Cross Posting Between OS.me and Medium

We have a few of the authors who post on OS.me and also cross-post on Medium and Vice Versa.  I am also one of them.
Medium is great for serendipity and discovering some new content, and I have maintained it since my startup days, where we had our company posts. I do end up posting some of the posts on Medium, for the broader audience, who is not on OS.me. 

This post is to share one very important best practice around Cross-posting.

First the Why?

Search Engines – 

When we cross-post an article a key consideration is to let Google and other search engines know which is the original article and which is the cross-posted article.

This ensures that the result which is the original shows up in the search result first and drives traffic to that article.

You Decide?

It is your decision to decide where you want to be considered as the original article. I always like the original article to be on OS.me, and this article will show how to do it correctly.  If you want to do the opposite i.e. have Medium as your original article,  just don’t follow these steps.

To Cross-post you can do the following in Medium

1. Import the Story – Publish the story at OS.me first, and then Import the story on Medium.

Import option in Medium is available, when you click on Stories navigation element.

If you import a story like this, this ensures that the OS.me blog is referred to as original. This is also known as the Canonical URL, for those who want to understand this further.

2.  Copy Paste or Type the Story –

If you are Pasting the Story  and editing on medium manually.   Then go to the
More Settings >Advanced Settings

Then Select This story was originally published elsewhere and enter the OS.me URL.

Cross Posting on Other Platforms like LinkedIn Pulse, Wordpress, etc.

Most platforms dont have the option like Medium has for providing an Canonical URL (points to original content), and hence below is suggested.  These ideas are sourced from https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/i-face-duplicate-content-penalty-when-cross-posting-my-zain-siddiqui/

1. Wait at least seven days before creating duplicate content on LinkedIn and Medium, so Google has a chance to index the original page first (or publish on LinkedIn or Medium first, then use rel=canonical for your website’s blog post version).

2. Publish the first paragraph of your article as a teaser on LinkedIn with a link to read more on OS.me.
This would not be recommended if cross posting between LinkedIn and  Medium, as the Medium platform relies on recommendations to achieve a viral factor past your own followers.

3. Reword the entire article. You’ll have to decide if it’s worth the effort.

Hope you found this useful.  Happy Writing and sharing.