Covering the Same Ground in Articles

Hiya,

I just wanted to check the policy here about writing about similar/the same things on Wizzley.  It's something that's come up a few times before and is bound to come up again.

The trigger this time is a conversation that Mladen and I are having over on my Prometheus movie review.  I'm encouraging him to write one too, as he saw totally different things in the movie.  I personally think that two reviews, in this case, would be great.  I've already told him that I'll link to his article from mine!

In swapping ideas, his focus will be totally different to mine.  They'll cover different ground.  The only thing that they'll have in common is that they're both focusing on the same movie.

This whole thing confuses me though.  I can see why two articles on precisely the same thing, with nothing to differentiate, would be bad.  It would look spammy for a start.  If I'm writing, I generally search Wizzley first to check that it's not been done. 

I did mess up once though.  I reviewed 'the Woman in Black' without realizing that Terri had already done it.  But on other occasions, I've scrapped a potential article, because it had been done.  Wizzley's never heard about my Terraria obsession (outside the forums) because another author already wrote about it.

Am I being too cautious?  At what point does things switch from being in the same category to being the same thing?

yours

Jo

xxxxx

Very good question. I have a bunch of scrapped articles too. I try to stay away from things done (sometimes I just get too excited about writing it though). I do try to come from a different angle at least.

My thought was that if it does have a different viewpoint, it should be ok, like Sue said, we really want readers to stay here, right?

He's got me excited to read his take anyway!  He's going into the psychology and science, whereas I was mostly on the plot and Feminism.

Even if there is a Wizzley ruling on not having the same, can we make an exception here?  Mladen's really got me wanting to read it!

As for what Sue's said, that makes perfect sense to me too.  And it looks like Lana and I are thinking along the same lines.

As long as it contains a different viewpoint or additional, interesting information, we have nothing against another article on the same subject.

I'd try to optimize for a different key phrase, though, as Google won't rank 2 similar articles from the same domain on their front pages. 

What we try to avoid, is that authors pick an existing article, create a rewrite, and then try to outrank the original author in the SERPs. That's nasty.

What we try to avoid, is that authors pick an existing article, create a rewrite, and then try to outrank the original author in the SERPs. That's nasty.

This could be taken care of now, but further on the time would come when things are a bit saturated and there would definitely be internal competition as well. So, what could be done to prevent that? Not everyone is going to check and see if there's a similar article already. 

If you don't want to check if there's already competition for your planned article on our site, you may waste your time writing an article with no chance for ranking.

Checking for competition is an important part of our work as online authors, whether it's on Wizzley, or on the web as a whole.

On the bright side, once a great article is established in the SERPS, it's hard to remove it with a simple rewrite.

I always check before I write, was just worried about what others in the future may do. 

chefkeem: 10/03/2012 - 11:54 AM

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As long as it contains a different viewpoint or additional, interesting information, we have nothing against another article on the same subject.

I'd try to optimize for a different key phrase, though, as Google won't rank 2 similar articles from the same domain on their front pages. 

What we try to avoid, is that authors pick an existing article, create a rewrite, and then try to outrank the original author in the SERPs. That's nasty.

Cheffe said it all, couldn't agree more!