the partner a natural reason to link, since their readers need your page to finish the article.

A version rewritten for their audience works too. A trade publication's readers often need a different angle from your customers anyway, and a different version is not a duplicate.

A worked example

An asbestos testing lab analyses samples of building materials for contractors, renovators and homeowners.

It wrote a plain guide to the materials in older houses most often sent for testing, from textured ceilings to vinyl floor tiles and drywall joint compound.

A home renovation website asked to republish it, and the lab agreed by phone. The guide went up there the next morning, in full, with the lab's name at the bottom and no link.

The renovation site is far larger, and its pages are found quickly. A month later, searching for the guide's title showed their copy and not the lab's.

The lab asked them to add a canonical link pointing to its original, and a line at the top linking to it. Their developer added both within the week.

New guides now appear on the lab's site first. Partners get them two weeks later, as a shorter version linking to the full guide, under terms written in one email.

When you are the one republishing

Accepting articles from suppliers, associations or other writers fills a blog quickly. It also fills it with text that exists elsewhere.

Ask permission in writing, add a canonical link to the original or keep the page out of search, and write an introduction of your own explaining why it matters to your customers.

A site that is mostly republished material gives search engines little reason to show it. Your own articles are what earn its place.

Put the terms in writing

Most syndication is agreed casually, which is fine, as long as the details are written down somewhere.

One email covers it: whether they will add a canonical link or noindex, where the link back goes, how long after you they publish, and whether they can edit the text.

Paid content services deserve a careful read of their terms. Some resell articles widely, which multiplies the copies competing with yours.

The counter-case

Sometimes the partner's audience is worth more than your search position. An article in the magazine your best customers read may do more for the business than the same article ranking on your site.

In that case, accept that their copy may appear instead of yours, and ask at least for the link. The article is doing a different job.

For anything you want people to find through search, though, publish first, wait, and ask for a canonical link before anyone republishes it.

Before the next article goes out

1. Publish it on your site first.
2. Check that Google has found it.
3. Ask partners for a canonical link to it.
4. Accept noindex if they cannot.
5. Ask for a link near the top.
6. Agree a delay of a week or two.
7. Write the terms in one email.

Step three matters most, because it tells search engines directly which copy is yours. A credit line at the bottom of the page tells readers; a canonical link tells Google.

Facebook's version of the same arrangement, where the original stays on your own site, is covered in Instant Articles open to every publisher.

Frequently asked questions

West Coast Media Solutions Inc. provides web design, web development, hosting, digital marketing, and business consulting to organisations across Canada, drawing on more than twenty-five years in the field.