Amazon Shops duplicate content penalty

[MrCrip]

I have been looking at Associate o Matics Amazon shop software which has some good reviews.

My research of their flagship sites has shown the vast majority not to be performing at all well in Google due to duplicate content. Has anyone got information to the contrary that can prove the worth of an Amazon shop? Or is it really a dead duck?

[jcorkern]

Traffic Rank for amazon.com: 29... Looks like they are doing fine. They are not getting hit from dup content. just as bizrate and shopzilla are doing fine.


I use to see their analytics daily and i can assure you that their seo is on track, it is just hard to bleed PR to over 150k pages of content for seo purposes. That takes a steady link building campaign, and a massive one at that.

[Linda Buquet]

I think he's referring to affiliates that have their own sites using
Associate o Matics Amazon shop software, not the parent site.

[Linda Buquet]

Although I don't know about that software specifically, I would assume it's similar to the issue of 100 affiliates using the same merchant datafeed.

Especially if Google did a human review - if all sites were the same cookie cutter sites using the same datafeed, they could all be seen as thin affiliate sites.

But I would think if you picked a rather unique product category with that software and added value by making it somehow unique like adding reviews or product comparisons and then added some of your own unique content.

Also look to see if sites built with the tool leave a footprint. If they do and there are thousands using that cookie cutter software then Google may have or could in the future easily pinpoint and devalue those sites.

[jcorkern]

so are they using templated affiliate pages?

[MrCrip]

The site I am testing on is very niche which is why I am surprised it has been pegged back so quickly. I agree it requires some additional content.

The site is just over two weeks old; it had gained some significant placements after the first 7 days. It could be a slapdown for dupe content. I'm going to keep chipping away with it, it makes for a great experiment.

[MrCrip]

Yes, it would be easy to Google to detect the Associate-o-Matic template.

[jcorkern]

all you have to do is write a small paragraph in the page somewhere and it will get released as soon as it is spidered again.

[Linda Buquet]

Even if it wasnt an Associate-o-Matic template and was pure unique content with no affiliate links, if the site is that new you can expect it to jump around in the serps or even disappear for awhile. Lots of things can affect ranking and in the beginning things can be pretty unstable.

Just keep truckin! Like you said it's a good learning experience.

[purdue512]

i don't think they are hit with dup content.. my understanding is that the entire site REALLY has to be a dup.