Occationally questions come up around the effect of content syndication on SEO. We see letters like:
We are considering using the [syndicated content], however I’m still researching. I’m told by our web people (Hall Marketing) that we’ll lose a lot of our search capabilities [SEO] because all the content goes back to you or Sage, not us. I’m hoping to make decisions mid January, or so…
Hall Marketing in this instance is just incorrect. Correctly syndicated content helps with SEO. Since the exact search engine scoring algorithms are never published to keep people from gaming the algorithms, it is hard to quantify the effect, but it is definitely positive.
How can I be so sure? Google (who knows the algorithms it uses), uses syndicated content with their partners to help in promoting Google Apps. Just check out the public site http://google.zift123.com. I can assure you that Google is not hurting the SEO scores of its partners.
For a detailed discussion about why it helps, check out Paul Marshall’s post on Search Engine Journal, Is Syndicated Content Duplicate Content?
For more information of what syndication content is, and how it might be useful check out either web syndication or content syndication.
