Every website should contain unique content. Unfortunately, there are people on the Internet who prey on someone else’s work and publish content from other websites as their own. In this post, you will learn what is, and how to check for duplicate content.
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Disadvantages of duplicate content
Posting duplicate content on a website or blog, is primarily against the law. Plagiarism, which is presenting someone else’s work as your own, is unacceptable, both online and offline.
In addition, websites containing duplicate content may be penalized by search engines with a lower ranking. In case of extreme abuse, the website may be completely removed from the search engine indexes. So how to check for duplicate content on the Internet?
What is duplicate content
Duplicate content is one that appears on the web more than once. Note, that the duplicate content may also be on the same site. If you publish the same content on several websites or blog entries, it will also be treated as duplicate content.
The problem is that search engine algorithms are not able to accurately determine where the original article is and where the copy is. Theoretically, the text that appears first on the web is treated as the original.
On the other hand, search engines try to provide their users with content that best suits their needs. So it may happen that the copied content appears in the search results, SERP (search engine result pages) in a higher position than the original,
Unintentional duplication of content
Sometimes you can unknowingly post copied content on the website. This is the case with product descriptions in the online store. Note that as duplicate content, Google considers two blocks of text that are either identical or very similar.
Theoretically, the type of content placed does not matter here, but keep in mind that Google’s algorithms are constantly being improved and they analyze the content of websites more and more precisely.
It is definitely unacceptable to use the same, long blocks of text in different domains in order to increase traffic. This way of manipulating rankings will not be approved by the search engines. A content marketing campaign based on copied content will bring poor results.
If you have copywriting skills, searching for copied content can be a great opportunity to earn extra money on the Internet. By using the free tools I write about below, you can easily locate duplicate content on different sites. Contact the owner of such a domain and offer them to fix the error.
How to check for duplicate content on the website
In order to check the uniqueness of a given text, you can use the previously mentioned Google search engine. The test consists of copying about ten consecutive words from the text and pasting it into the Google search window. However, be sure to enclose all copied text in quotation marks.
If you test this method on your blog, only your domain should appear in the search results. If, however, there are more results, Google will put the original content at the top of the list. You might have a problem if your blog does not rank first there.
The search engine method of checking the text may turn out to be very time-consuming. In order to check the entire text thoroughly, at least a few such “samples” should be taken. Fortunately, there are also better ways. So how to check for duplicate content? Use the available online tools.
Free tool for checking duplicate content
By creating your next blog post, you may inadvertently make it similar to previously posted content. So let’s double-check each new page or post with a duplicate detection tool.
You can find many tools on the Internet for free. Often there is also a detailed instruction on how to check for duplicate content. The most popular website for checking uniqueness of text is Copyscape.com.
Using of the tool is very simple. Just paste the URL of the page you want to check in the appropriate window. You click the blue GO button and the free app does the rest.
The website detects duplicate content, regardless of the language in which the website is written. The result shown in the photo below means that the content on our website is unique.
Advantages of using Copyscape
Using the basic version of Copyscape is completely free. The website also does not require any registration. The number of free daily checks is limited, but this should not be a problem for the average blogger, creating only a few entries per week
Do you know now how to check for duplicate content ? The Copyscape website is great at that. It’s really worth of using.
As always, we encourage you to contact us and comment on entries.
Read this article in Polish: Jak wykryć skopiowane treści na blogu.
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