Why Private Label Rights (PLR) Articles Are Terrible For Your Website

Private Label Rights (PLR) Articles

Private Label Rights content, or PLR, are articles or eBooks that anyone can use to fulfill their need for content. You are free to publish them as-is, or you can edit them as much as you want. You can brand them as your own if you wish.

But why are they bad for your website?

PLR content is terrible for your website because of the following reasons:

  • PLR articles are duplicate content
  • PLR articles are not adding value
  • PLR articles are not authoritative

Let us take a look at each and see how PLR articles are terrible for your website.

PLR Articles are Duplicate Content

You are not the only person who buys PLR articles—the same PLR articles. These articles are really cheap, and many are free. Some PLR providers can even re-write an article for you for as little as $0.006 per word.

And then they will sell it again to another buyer.

Although PLR articles give you the right to do whatever you want with them, you are still not in control of the copyright. The article you bought is re-sold over and over to other buyers.

And guess what happens if all of you publish the same thing?

Google is going to penalize you for duplicate content.

Google hates duplicate content, especially so if the algorithm can prove that the duplicate content is deceptive.

While it is ok to have duplicate content for product descriptions, such as the features of a product sold on Amazon, Google does not like it if you post duplicate content to gain traffic to your website.

The only reason a blogger would buy content is for web traffic. Eventually, Google will find out, and the search algorithm is going to de-rank your pages.

Google’s goal for the world-wide-web is to turn it into a searchable and organized set of information that will be helpful to mankind. If you are posting duplicate PLR content, you are not adding something new; you are not helping in fulfilling this goal.

Having said that, Google is going to heavily favor a website that has the same PLR content for a more extended period of time. Since you just bought it recently, you already lost this game of seniority. The first person who published that PLR blog post is more likely to win the traffic from Google than you.

If you keep on doing this, no amount of content is going to rank you in Google, as all your content are duplicates. And without traffic, you cannot really make money off your website.

PLR Articles are not Adding Value

Since PLR articles are duplicates, you are not adding value.

Google always makes changes to its algorithm. One of the most impacting changes is E-A-T. What this means is Expertise, Authority, Trustworthiness.

Your website must possess all these three things for Google to rank you in its search engines. Logically, the Google algorithm will never see you or your website as an expert if your content is duplicate.

Another thing with the E-A-T update is that the articles must provide value. Most PLR content is generic, and they do not provide meaningful context to what a reader is looking for.

And what happens? The reader is going to leave your website, increasing your bounce rate and reducing your dwell time optimization.

Dwell time is the amount of time a reader spent on a webpage. In Google’s eyes, a reader who stays for a long time on your web page is someone who found value. Obviously, people would spend more time on a webpage if they were actually reading the content.

If you publish PLR content that has nothing new to offer, the lead is going to leave within a short period. Google will know this and think that your web page provides little to no value.

And if Google decides so, it is going to de-rank that particular webpage. Google believes that it is responsible for what people learn on the web. And if your web page is not adding value, the algorithm will start looking for other web pages that have more meaningful and fresh content than yours.

Also, one update is called YMYL. It stands for Your money, Your Life.

Google is now cautious about showing page results, or blog posts, that have anything to do with health, politics, making money, career advice, and so much more that has anything to do with a person’s happiness and fulfillment.

Google is now crawling the web to find out if a website is written by an expert, and will only show that website in the search results if the author is credible. Your medical blog will not rank high if you are not a doctor. Your money-making niche is not going to rank high if your readers do not engage on your page.

Again, these are things that PLR articles can never do for you, and this is why PLR articles are terrible for your website.

PLR Articles are not Authoritative

PLR articles are written in content mills. Most of the authors who write these did research online, and then re-wrote the content.

As such, there is no authority there. You cannot really expect a PLR article about making money to show real statistics or value to a reader. Most of these are just derivatives of other articles that the researcher found online.

And if there is no authority, there is no substance in the content. Again, your readers will know, and they will leave your website.

Again, if your web pages do not have a high dwell time, Google will think it is not providing value, and your search ranks will continue to dive-bomb.

But What is an Authority Post?

An authority post is something that is written by an expert. That expert is you.

Or you can hire a copywriter who knows your niche inside and out. Only an expert will understand the pain points of your target market.

And because he understands this, the expert writer can provide an article that solves these problems in a way that your readers would appreciate.


Stay away from PLR articles and other PLR eBooks. PLR articles are terrible for your website for one main reason: traffic.

Google is becoming smarter every day. And the people behind Google will always find a way to catch those who are gaming the system. More and more web pages will be culled from its search results, and you do not want yourself to be one of these website operators.

PLR is only suitable for ads, as Google never really bothers with the ads since you are paying for paid traffic to your product. But if you are expecting traffic from PLR articles, you are not gonna get any. Maybe you would, but Google will find out eventually and de-rank your web pages.

At first, you may think that you are saving a ton of money paying $1 per PLR article, compared to a $30 one that you commissioned for a writer to do.

But once you feel the negative impact of PLR articles, you will be forced to start from scratch all over again and realized that you have lost a whole lot of time paying for PLR articles that never bought great results.

Invest now in writers, and stay away from PLR materials.

John Kilmerstone


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