Article Spinning
What is Article Spinning?
Article spinning - or content spinning - is the practice of re-writing someone else’s piece of content to create what seems to be an original piece. Article spinning replaces words, phrases, and sentences with alternate versions to make the content look original to search engine crawlers and website visitors.
The purpose of content spinning is to quickly generate large amounts of content that won’t be recognized as plagiarism.
Article spinning is a black-hat SEO tactic - and as such, it goes against the Spam policies for Google web search. Under the section “Spammy automatically-generated content,” you will find the following example of what Google recognizes as spammy, auto-generated content:
Text generated using automated synonymizing, paraphrasing, or obfuscation techniques.
Using content spinning can result in a maul action for your website.
Despite that, it remains a relatively common practice.
Most often, it’s done using content-spinning software. Here is an example of content spspun using a free online tool:
As you can see, the quality is very low. However, there are advanced tools that create pretty decent copies.
The issue with the content-spinning tools is that they cannot recognize context and can alter words and phrases in a way that makes very little sense or completely misses the original text’s meaning.
There’s a second type of article spinning, though - a manual process known as rewriting - where the writer is tasked with putting a new spin on an existing piece of content and making the “new” version more readable and natural-sounding.
Is article spinning important for SEO?
Article spinning is nothing more than carefully disguised plagiarism. People who deliberately use this tactic are aware of that and still choose to take the easy approach - rather than putting effort into creating original content.
There was a time when article spinning was a common practice because it didn’t raise any red flags with Google’s algorithm - the early 2000s.
Now Google’s algorithm has become much better at recognizing spam and demoting pages with duplicate and otherwise “thin” content in search results.
Despite Google’s tremendous efforts and success in fighting computer-generated content, some black-hat SEOs still use article spinning - and get away with it.
It is commonly used to create a large number of posts quickly; a portion of these posts may rank for certain keywords and drive traffic to the site. Another common use is low-quality link-building, where spun articles are distributed across different websites for money (as an alternative to guest posting).
But, while content spinning can save you time and help you temporarily boost your site’s ranking in SERPs, the lack of authenticity and value to the reader will eventually give you away:
This type of content is created for the search engine. The reader’s experience is rarely - if ever - considered in the process. In most cases, articles produced by content spinners can’t fool actual readers, even if they somehow manage to trick search engine algorithms.
Besides, the potential consequences are rarely worth it:
- If Google recognizes your content as low-quality, computer-generated content, it’ll ignore the page; it won’t be indexed or shown in SERPs.
- Google may have a site-wide quality rating for a website. Featuring low-quality content - such as spun content - could potentially harm all the other pages on your website, even if they feature high-quality, relevant content that would otherwise rank well.
- Your website can get penalized for it. Google has a specific penalty for “thin content” with little to no value - including spun content.
What to do instead?
If you want to find a new use for your existing content, article spinning is not the only solution. In fact, there are other ways to reuse your content and still stay within Google’s guidelines. You will find three alternatives to content spinning outlined below.
1. Repurpose your content
Rather than resorting to article spinning, there are ways to repurpose your existing content, be it parts of it or an entire piece, to get more out of it - typically by presenting it in a new format. That way, you can take advantage of what you already have and give it “new life.”
For instance, a part of your existing blog post might be used as a social media post. Or, you can take the key facts and statistics outlined in one of your articles and turn them into an infographic that you can share on different platforms.
You still get to save time on content creation, but instead of repurposing someone else’s content without giving them credit, you do so by “recycling” your work.
2. Cover a topic from a different angle
You should refrain from content spinning. That does not mean you cannot be resourceful in your SEO efforts, though.
And that’s where “reimagined content” comes in:
In some cases, you can cover the same topics as someone else. But rather than spinning it, you can expand on some issues outlined in the existing piece of content and cover them in greater detail - or cover the topic from a different, unique angle using your voice.
This approach works, provided you can give the content a unique touch and a new perspective.
Most importantly, it will not be marked as duplicate content because the existing piece served as nothing more than inspiration and a “jumping-off point” for your take on the matter.
3. Republish older articles
Republishing an existing post is another alternative to content spinning. The best “candidate” for this would be underperforming content (i.e., content that’s not ranking particularly high in SERPs for its primary keyword) that is at least 12 months old.
Republishing here means re-writing your article from scratch or updating 70-80% of its contnet.
You can use Ahrefs’ Site Explorer to identify underperforming pages on your website.
There are several reasons to consider republishing older articles, the most notable ones being:
- It gives an older piece of content exposure to a new audience and increases the chance of getting new traffic
- It is an opportunity to update your old content with up-to-the-date data and facts
- It is faster than creating content from scratch
All these methods will bring much more value to your website than content spinning.