First, it’s important to define this duplicate content policy, which I have copied directly from Google’s Webmaster Central Blog below:

What is duplicate content?
Duplicate content generally refers to substantive blocks of content within or across domains that either completely match other content or are appreciably similar. Most of the time when we see this, it’s unintentional or at least not malicious in origin: forums that generate both regular and stripped-down mobile-targeted pages, store items shown (and — worse yet — linked) via multiple distinct URLs, and so on. In some cases, content is duplicated across domains in an attempt to manipulate search engine rankings or garner more traffic via popular or long-tail queries.

Why does Google care about duplicate content?
Our users typically want to see a diverse cross-section of unique content when they do searches. In contrast, they’re understandably annoyed when they see substantially the same content within a set of search results.

From the SearchFest presentations last week, including one by Riona MacNamara, Technical Writer at Google Webmaster Central, and one by Hilary Jensen, Manager, Retail Vertical – Online Sales & Operations at Google, I was able to ascertain that the most important issue pertaining to duplicate content. This is the use of identical content on a specific site, and not appearance of the same content replicated on two separate sites.

In other words, Google may penalize you for having the exact same content on more than one page of your Web site. However, if some other site republishes your content to their site, Google does not consider this duplicate content.

Now, if the site that has republished your content to their site ranks higher than your site in Google’s Natural search results, it’s important that you resolve the issue by improving the content and structure on your site. The answer is not to go after the site that has republished your content, but rather to find-out why Google prefers to rank their site higher than your original content.

Blatant plagiarism and copyright infringement aside, it is better to address the issues on your own site prior to complaining to other site owners or to Google. Remember, Google’s self-professed mission is to serve-up the most relevant content possible for each search query. Strive to always have your site be perceived in this light.

Let me know if you have run into issues with Google’s duplicate content policy. I’d love to hear your experiences.

Resources for avoiding duplicate content issues:
Best On-Page Optimization Practices
5 Things to Avoid When Developing a Site
Google Webmaster Guidelines

As you are aware, bloggers and media outlets thrive on being the first source for information on the latest developments, trends, and gossip. They want to know which company is offering a new product, what celebrity is shopping where, and any other piece of newsworthy information that gives them the inside scoop on a story.

Arguably, finding-out where Britney Spears went shopping last night may not seem like a big deal. But truth-be-told, there’s an entire niche of bloggers that thrives on getting the hottest celebrity gossip. As an authority on a topic or in an industry, you need to give it to them. So, that they can become an influencer in their space.

As marketers, you to control the distribution of your content through a carefully crafted strategy designed to reach the influencers in audience interested in your products or services. In essence, you will be influencing the influencers.
There are two major strategies to tap into the realm of influencers, and drive relevant buzz and chatter about your brand.

1. Be the Influencer - Build your own blog in order to be the source that others look to for information. This includes being active among the various social media outlets, and rapidly promoting news items as they break onto the scene. Also, be sure to build your network with other influencers in your space, and include them in your social network circle.

2. Develop a Network of Influencers - You know the old adage, “popular people like to be with popular people”. Therefore, it’s important that you become one of the popular people. At least in your social network, that is! Pay attention to who breaks news first in your niche, and quickly become part of their network and circle of friends. To do this, pay attention to what people are doing on social networking sites. Also, it helps to actively monitor a robust list of daily RSS Feeds.

As a business, you are in the unique position of holding valuable information, especially new products and services information. Influencers in your space want to be the first to relay this information to your target audience.

EngineWorks specializes in building relationships between our clients and the influencers in their industry. We recognize that our clients have newsworthy events that they want to promote. We also know that finding the appropriate news outlet is extremely important. Not only are we building connections, but those connections often lead to a dramatic increase in traffic and sales for our clients.

In addition, Matt made the following recommendations:

1. Use the the SEO Title Plugin to add post titles to your title tags.
2. Using standard file extensions does not affect rankings (i.e .html, .php, apsx).
3. The number of slashes in your URL does not impact search rankings in Google.

For more information visit News.com’s post on Matt’s presentation.

