Encyc:Duplicate content policy

Encyc: Duplicate content policy

Encyc is home to rich, original content. We should avoid copying content from other encyclopedias, even if it is in accordance with the licensing. The reason for this is that Google and other search engines penalize duplicate content, and they will push Encyc down in the search engine rankings, making it harder for readers to find our original content.

In the old days it may have been that having all of this content helped, especially with the "long tail" of search, but as of January 2024 it is too harmful to have duplicate content. Exceptions can be made for good reasons, for example if some content is needed to support an existing or newly-created original article.

Another exception would be for content that has been lost from Wikipedia due to the natural article revision and reorganization process, but can still be found in the article history (i.e. not supposed to be indexed by Google). If the content seems valuable and has no other home, and the licensing is ok, this would not be considered duplicate content.