September 1, 2009 by Matt Thomas
SEOs are well used to a fairly adversarial relationship with Google – fair enough really, we do exist solely to manipulate their carefully worked out system – so it’s always refreshing when they do something that makes our lives easier. A new change to advanced search features, entitled ‘creative commons’ is one of those rare instances. Creative Commons allows users to find free content that is available for use on your website at the touch of a button.
The content available includes written content, pictures and even simple tools, all free for use on your site. Okay, almost free. The use of the content is dependent on your signing up to usage rules stipulated by the creator, this invariably means some kind of link trading arrangement.
It’s a trade off. Basically you need to weigh the benefits of the content, both in terms of SEO and user experience against the potential consequences of diluting your site’s PageRank – remember, the rel=nofollow tag no longer works. Also, when it comes to written content it’s worth bearing the potential for duplication in mind, though you can minimise this by making small changes like adding your own small paragraphs at the start and the end, this also helps to frame the article within the context of your site.
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