Designing sites is no longer just about aesthetics. Today’s sites need to be built from “code-to-content” to be search engine friendly, accessible by both algorithms and humans, and usable by all site visitors. Therefore, here is a list of the top six mistakes to avoid when designing and developing a new site, so that you don’t stop search engine spiders in their tracks.

1. Don’t EVER Use A Splash Page

A splash page is a main entrance page that generally consists of a branded graphic or Flash animation. The problem with using a splash page is that they do not contain keyword-rich text, and they generally don’t link to deeper content.

The index page of a site should provide relevant content and direct access to additional content, not provide a giant advertisement.

2. Don’t Use JavaScript Heavy Navigation

Search engines cannot read JavaScript. This means any content you put into JavaScript, including text and links, is simply not accessible to search engine spiders.

If you must use JavaScript-based navigation, try to keep your script as minimal as possible. Also, move as much of the JavaScript to an external file as possible.

3. Don’t Use The Same Title Tag On Every Page

Title tags are one of the most important on-page optimization techniques. Each title tag should accurately represent the content of the page. Search engines spider and index individual pages of your site. So make sure you help them understand the content of your pages.

4. Don’t Use Images For Content Headers

This is a very common mistake. Unfortunately, the search engines cannot index text in an image. While I realize that there are very limited typographic options for a Web designer, delivering visits is often more important than aesthetics. So, use proper markup including h1 tags.

If you are absolutely adamant about using a special font on the header of each page, I recommend looking into sIFR (Scalable Inman Flash Replacement). This technique uses a combination of Flash, JavaScript and HTML to provide rich typography that is accessible by the search engines.

5. Don’t Build Your Entire Site In Flash

Search engines can access very little, if any, content within a Flash movie. Therefore, use Flash sparingly. Build the majority of your site using Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and HTML. Use Flash in place of more traditional images.

Avoiding these five common design and development mistakes will enable your Web site to achieve prominently positioned Natural search engine listings, while at the same time keeping your branding and presentation in tact.

Examples of specific guidelines:

1. Avoid hidden text or hidden links.

“If your site is perceived to contain hidden text and links that are deceptive in intent, your site may be removed from the Google index, and will not appear in search results pages. When evaluating your site to see if it includes hidden text or links, look for anything that’s not easily viewable by visitors of your site. Are any text or links there solely for search engines rather than visitors?”

2. Don’t use cloaking or sneaky redirects.

“Cloaking refers to the practice of presenting different content or URLs to users and search engines. Serving up different results based on user agent may cause your site to be perceived as deceptive and removed from the Google index.”

3. Don’t send automated queries to Google.

“Google’s Terms of Service do not allow the sending of automated queries of any sort to our system without express permission in advance from Google.”

4. Don’t load pages with irrelevant keywords.

“‘Keyword stuffing’ refers to the practice of loading a webpage with keywords in an attempt to manipulate a site’s ranking in Google’s search results.”

5. Don’t create multiple pages, subdomains, or domains with substantially duplicate content.

“[I]n some cases, content is deliberately duplicated across domains in an attempt to manipulate search engine rankings or win more traffic.”

6. Don’t create pages that install viruses, trojans, or other badware.

“Sites that exploit browser security holes to install software (such as malware, spyware, viruses, adware, and trojan horses) are in violation of the Google quality guidelines, and may be removed from Google’s index.”

7. Avoid “doorway” pages created just for search engines, or other “cookie cutter” approaches such as affiliate programs with little or no original content.

“Doorway pages contain many links – often several hundred – that are of little to no use to the visitor, and do not contain valuable content.”

Static URLs Perform Better

Search engines have the ability to index dynamic URLs. However, static URLs always perform better. I have often proved this to skeptical clients by having them view their indexed pages using the site search operator (site:www.clientsite.com), which identifies all of their pages indexed within the search engines.

Developers are sometimes slow to embrace the significance of creating clean, static URLs due to a lack of insight pertaining to the process to make dynamic URLs appear static. This process, called URL rewriting, is somewhat complex and requires more detail than time permits here. However, there are several good online tutorials that can be accessed by searching for “URL rewriting” in your favorite search engine.

