Is there a ‘duplicate content penalty’? This is a bit of a myth. While duplicate content can impact SEO and should be minimised, it isn’t something to lose sleep over. Google simply does not have a duplicate content penalty. They take the view: "Duplicate content on a site is not grounds for action on that site unless it appears that the intent of the duplicate content is to be deceptive and manipulate search engine results." In fact, the latest version of Google’s Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines (December 2019) has this to say on Page 40: "We do not consider legitimately licensed or syndicated content to be “copied” In other words: content syndication has its place.