Content Spinning – Is Rewriting Good or Bad?

Rewriting your content is a tricky proposition. Quite a few people underestimate the potential value of rewriting while some overuse it. Another group may take it too seriously and others never give it a thought at all. The fact is, rewriting can be a powerful tool if done correctly. If it is not taken seriously it is just piling up the garbage bags on the curb – that won‘t be picked up.

There are several different types of rewrites that you can consider. The first is when you find a really fabulous piece of work by someone else and you want to share it, but perhaps you disagree with a portion or two, or want to expand or summarize it and add your own thoughts. This is actually a very common phenomena that nearly everyone takes part in at some point if they produce a lot of content.

In this particular type of case, what you are really doing is just using your own knowledge along with the new information thatyou have just learned to produce an article or blog post. So long as it is unique and reflects your own voice it is not a problem. This isn’t even really rewriting regardless of what some mat say. It is more a matter of utilizing a combination of information from different sources to create something new – it‘s called research.

Another very common type of rewrite involves the alteration from one type of piece to another – usually reworking a press release into an article, or a PowerPoint presentation into a blog post. This is a standard practice throughout the industry because it is economical regarding both time and money. This is more of a change in format than an actual rewrite though. What is really being done is making a piece of content useable in another venue.

A true rewrite is derived from articles that you wish to submit to different directories or places on the web without running into duplicate content issues. There are a lot of misconceptions about rewrites, so let’s take a quick look at what they really are in regards to SEO.

Numerous theories exist regarding the proper way to rewrite online content. All too often, most of these theories are aimed at magically increasing the number of articles you have with a minimum of time and effort invested in actually generating a large amount of material. In  short, these are about gaming the system in a manner in which just 6 articles, for instance, become 60 articles without doing anything more than a cut and paste job. Several ‘automated systems’ even exist which do this. This isn’t even rewriting, it is just slapping text together in a new order and hoping it will work without actually rewriting a single word.

Truth be told, none of these tricks actually improve the quality of your material or increase it in any meaningful way. If you are told to supply four articles with a specific number of paragraphs and a specific number of sentences in each paragraph, and explicit instructions as to titles and formatting, with the guarantee of dozens of ‘original articles to be delivered inside a week’ – run away! All you will get in return is your four articles spun into a group of gibberish because each paragraph you wrote was combined in a fashion that “spun” content.

Avoid such taking an article and doing nothing more than substituting synonyms in each sentence. Granted, you can do this and get away with it so far as the SERPS are concerned usually, but for the most part if you have people that actually read your content on a regular basis then it will seem repetitive and forced.

The best way to do rewrites is to write an entirely new article. Take the information that you want to rework and try to imagine explaining it to different people in a whole new fashion. Ask yourself how would you explain it if you were talking to a newcomer in the industry, a veteran you want to impress with your knowledge, a colleague who wants your take, a client you need to break it down for or even a person that is just a little bit curious. Each angle offers a new opportunity.

If you do your rewrites correctly, you will really benefit from the extra effort. Doing things correctly makes a big difference. If you plan to skimp, plan to not even bothering wasting your time.