What Is Content Syndication?

Date First Published: 13th November 2023

Topic: Web Design & Development

Subtopic: SEO

Article Type: Computer Terms & Definitions

Difficulty Level: 4/10

Learn about what content syndication is in this article.

Content syndication is the process of republishing content, such as blog posts, on other websites to drive more traffic, increase awareness, and reach a wider audience. When syndicating content, the publisher usually mentions the original source with a link back. This makes it a simple and low-cost way to engage an audience.

Syndicated content will work better when there is high quality content to share that is optimised for search engines. Publishers are more likely to share high-quality content than content that has little value for users. Once content is syndicated, it is important for website owners to track referral traffic so that they can see how many users have been directed to their websites by their content syndicated on other websites.

Advantages and Disadvantages Of Content Syndication

• It can increase website traffic. When content is syndicated, readers might check the original source, driving more website traffic.
• It can provide SEO benefits. The more websites an article is syndicated by, the more links pointing to the original source. This can increase page rank on Google.
• It can boost brand awareness as the company's name is displayed on the other websites, enabling it to become well-known. This can help generate more leads and conversions.

• It can result in a lack of control over how the content is displayed. Since it is hosted on someone else's website, text, links, and images can be changed, even if the original source has not given permission. In addition, articles can become outdated over time.
• Even though it can increase website traffic, it can result in a loss of advertising revenue. If the same article is published on other websites, it can result in more people going to the websites that have syndicated the articles rather than the original source. This causes the original source to lose advertising revenue.
• It can lead to duplicate content issues. Publishing the same article on multiple websites can lead to duplicate content issues. This can result in Google only showing one website that lists the article, which might not be the preferred version to show in the SERPs. As a result, the syndicated website might rank higher than the original website and Google may mistake the syndicated content as the original copy.

Difference Between Content Syndication and Guest Posting

Content syndication is not the same thing as guest posting. The main difference between content syndication and guest posting is that content syndication is a way of republishing content so that it can be seen by a wider audience and guest posting is the process of posting original content on a third-party websites. Compared to guest posting, content syndication is a much quicker way of driving website traffic as users only need to write one piece of content and republish it on other blogs and platforms.

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