Over the years I’ve heard varying opinions and “expert dialogue” on the issue of whether duplicate copy from posting articles online is what we should be doing. Some swear there is a penalty for doing this while others (myself included) say this is a myth.
Think of it this way, once you post an article to a directory you hope and pray someone will pick up your content and post your information to their blog or ezine. Doesn’t this constitute duplicate content? Of course it does.

Penalized or rewarded?
Do you get penalized for doing this? Hardly. Actually you get rewarded with greater visibility, more market reach and increased credibility due to others finding your information valuable enough to share with their readers.
This is a great example of why it’s so important to research something before taking it as gospel. Just because something is repeated multiple times does not mean it is true. Repeated false information is what Urban Legends are made of.
It’s all a bunch of balony
Years ago when I started my professional speaking career I heard the story many of us have heard of how an Ivy League college had done a study on goal setting. According to several experts, who happened to be world renowned motivational speakers, the graduates of one class were tracked down after 20 years to see how much they had accomplished in their life over the previous two decades.
As the story goes those who wrote their goals down accomplished more than those who did not. Actually, 3% accomplished more financially than the other 97%.

Back when I was brand new
In the early 90’s I was a fairly green speaker and did what many new speakers do. I repeated this “urban legend”. I excitedly talked about the importance of goals, writing them down and all the other details of the massively told story.

As it turns out, the study was never done. As a matter of fact I contacted Yale, Harvard and Stanford Universities attempting to prove the story true. No one at any of these fine institutes had heard anything about such a study. I got to eat a bit of humble pie on the importance of checking out my facts.
Not that I don’t believe in the power of goal setting, writing goals down and keeping focused because I do. However, this particular story around goal setting from the research I have done is true. If anyone can show me otherwise I would love to see your research. And it has to be more than world famous speaker so and so said it is so. Even world famous speakers mess up on occasion.
The lesson here…before automatically assuming something is true, do your research. My research includes paying attention to what industry experts write about and where they got their information. My colleague, Lynn Terry of ClickNewz, recently wrote about duplicate content on one of Darren Rowse’s ProBlogger posts. Lynn is definitely an expert on Internet marketing. In her post she referenced an excellent resource addressing the very same topic. Check it out.