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Can I use an identical paragraph of text in two different blog posts?
Posted by on February 24, 2021 at 5:48 amHi everyone,
I’m a newer blogger and am getting tripped up on duplicate content. I’m hoping you can help. I have a recipe blog and would like to share information in more than one recipe post.
To illustrate, here’s an example. I created a smoothie layering guide and a brief description that explains the proper way to order ingredients in the blender. It’s obviously relevant to all my smoothie recipe posts. So, I’d like to copy that section into all my smoothie recipe posts as a “cooking tip”.
Is that something that would confuse Google, cause me to rank worse, or receive penalty? I do understand that you don’t want to copy an entire post, but really unsure on whether I can use a block of text in more than one article.
Thanks in advance for your help!
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3 Replies
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That’s totally fine. Google won’t penalize for this.
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Technically this is called duplicate internal content and Google doesn’t love it, but it’s also a question of extent. Another good example of internal duplicate content is your header/navigation and footer. So again, some internal content is almost obligatory, just don’t go overboard with this. Try to limit it as much as possible. You should only do it when you are Very sure that it will improve the experience of your visitors.
To play devil’s advocate, what if I really loved your blog and started checking out all the recipes? Would seeing this smoothie ingredient order info every time start to be repetitive or annoying for me?
Good luck with it! I love smoothies. (On an unrelated topic, I’m interested to hear what order you add the ingredients. I always do protein powder or psyllium husk last, and I make sure to add water before any powder [like super greens]. Any other tips?)
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All duplicate content does is force Google to pick one page to show within the SERPs.
It can become an issue if someone steals your content, posts it on their site, and Google ranks them over you.
In your case, Google expects this type of behaviour from websites. While you won’t get penalised for it, you won’t also see any benefits for doing it from an SEO perspective either.
If you are worried, you can either re-write it per page or have a CTA that takes people to the layering guide instead.
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