One of the reasons why I have a doubt on letting search engines to index the Tags, Categories, Media and Archive of my blog is the rumor that Google penalizes duplicate content. Is this idea true or false?
With an aim of reaching the readers – especially the visual merchandisers – of The Creativity Window in fastest way by the help of the search engines, I have put this blog into test by allowing search engines to index the Tags, Categories, Media Attachment, Archive and other pages that could be possibly devoured by crawlers. The result is quite good. Sometimes the tags are on the top of search results.

Another reason why I did that is to prove that there is no harm of letting the big G index the Tags, Categories and Archive of anyone's blog. I'll give you an example later on. An idea that contradicts an issue  about Google penalizes duplicate content was actually been published on the web even before I discovered it.
Let me quote a part of an article from Build my list today (www.buildmylisttoday.com) about myths of duplicate content.

"Now, the real problem lies not with Google or with webmasters but with the rumor merchants. The group of people who purport to everyone else that unless you spin your content it will be filtered out for being duplicate. Perhaps not surprisingly, these people invariable have a product to promote – article spinning software.

The counter argument is that duplicate content is filtered out. This argument  is not only flawed, it is misleading and can cost you money."

Here the concrete example.

I  have an article which was duplicated by someone and published it in different title. The content is exactly the same – no spinning and no rewriting done on the article. Even the color of sub-topics were not change before it was publish, but when the term "visual merchandising elements" is searched on Google, that duplicated content is No. 1 on the search results page.

Why does it happen? Google itself  has the answer.

 The recently updated article of Google Webmaster Tools  about duplicate content says, "In rare situations, our algorithm may select a URL from an external site that is hosting your content without your permission. If you believe that another site is duplicating your content in violation of copyright law, you may contact the site’s host to request removal."

Here is another example.

 I wrote another article about the different types of window display and I use Top 6 Types of Window Display as title, then I use types of window display as tag.

When the terms ' types of window display' is search on Google, my main article appears on the first pages of the results and the tag is on the second page. See this image below.

Again, Google has the answer on it.

On the same article I have mentioned above, it is said that duplicate content on a site is not grounds for action on that site unless it appears that the intent of the duplicate content is to be deceptive and manipulate search engine results.

Therefore, it is safe to let Google index your blog's categories, tags and archive.

So what can you say about this issue? Are the tags and categories in your blog indexed? Share you opinion as comment.

Thank you for reading. Godspeed!


Jyppe A. Quidores is a print design and visual merchandising specialist. He blogs at The Creativity Window about (but not limited to) visual arts with emphasis on visual merchandising, print design,  product photography and creative display – which are helpful for retailers and other individuals from different creative fields especially the beginners.