Your website should always have original Content. Duplicate Content on your website can harm your ranking and reputation. It is not acceptable to copy someone else’s Content without their permission. This applies both online and off. Google can penalize you for duplicate Content by lowering your page ranking or removing your website from search results. It defeats the whole purpose of creating Content.
Consider the possibility that someone may copy your Content and use it without permission. Unscrupulous marketing companies may use your Content on their website without asking or notifying you. They may even outrank you in search engine results.
What is duplicate Content?
Content that appears in multiple places online, i.e., different websites, is duplicate. Duplicate Content is when you publish the same Content more than once. Duplicate Content is when you post someone else’s material on your website or they do the same.
When Content is too similar, search engines may need help determining what Content is most relevant for a particular query. Search engines want to provide the best possible results when users search for a term. Google and other search engine may exclude duplicate Content in their search queries.
There are several causes of duplicate Content.
In most cases, duplicate Content isn’t malicious or intentionally done. Google defines same Content as blocks of text which are “appreciably similar” or identical within or between domains. Some examples of duplicate Content that is not malicious include descriptions of store items and print-only versions of websites.
The deliberate duplication of Content, however, is a different matter. It can be frustrating to people searching for information when they find the same Content on other domains. This is done to manipulate search engine rankings or increase traffic. Search engines try to discourage the practice.
Google can be used to find duplicate Content.
Copying ten words at the beginning of a sentence and pasting them into Google with quotation marks is a quick way to see if it’s a duplicate. Google recommends this method of checking.
You would expect only your page to appear and, ideally, no other results.
Google may hint that the source of the results it displays first is your website if it appears alongside other websites. You may be dealing with duplicate Content if this is different from your website.
Test a few short sentences from your website into Google.
Valuable Tools for Checking Duplicate Content
You may accidentally make your content sound too similar to previously published Content. To ensure that your Content is unique, it’s a good idea to use plagiarism checkers on everything you write. Many of these tools can be downloaded for free.
Check for duplicate Content using these free tools:
Copyscape This tool will quickly compare the Content you’ve written with Content already published. The device will show you Content that is duplicate and will tell you what percentage of it matches previously published Content.
Placespotter This tool can identify duplicate content pages across the internet. This is a valuable tool to find plagiarists that have stolen your work. You can also automatically monitor your URLs every week to detect duplicate Content.
Duplichecker: This tool quickly checks the originality and quality of Content you plan to post on your website. Users can perform up to 50 searches a day.
Siteliner This tool can be used to check the entire website for duplicate content once a month. It can also identify pages with the most prominence to search engines and check for broken links.
Smallseotools: Various SEO tools are available, including one that detects identical content fragments.
These links offer additional tools for a reasonable price if you wish to go deeper.
Valuable Tools for Checking Plagiarism
The Premium plagiarism checkers can check for duplicate Content by using advanced algorithms. You can rest assured that your work will not be attributed to anyone else.
Most excellent plagiarism tools offer reports which can be used to verify originality. These reports can counter future claims that your work was not original. They can also be saved as PDF files.
Some premium tools that can be used to detect duplicate Content include
Grammarly– This premium tool consists of a plagiarism detector and a grammar checker.
Plagium — Offers either a quick search for free or a deep search at a premium price.
Plagiarismcheck.org– Detects paraphrased and exact text matches.
Has Your Content Been Scraped?
Content on your website must be original. The tools above can help to ensure that you do not accidentally make your Content similar to the Content found on another website.
There are also websites that intentionally copy Content from another blog and use it on their own. Usually, this is done by automated software. You may find scraped Content if you audit the Content of your site. How do you stop content scrapers from stealing your Content? If you find that someone has copied and pasted your Content, what should you do?
How to Catch Content Scrapers
Regularly using premium plagiarism tools can help you find Content you’ve written on another site. Other options exist to detect scraped Content.
Askimet may cause WordPress trackbacks to appear in spam. If your posts always include links to other posts in your blog, content scrapers may find you this way.
Check links on your website using Webmaster Tools. You may discover that your Content was scraped from another site if you have many links. You can only be sure by visiting their site to see which pages link to yours. It’s possible that you will find the exact same Content on their website.
Google Alerts will notify you if your title appears on the internet after your post has been published.
You may find that as you become more established in your niche and gain more authority, others who are still trying to establish their voice or authority will want to borrow it. This allows them to post authoritative Content on their blogs without having to spend time creating quality content.
What to do about content scrapers
Scraping Content violates ethics. You have several options if you discover that your Content was scraped.
Inform the owner of the site that has published your Content that you found it on their website. Give the site owner the benefit of the doubt. They may not even be aware that the Content stolen has been posted on their site. You can contact them via their website’s contact form or any of the social networking platforms that they use.
Give them the option to keep the Content on the site while you are credited as the author. You can also give a hyperlink back to your website. You can also offer to write an updated article in exchange of a link. Tell them that you want the Content immediately removed if it is a low-quality site.
Do a Whois search if there’s no obvious way to reach the website owner. If the site is not privately registered, you will likely find out who owns it. If you are still unable to find out who the owner of the site is, you will be able to find out who is hosting it using the free tool Whoishostingthis.com. Inform the hosting company that the website owner is publishing Content protected by copyright. Hosting companies will take such complaints seriously and offer help in a timely fashion.
