InOue'sHeArt I'm not sure what you're asking. Search engines can determine which is which, but they don't base which to display in results on which is oldest. They have their own criteria for determining which is the page to display in results.

I would think it should be based on who really created the content, but that's probably not easy to tell in many cases. And in some cases an author might write a page for another site and then publish later on his or her own site.

To the question of the forum, about duplicate content. You can get away a lot of the time with using duped content as I like to call it. But I would change the name of the content so the SE's think it is different. Maybe change a couple of things around, then make sure its properly SEO'd and you should be good to go!

Changing the title or name of the content doesn't fool the search engines. A different title might mean a search engine chooses to display different versions of the duplicate content for different queries, but it doesn't make either version of the content unique.

You're always best to have unique content.

Umm, actually by changing the title and a few key elements of the text around the SE's will read it like new content. If your submitting to article sites and the like. Don't just put the same content on your page.

I'm not sure I agree, but I suppose it depends on how much you change things around. Obviously you don't need to change every word on the page to have a unique document. I do think you need to change more than the title though for pages to be seen as unique.

I'll give you an example. My blog got picked up by the iEntry network and now many of my posts are republished on the WebProNews site and others in the network. They take the content as is, but usually change the page title slightly.

Generally if you search for any unique text within the content Google will always show the article on their site. You can sometimes find the article on my site by searching for the full title, but even then sometimes the result returns the article on the network.

Their sites have more authority than mine and so will almost always be the result displayed. If the title is different enough and you search the exact title on my page you might get my site because of the exact match of the phrase, but you still won't see both pages displayed. It's either one or the other.

True the content other than the title is exactly the same so this might not be quite what you're saying. I did just change one of the posts slightly so the pages are no probably about 90% duplicate. Maybe in a couple of days when it's been re-indexed I can try some searches and see which page gets displayed or if both somehow show in results.

My guess is though it will stil be one of the other and even though the pages are now somewhat different they'll be seen as duplicate.

Well think of it this way, if the SE's were going to penalize for duplicate content. Then all us who submit articles and the like would not rank. Nearly all the articles people write have been done before. That would be dupped content IMO. (Right?)

I didn't say they engines penalize you for duplicate content. I'm saying they'll choose the page to display in search results and it may not be yours. That's why unique content is generally better.

Agreed.

Originally Posted by Normanc

Just add a small and enticing snippet from the blog posting on to your site and provide a link to your webpage just below the snippet. In this way you'll avoid being charged with a duplicate content issue.

as for me, it's not that i'm afraid of duplicate content, its just that, i don't think that duplicates are not good.. unique and quality contents are still the best