Content marketing plagiarism, even when unintentional, can create serious problems for your website, such as legal issues or search engine sanctions.
Imagine publishing new website copy or a blog post, only to come into work one morning and find your site removed from every search engine. What happened? Chances are the content you published was plagiarized, and you’ve been sanctioned.
Even unintended content marketing plagiarism or duplicate content can have serious consequences for your website, search engine rankings and reputation. Plagiarism is the act of passing off someone else’s work as your own. “Duplicate content” is the digital version of plagiarism, when a significant portion of the content on your website is identical to, or very similar to, copy on another site.
The consequences of plagiarized content
Search engines browse your site and index the pages so they can show them to searchers if they are relevant. If the search engine detects a lot of duplicate content on your site, it could remove your site from searches or drop your site much lower in the rankings. You’ll have to start from scratch to get back to the top.
How to detect content marketing plagiarism
Plagiarism is not always malicious or intentional, and it’s not always easy to spot. The best way to prevent duplicate content is to check for these common mistakes:
- Writers using another article as a basis for content and copying the content (sometimes word for word or the general ideas and outline). Even if it’s not plagiarism, it’s still unethical.
- Writers copying and pasting small sections from various other sources to create a final product. Check the sources your writer uses to make sure they’re not copying and rearranging someone else’s sentences.
- Writers copying content word for word without quotes and failing to cite the author. Sometimes it’s simply because the writer lacks knowledge about copyright laws. In other cases, it’s intentional, and that’s against the law.
- Reposting content from other sources through syndicated feeds or from another blog you think your audience will enjoy. There are appropriate ways to do this, but make sure you take the necessary steps.
The easiest way to detect content marketing plagiarism is to run everything through a plagiarism checker before you publish. If you detect plagiarism, don’t publish the content until you correct the issues.
What to look for in a content marketing partner
These are some important steps you can take to be proactive and avoid plagiarism and duplicate content on your site:
- Create clear guidelines for writers that outline the consequences of submitting duplicate content or plagiarized copy.
- Compare submitted content to the sources your writers use to verify it’s not plagiarized.
- Work with a trusted content marketing partner that hires reputable writers and checks for plagiarism before submitting any work.
Tempesta Media uses a sophisticated plagiarism-checking tool to verify the originality of all writers’ work before they can submit it. We proactively work to make sure every piece you order is unique and fresh and won’t put your website at risk of search engine sanctions.
Need help?
It’s important to avoid even unintended content marketing plagiarism. Learn how Tempesta Media’s content solutions can meet your needs and protect you from the consequences of online plagiarism, and check out our e-book of the 100 biggest mistakes companies make with content marketing.
