Translation and SEO: How to Avoid Duplicate Content

Everyone who works on the web will have already noticed the various problems with duplicate content. These have a significant impact on SEO.

For years, "copying" has tormented web professionals and today there is still no concrete way out. However, there is a counterpart to consider: translations. What do Google bots think about translations? What are the consequences of having content copied on the site?

What is copied content?

As Google notes, duplicate content is "substantial blocks of content that match quite prominently."

In short, if you do a very trivial copy-paste from another site, it will obviously be considered duplicate content. But be careful: if you also do it on your site between two different sections it is considered duplicate content in turn.

So I can't copy and re-paste the contents of my site? Not really, but if you use a quote or a paragraph or two, you won't have much of a problem in most cases. To ensure that your website complies with the standards, we advise you to turn to the experts who provide Essex Website Design services.

As many know, there are sites that republish news, press releases, and so on from other sites that have some authority on the web. These are naturally identified by Google and are "penalized".

There are of course some exceptions for content duplications. For example, product pages may be similar, but this won't affect your SEO ranking.

Penalties on duplicate content

The real problem with duplicate content is where you get or don't get penalized. Some claim to avoid copying content like the plague, while others think there is no problem copying.

The truth probably lies somewhere between the two lines of thought. It is good to know that Google does not use the word "penalization" and, in fact, does not apply penalties of any kind.

It just doesn't consider you. Google avoids non-original sites, this is the real penalty for duplicate content. In summary, duplicating content is not good for anyone and won't help your site rank well.

Just think that the pages that are usually placed at the top of the SERP, can be copied elsewhere, risking losing their ranking. This is undoubtedly an injustice and does not yet have a real solution to the problem.

But does the same reasoning also apply to translations?

How to help yourself with translations

It's simple: translations aren't considered duplicate content. Simply because they are written for a different audience. A translation will be deemed to be content other than the source from which it will be translated. However, there are some small rules to respect when translating on your site.

First of all, the translations must be written by humans and not generated by Google Translate. In short, they must have a logical sense.

Secondly, translations need to be optimized not only in terms of SEO but also considering the cultural and linguistic side for which they translate.

Also, it is always best to post translations on a site suitable for the area you are looking for. For example, if you create a site in English you will have to direct the content toward an American audience (or in international areas where English is perfectly understood).

If, on the other hand, you need to write the same site in Spanish, for example, you should create a Spanish version of the site on a similar domain.

In any case, if you do not miss a single point of those indicated above, you will not have to encounter problems with the translations that you will publish on your site and the ranking will be good, for this, we suggest you take the help of SEO Company Essex.