What Is Article Spinning?

Date First Published: 5th October 2022

Topic: Web Design & Development

Subtopic: SEO

Article Type: Computer Terms & Definitions

Difficulty Level: 5/10

Learn more about what article spinning is in this article.

Article spinning is the process of rewriting existing articles on the Web by using a program or tool that replaces words or phrases with synonyms or rephrases sentences, or by hired writers in order to avoid duplicate content penalties by search engines, such as Google and make it look original. When articles are spun, it provides a slightly different variation to create what looks like new content from existing content.

Article spinning can be considered a form of spam as no new content is created and the only differences are that the sentences have been rephrased and the words and phrases have just been replaced by synonyms.

Some people use article spinning to get more backlinks, boosting the search engine ranking of their page. For example, the original writer of an article might allow people to use their article on another website as long as they link back. In order to avoid duplicate content penalties, the owners of the other websites may use a paraphrasing tool to rewrite the article, so that the same article can be found on different websites, but with slightly different wording.

Whilst spun articles cannot be detected as duplicate content by search engines, it is disliked by a lot of people as the page does not provide any original content and is just a variation of content that already exists. Article spinning can be considered a form of plagiarism, which is unethical, and can result in the owner of the content accusing other people of copying their content. Also, since the wording is different, it is difficult to detect by plagiarism detectors that detect whether the same words appear elsewhere on the Web.

Example Of Article Spinning

An example of article spinning below is:

Original sentence: The children and their parents moved into their new house.

Spun sentence: The family moved into their new home with their children.

Article spinning is much more than just rephrasing a sentence. It usually involves copying whole pages and then swapping out certain words or phrases to make them look original.

Difference Between Article Spinning and Paraphrasing

Article spinning is not the same as paraphrasing. Paraphrasing is taking out key parts of an article and putting them into one's own words. The structure of the sentences is modified and simpler language is used that has the same meaning. For example, a 1000-word article can be paraphrased into a few short paragraphs. Article spinning is the act of rewriting large chunks of text or whole articles without taking any parts out or adding any new information, creating a duplicate version of the same article that just expresses exactly the same information in different words.

Limitations Of Article Spinning

Programs or tools that spin (rewrite) articles cannot always recognise context when using words or phrases and can result in wording that no sensible writer would choose or an obscure word that is only used within specific contexts. They might also incorrectly replace words that are part of proper nouns. For example, they might spin 'Great Britain' to 'Good Britain'. Even though 'good' is a synonym for 'great', 'Good Britain' does not have the same meaning as 'Great Britain', which is a proper noun. Although they are much quicker, article spinning programs or tools are also more likely to make sentences sound unnatural and contain more errors than if it was manually spun by someone. Some people may pay hired writers to manually spin articles and writers may spin their own articles, allowing them to sell the same articles with slight variations to different clients.