Forum

[guitarsmx]

Hi, I m working on a portal website related to guitar amplification.
One of the section will be dedicated to my members, where I want to invite some of them (those who wish to and have got a profile related to my topic) to create for themselves a profile page (so the profile page will be offered to member on request only, just so I don't get escort girl or other crap not related to my topic lol).
But I ve noticed than some of then just want to copy and paste the text they already have in their Myspace profile page.
Could this be a bad thing for my website to let them do that?
I mean do I have to request from my contact to rewrite their profile description?...
thanks
Chris

 

[guitarsmx]

hey cool people, any idea how to answer my question/concern?

 

[wollowra]

I would offer my thoughts but I don't understand your question.
Regards
Troy

 

[guitarsmx]

Ok, I ll try to make it more clear:
I m building a niche website with a community and I will propose to some members to have on my website a profile page.
At the moment I m just dealing with this content as follow, I provide my members with a link and they can submit the content of their profile page directly on the website that I receive by email and if I accept to do so, I build their page myself (this way, I can control the content before it actually appears to the public on my website).
Anyway, the point is that, I ve noticed than some of them, when I check the text they want to display on their page, just provide me with the exact same description that they already have in their Myspace profile page.
So because in fact this will be one page on my website, and because the search engine will probably know that this text already exist on Myspace, therefore I m wondering if the page on my website might be ranked as a copycat and have a negative impact on the ranking of my whole website?
That might be ok if it's just a few pages, but what if I get 50 or 200 people/business interested to get a profile page on my website and wanting to do the same, copy and paste what they already got on Myspace (it could be the same related to any other networking page in fact)
So could this be a bad thing for my website to let them do that?
Do I have to request from my contact to rewrite their profile description?...
What do you suggest?

 

[wollowra]

Ok here is my 2 cents...

There is a big discussion on the net right now debating wether the duplicate content rule is a myth or is real.
Putting duplicate content on the same site is a big no no.. but I have seen sites with duplicate content from OTHER sites rank number 2 in google.. go figure.
Hey Google are not going to ban you for it in my opinion.
If it were me, I would just do it and track the results...
How many people are part of other social media sites like facebook, you tube etc... and have the exact same profile in the different sites...

Maybe someone else can share their 2 cents.

Regards
Troy

 

[JasonDodd]

If you're wanting to leverage user-generated content, creating and promoting your own forum might be a better option - however you'd need to make sure it was a narrow niche and you actively recruited new members, otherwise you wont stand a chance against all the other guitar forums out there ...

Duplicate content issues can be avoided by adding a noindex meta tag to your pages but in some ways that defeats the purpose ..

 

[guitarsmx]

Hi, thanks for your answers.
I will set up a Forum as well but I do want to get the profile page for some member sorted.

So regarding that, Jason, what you are saying (unlike Wollowra) is that, my members duplicate content from Myspace (or other networking site) IS an issue?

 

[Crystal01]

my understanding is that duplicate content is duplicate content no matter where it came from or where it is posted and it has negative implications.