NTM-USA website powered by Site Stacker

Duplicate content is an issue on the Site Stacker content management system by WMtek.

Pray for David and the NTM Communications team as they process this issue and make decisions about how to approach it.

For example, the Mission News content “Now It’s Time To Teach” can be accessed by the following URLs:

From HOME: http://usa.ntm.org/content/home/40686/now_it_s_time_to_teach

From Mission News: http://usa.ntm.org/content/mission-news/40686/now_it_s_time_to_teach

From Current News: http://usa.ntm.org/content/current-news/40686/now_it_s_time_to_teach

From Prayer: http://usa.ntm.org/content/prayer/40686/now_it_s_time_to_teach

From Asia-Pacific: http://usa.ntm.org/content/asia-pacific/40686/now_it_s_time_to_teach

From Papua New Guinea: http://usa.ntm.org/content/papua-new-guinea/40686/now_it_s_time_to_teach

From Mengen People: http://usa.ntm.org/content/mengen-people-group/40686/now_it_s_time_to_teach

Under Google Quality Guidelines they state: “Don’t create multiple pages, subdomains, or domains with substantially duplicate content.”

Under Google Duplicate Content Webmaster Tools they state, “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 an article by SEOmoz titled “Duplication Content – SEO Best Practices” they list three of the biggest issues with duplicate content:

1.  Search engines don’t know which version(s) to include/exclude.
2. Search engines don’t know whether to direct the link metrics (trust, authority, anchor text, link juice, etc.) to one page, or keep it separated between multiple versions.
3. Search engines don’t know which version(s) to rank for query results.

From a social sharing and commenting perspective, it takes all the interaction with site visitors and spreads it out among seven pages so even an article with significant visitor interaction is likely to show very little user engagement per page view.

Please pray for wisdom for David and the other members of the NTM Communications team as they work through this issue and similar issues on a daily basis.

References:

Problems with providing duplicate content and ways to fix it:

http://www.seomoz.org/learn-seo/duplicate-content

Google on duplicate content

http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=66359

Google information about canonization

http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=139066

Google Webmaster Guidelines

http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=35769

David introduced the staff and students of NTM's Missionary Training Center to myMinistry blogs.

On Monday, David had the privilege of addressing the majority of NTM’s staff and students at the Missionary Training Center in Missouri.  The newly released “myMinistry” blogs are being made available to students just arriving as well as New Tribes Mission staff and students around the world.

David’s first point to get across was that NTM can provide a much greater service to Christ-followers around the world if a unified message about planting tribal churches is presented with a clear path for involvement.  He illustrated how Coca-Cola has accomplished reaching 97% of the world’s population through building a consistent brand and how the public is best served through consistency, rather than individuality and creativity.

Wal-Mart was used as a prime example of a company that is using a uniform customer experience to make shoppers feel welcome.  Just like people like to know where items are located in a store, people like be able to find information in predictable locations online.

The myMinistry blogs are designed to provide the site visitor with a consistent, user friendly experience, branded to New Tribes Mission.  Widgets, the blog posts and photos represent the uniqueness of each missionary’s role in accomplishing the task of planting tribal churches.

Monday afternoon through Thursday, David was available to students and staff for individual training.  David is also the main one to answer inquiries to the myMinistry Help Desk and set up all new myMinistry blogs.  All of this resulted in 14-16 hour work days this week and being away from the family for seven days.

While David is back home in Florida now, the demand for support of the new sites has not let up much.  He hopes to be able to leave the office early this week while Kristia’s family is visiting and staying on the beach.

Thank you for praying for wisdom and endurance while we help New Tribes missionaries effectively communicate their ministries while considering their safety at the same time.  More financial partners are needed to support our ministry.  Contact us or use the Give tab above to become more involved.