So, before I worked for DEV, I used to crosspost to both DEV and Medium from my own blog. That was my whole strategy, post in three places with different audiences, and it worked really well for me. But, that canonical_url was really important so that the SEO went to my newly growing blog which I had more control over.
Google also will sometimes punish duplicate content if it doesn't have the canonical_url because it thinks its spam or plagiarism. Several of my crossposted FreeCodeCamp posts were the #1 ranked articles for some keywords.
I think people who read my content know how much work I put into it, each one takes 8-10 hours to write (usually in a restaurant on Sundays), and I've never monetized my content.
When I saw that my writing was on this new site but with my name in a difficult to find location and without the canonical url pointing to my site or DEV, I was really disappointed. In the grand scheme of things, it's not hugely important or impactful on my career, but I really think that platforms need to put their content creators first. They can't be an afterthought or someone you ask forgiveness from instead of permission.
I didn't know this new site was going live, or the format of it, or that it may take away from the searches to my original content.
I searched through my inboxes over and over again to make sure I wasn't missing an email asking me to opt into moving to the new site, but I didn't find anything. And, it sounds like the same is true for other authors from speaking to them.
I also went through this when Hacker Noon moved off of Medium, but that one was super different -- they asked my permission before moving my content.
I know I'm in a lucky place because my readership is through social media, my audience on here, and then SEO comes in third. But I know for a lot of up and coming content creators, SEO is paramount and this really affects their ability to get eyes on their blogs.
If you all are in the position where creators are trusting you to keep their content safe, please value that. It's a lot of unpaid work to not get proper attribution for.
You can read more about the SEO implications here.
Edit: Here's a fun graph of my views going from~100 a day to zero overnight.
Rutger's Full Stack Bootcamp grad, currently searching for her first junior dev position. I also have a love of adventure, marketing, and art. Profile art by the talented Zoey Masters.
This is slightly off-topic, so apologies in advance.
You described in your comment above that you USED to create your content on your blog, then cross-post to Medium and Dev.to.
We (CodeTips) are doing something very similar - we're creating the content on codetips.co.uk, and then cross-posting to Dev.
We've currently only cross-posted one article to Medium, mainly because Dev is a better platform for us, but I'm interested why you stopped (assuming you did) cross-posting to Medium? Was it only because you now work for Dev?
Did you reach that many more people cross-posting on Medium as well?
Basically, I'm wondering if it's worth our time to cross-post everything to Medium as well...
I wrote A Month of Flutter and cross-posted to DEV and Medium. I had a fair amount of pageviews and engagement on DEV but much less so on Medium. That combined with all the extra work tweaking Medium posts make it so I wouldn't post to Medium anymore. Medium makes it so you can only set canonical_url if you import via a URL, the imported content always required updating tags, descriptions, code formatting or something else.
// , “It is not so important to be serious as it is to be serious about the important things. The monkey wears an expression of seriousness... but the monkey is serious because he itches."(No/No)
So, before I worked for DEV, I used to crosspost to both DEV and Medium from my own blog. That was my whole strategy, post in three places with different audiences, and it worked really well for me. But, that
canonical_urlwas really important so that the SEO went to my newly growing blog which I had more control over.Google also will sometimes punish duplicate content if it doesn't have the canonical_url because it thinks its spam or plagiarism. Several of my crossposted FreeCodeCamp posts were the #1 ranked articles for some keywords.
I think people who read my content know how much work I put into it, each one takes 8-10 hours to write (usually in a restaurant on Sundays), and I've never monetized my content.
When I saw that my writing was on this new site but with my name in a difficult to find location and without the canonical url pointing to my site or DEV, I was really disappointed. In the grand scheme of things, it's not hugely important or impactful on my career, but I really think that platforms need to put their content creators first. They can't be an afterthought or someone you ask forgiveness from instead of permission.
I didn't know this new site was going live, or the format of it, or that it may take away from the searches to my original content.
I searched through my inboxes over and over again to make sure I wasn't missing an email asking me to opt into moving to the new site, but I didn't find anything. And, it sounds like the same is true for other authors from speaking to them.
I also went through this when Hacker Noon moved off of Medium, but that one was super different -- they asked my permission before moving my content.
I know I'm in a lucky place because my readership is through social media, my audience on here, and then SEO comes in third. But I know for a lot of up and coming content creators, SEO is paramount and this really affects their ability to get eyes on their blogs.
If you all are in the position where creators are trusting you to keep their content safe, please value that. It's a lot of unpaid work to not get proper attribution for.
You can read more about the SEO implications here.
Edit: Here's a fun graph of my views going from~100 a day to zero overnight.
Wow. This is mind-blowing.
Hi Ali,
This is slightly off-topic, so apologies in advance.
You described in your comment above that you USED to create your content on your blog, then cross-post to Medium and Dev.to.
We (CodeTips) are doing something very similar - we're creating the content on codetips.co.uk, and then cross-posting to Dev.
We've currently only cross-posted one article to Medium, mainly because Dev is a better platform for us, but I'm interested why you stopped (assuming you did) cross-posting to Medium? Was it only because you now work for Dev?
Did you reach that many more people cross-posting on Medium as well?
Basically, I'm wondering if it's worth our time to cross-post everything to Medium as well...
I wrote A Month of Flutter and cross-posted to DEV and Medium. I had a fair amount of pageviews and engagement on DEV but much less so on Medium. That combined with all the extra work tweaking Medium posts make it so I wouldn't post to Medium anymore. Medium makes it so you can only set
canonical_urlif you import via a URL, the imported content always required updating tags, descriptions, code formatting or something else.That's exactly the experience I had with the one post I cross-posted to medium and Dev.
I think I got something like 5 views on Medium and well over 300 on Dev. I did no extra promotion on one over the other either.
I've also managed to get 127 followers on dev in a week. It took me over a year to get 70 on medium.
Dev are clearly doing something right, I just wasnt sure if it was worth crossing to Medium for SEO benefits.
By the sounds of it, you dont think so?
I didn't look into SEO benefits. I wouldn't expect that Medium SEO rating to transfer through a
canonical_linkreference though.Ah ok fair enough! Thanks.
// , Blogging is a pain in the ass, and often the reward isn't even attention.
That you seem to have gotten even a modicum of attention as a reward, and they take it away from you, it's like robbing a nun.