Utilize Primary Keywords

If possible, use your target keywords in your file names. Not only is it one more place to increase your keyword density, but it is also a good way to influence the anchor text used by people linking to your page.

Hyphens Not Underscores

Separate multi-word URLs with hyphens (-) not underscores or spaces. Google does not consider underscores to be a valid word separator.

Short & Sweet

An optimized URL should be simple and to the point. Remove special characters and insignificant, non-essential words.

Be Consistent

Creating proper URLs can be a time consuming process, but it is a fundamental aspect of proper search engine optimization. It’s important that you keep a consistent structure throughout your site, and always adhere to the best practices presented above.

URL Rewriting Example

Here is an example of a URL rewrite utilizing these important recommendations:

Example of poor URL structure:
http://www.xyzindustries.com/products.php?catid=3&color=blue

Example of good URL structure:
http://www.xyzindustries.com/products/blue-athletic-shoes/

As noted, the structure above needs to be incorporated into every page of your site.

A Brief History

For those of you who are not familiar with XML Sitemaps, here is a brief history. Back in June 2005, Google launched a new service called Google Sitemaps, now called Google Webmaster Tools. The three main purposes for this Sitemaps service are:

1. Enhance the Google’s ability to crawl Web sites by providing information on the specific location of site pages.
2. Provide Webmasters with a way to inform Google that their site’s content had been updated.
3. Allow Webmasters to notify Google with the priority in which they would like to have their pages crawled.

Late in 2006, Yahoo! and Microsoft also adopted the XML Sitemaps protocol. This development gave Webmasters the ability to inform all three major search engines that their sites had been updated.

How XML Sitemaps Can Help

Here is an important fact to be aware of: If your former site was not getting indexed on a regular basis, then more then likely. your new site will also not be rapidly indexed. Fortunately, you can speed up the indexing of your new site, by creating and submitting an XML Sitemap. Now that the three largest search engines support the Sitemaps 0.90 protocol, Webmasters have the ability to influence a key facet of achieving high search rankings: making sure the search engines know about all of your new site’s pages.

A Word of Caution

XML Sitemaps are not a substitute for having a properly optimized and accessible Web site. Therefore, you should never rely on a Sitemap as a vehicle for getting your pages crawled on a regular basis. They are simply an effective way to help ensure that the major search engines are aware that you have permanently moved content on your site.

1. Barriers to Entry.

Unknowingly present search engine algorithms with obstacles that prevent your site, and all of its content, from being spidered and ultimately indexed within relevant search results. These barriers to entry include the lack of a site map, improper structured robots.txt file, inaccessible HTML mark-up, and poor navigation issues.

2. Site Element Changes

Make changes to crucial elements on your site, such as URL structure and HTML code design, without taking into consideration how it will affect the accessibility for search algorithms. Always remember that the most elaborate site on the Web isn’t worth the code it is written in, if no one can find it. So, make sure that your site enhancements appeal to both visitors and search spiders.

3. Missing 301 Redirects

Once you have made changes to elements on your site (e.g., new optimized URLs), leave-out the important step of including 301 redirects for the former URLs to your new URLs. Prominently positioned listings that you have achieved for your former pages will fall away without proper 301 redirects to your new pages.

4. Inconsistent Updates

Once your pages have achieve prominent positioning within relevant search listings, assume that you will maintain your positions without continuously enhancing and optimizing page design and content. Complacency kills within search engines. Your competitors are always attempting to have their site be found ahead of your site. You need to continuously update your optimization elements and efforts.

5. Illegitimate Efforts

Employ questionable practices on your site that fly in the face of search engine best practices, rules, and regulations. Nothing will drop your great ranks faster than trying to spoof your way to the top. It’s better to provide visitors and search engine algorithms with exactly what they are looking for, rather than attempting to maintain positioning through a deceptive practice.

You have safeguards in place to prevent the valuable assets of your company from becoming damaged, lost, or stolen. It’s important to maintain the same attention to protection for your highly ranked Natural search listings.