How Online Plagiarism Ruins Your Reputation
Some years ago, we had a client who had an enormous, in-depth website. It was a medical practice that provided readers with a page for every possible condition they treated, as well as a page for each of the treatments and services this practice provided. The site was larger than 100 pages. But you couldn’t find it on a search engine unless you knew the exact name of the practice and searched only for that name.
Why, if so many important medical topics were covered, didn’t popular searches turn up any results for this large practice? How is it possible that not a single entry in the first 10 pages of a Google search pointed to this practice for an answer? It’s because every page was an exact copy of other pages posted elsewhere online. It was pure theft that our client thought was OK, as long as it was online plagiarism.
Google Hates Plagiarism
Google and other search engines — like Bing, Yahoo, Duck Duck Go and even YouTube — not only penalize websites that rely on online plagiarism for content, but they also often kick you out of the search engine universe altogether until you clean up your act.
Whenever you’re creating a new webize, adding content to your existing site or even just creating regular blog posts, take steps to avoid online plagiarism by:
- Running content through an inexpensive plagiarism checker like CopyScape, especially if you hired a writer to create your content or you’re not sure if you copied something you just read
- Hiring a professional writing team like Ray Access to create new, unique copy for all your proprietary content, one that runs its copy through the online plagiarism checker for you
- Telling your marketing and web design teams that you only accept original content for all your written platforms, including your social media platforms
- Checking your site regularly to ensure your copy hasn’t been copied and taking down duplicate copy when you discover it — because search engines only catch duplicate content, not necessarily who created it first
Quality Is the Key
Quality content — meaning valuable, useful information for your online readers — is completely original and contains no instance of online plagiarism. Quality content helps you stand out among the competition. Quality content gets you first- or second-page search engine results. The big search engines like Google reward long-form informative content that involves at least 1,000 words per page. You can improve your website ranking simply by having quality content.
It’s worth a couple of bucks to protect your reputation and your online presence. So just when you think no one is looking, understand that someone is always looking online. And online plagiarism has nowhere to hide. So to avoid paying a big price for getting yourself put in the search engine penalty box — just don’t do it.
Ray Access is a content marketing firm that delivers targeted words to empower your business. Contact us about your specific project to receive a quote or discuss your needs. We write website copy, blog posts, e-newsletters and more. Everything we do is thoroughly researched, professionally edited and guaranteed original.