About the No Duplicate Content rule

Medium does not allow posting duplicate content on the platform, whether from a single account or across multiple accounts, either publicly or as an unlisted story.

This applies to duplicate content on Medium only. You can still have your content on your personal blog, or any other websites. 

This includes the following: 

  • Taking a published story to unlisted, then re-publishing the same content into a new post
  • Republishing a duplicate version of an existing Medium story on Medium
  • Cross-posting stories in publications. If your story is already included in a publication, you may not publish another instance of the same story for inclusion in another publication

Medium's distribution system is designed to effectively and efficiently deliver your stories to your network of followers, or readers we have identified as being interested in your writing. The existence of duplicate content from a single source disrupts this system, and ultimately result in a bad experience for your audience.

We understand every author has workflows and motivations, and that republishing content to Medium is often a large part of that. New audiences, iterative improvements, and missed opportunities are all reasons we are aware of, and to which we are sensitive.

The issue we are encountering is that these actions are sometimes at odds with our current system of distribution.

Our concern is that when your followers, any potential readers of your posts via our existing distribution systems, or our curators are repeatedly presented with duplicate content, it ultimately results in a bad experience and disrupts our designed system.

This can potentially impact your success in a variety of ways - you risk losing followers, and the topics or publications into which you are distributed could also see a loss of audience. So while the short-term gains might seem beneficial, the long-term effects are detrimental to not only all Medium readers but you as a writer.

Please note that writers can still self-publish translated versions of their own posts on their Medium account, and that would not violate the no duplicate content rule.

Accounts in violation of this rule will be suspended from Medium until they are brought into compliance. Repeated violations will result in permanent suspension.

Was this article helpful?