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"We have posted a number of our articles on article websites for other business sites to use, provided that they attribute the article to my company and link back to our site. There is no attempt to spam here, just an attempt to publicize our expertise and leverage our intellectual property. I also use some blog posts on multiple blogs. Again, the intent is to leverage the effort involved in writing one post. Are either of these techniques considered spamming in Google's eyes?" -- Linda Abraham, Accepted.com

Editor: To answer this question I called upon Jim Hedger, News Editor and SEO researcher at StepForth Placement Inc., Victoria, BC. He answers in a very helpful way:

This is a case of, "It ain’t what you do, it’s the way that you do it."

Traditionally, Google and other search engines have looked for repetition of content in order to prevent duplications in their listings. They also look for duplicate content to prevent an unethical Search Engine Optimization technique known as "leader pages" or "doorway pages."

At the same time, the engineers who program the major search engines realize that a degree of duplicate content is to be expected, especially in relation to journalism in the mainstream world and in the blogosphere. For example, an article syndicated by Reuters or AP will often be reprinted verbatim in several different publications. Similarly, articles I write are published in literally hundreds of other publications, often in the same month. Google and the other major search engines are obviously aware of this massive duplication of content but do not consider it to be spam.

Here’s the reason. When an article by an AP or Reuters writer, or one of my own, finds its way into mass syndication, it is republished across multiple domains owned by many unique entities. Even if several of the domains are owned by the same entity, they are in different locations and serve different markets. The duplicate content is, more often than not, only part of the larger inventory of content found on those sites. Google is able to perceive these factors, along with several others that indicate the intention of the content.

The second issue in your question regarded your use of duplicate content on several blogs at the same time. From the way the statement was written, I assume you are the one placing the content on those blogs and that those blogs are registered to you (or otherwise associated with your domain). This will be seen as spam by Google as the intention is to flood Google (or other search engines) with duplicate content in order to maximize the chances of that content being read.

It all comes down to intent.