Duplicate Content on Forum

[macadali]

Hi all,

I've got a Wordpress site that I use for reviews of products. I also have a forum attached to the same URL address for discussion on the products I'm reviewing.

From what I understand, Google penalises for duplicate content. Even if it is re-produced in another section of your own site.

My question is in relation to duplicate content in my forum.

For example, if I do a review on a product, and then post the exact same review in my forum to encourage discussion with forum members, then will Google penalise my search rankings based on having duplicating content?

Many thanks!

[sankitg]

your duplicate content will not help you in any way, and yes you may get penalised.

[macadali]

[QUOTE=sankitg;11351]your duplicate content will not help you in any way, and yes you may get penalised.[/QUOTE]

Ok thanks for that. But I'm more curious if there is a workaround to this issue.

From what I understand Google will not penalise the original post. So if I write the review first, then post the exact same review on the forum, and then have a linkback under the forum post to the original site, then the site should be fine in rankings. But this may make the forum rank lower.

Am I right?

[macadali]

Anyone?

Wow, and I thought this was a forum about SEO...

[mecatronx]

Even if it's a forum about SEO, doesn't mean that people are obligated to respond. The situation you're describing is a classic, just use canonical tags for the pages with too much duplicate content. If the forum is on a sub domain, consider moving it on a folder inside the main site, to benefit fully from the seo done to the main site.

[macadali]

[QUOTE=mecatronx;11438]Even if it's a forum about SEO, doesn't mean that people are obligated to respond. The situation you're describing is a classic, just use canonical tags for the pages with too much duplicate content. If the forum is on a sub domain, consider moving it on a folder inside the main site, to benefit fully from the seo done to the main site.[/QUOTE]

Perfect! Thanks for your advice mecatronx