For those that don’t yet know much about the subject, autoblogging is where you take the RSS feeds off a site or blog, or even several sites or blogs, and use them to automatically update your blog. Once set up, they more or less run themselves, allowing you to be free to concentrate on promoting them, or other business ventures. Autoblogging has its share of fans and opponents. Some people argue that it is morally wrong to base a blog entirely on duplicate content. Some say the search engines will ban sites like this, and that autoblogs provide no value anyway so nobody will be interested. Other’s can’t see a problem. Is it really so wrong to autoblog, and don’t they provide at least some value?
There are as you may suspect potential legal problems with autoblogging. Just ripping off other blogs content may meet some legal opposition. You must make sure that the particular blog allows syndication of their content, and under what terms. For instance Google will allow Google news to be syndicated as long as it is for use on non commercial blogs. If in any doubt you can simply contact the site or blog owner and ask. Most article directories actually encourage the use of their content. And because many are neatly arranged into various categories, you can usually find a feed specific to a particular category.
Some people also argue that autoblogs are worthless as they simply clutter the web up with repeated content. Whilst I would agree that fresh and unique content is preferable, this does not mean that a well set up autoblog does not have some value. If you can get together a good collection of sources of information on a given niche, and bring them to a new audience that finds the information helpful, then is it really all that bad?
The search engines don’t seem to mind duplicate content either. I remember Matt Cutts from Google commenting that Google does not penalise a site for duplicate content, unless it was a useless and incoherent collection of content simply randomly scattered. Matt commented that a site can gather duplicate content and not receive a penalty, as long as the collection has value. He gave an example of a site that merely embedded YouTube videos, but collected related videos that were of a high quality and relevant to a particular niche. The site was useful he argued, because it had filtered the content, rather than just randomly scattered it, and therefore it was perfectly legitimate to run without penalty. This makes sense when you consider that some of the largest and most successful article directories contain almost exclusively duplicate content without any penalties from the search engines.
You could liken duplicate content on autoblogs to a cable channel that buys already broadcasted programmes, rather than makes its own programmes or buys fresh content. Whilst it is very noble showing fresh new content, can’t a channel like this have at least some value, and not be a morally questionable endeavour? You may have seen some of the programmes before, or you may have missed them, but if they are quality programmes, then aren’t you are going to receive at least some value from watching some of them? The channel may have enabled you to watch a quality programme that you missed first time around, and it may manage to introduce the programme to a new audience.
If done correctly, autoblogs can add value to the internet, and can help you in your quest for online success. An autoblog can be used to help support your existing site just like a traditional blog. This is particularly useful for those that don’t have the writing skills or the time to update a more traditional blog. You can even use them as an enterprise in their own right. Since they are low maintenance, there is nothing stopping you from setting up many tens or even hundreds of these over time. If you stay legal and choose your content wisely, then it isn’t harming anybody, and could actually help spread useful content to new people.
Author:- If you would like a free guide on how to set up an autoblog, then please visit Jon’s site to learn how to set up a wordpress autoblog
