No matter if you’ve created your
web content by yourself investing your own time and energy, or you’ve invested
real money and paid a professional copywriter to do all the writing for your
website, seeing the same content on someone else’s website can really be
frustrating. Some people think what’s on the Internet can be fairly used, but
forget on the fairly part when they
should credit the original author.
web content by yourself investing your own time and energy, or you’ve invested
real money and paid a professional copywriter to do all the writing for your
website, seeing the same content on someone else’s website can really be
frustrating. Some people think what’s on the Internet can be fairly used, but
forget on the fairly part when they
should credit the original author.
Plagiarism and Duplicate Content
(How to Tackle Copied Content? Image credit:- socialbirbal)
Plagiarism has become a serious problem on the Internet, and recently Google and other
popular search engines decided it’s time to put an end of this behavior since
it hurts their efforts to bring quality results to the end users. Google’s
latest Panda update changed the way webmasters look at content now putting
quality among the highest criterions, since duplicates can significantly damage
their website authority and search engine rankings.
popular search engines decided it’s time to put an end of this behavior since
it hurts their efforts to bring quality results to the end users. Google’s
latest Panda update changed the way webmasters look at content now putting
quality among the highest criterions, since duplicates can significantly damage
their website authority and search engine rankings.
You can put a stop to it and
protect your website copy from content scrappers before your website gets
damaged since the Internet has made catching these predators easy, but you have
to get familiar with the copy-rights you have in order to be able to enforce
them. Some people are not even aware they have copyright rights; that from the
moment they first started publishing on their website their work has been
protected by copyright laws. Check local or government sources, maybe visit
some seminars covering this law area, or get an advice from a professional
attorney so you’ll be better informed.
protect your website copy from content scrappers before your website gets
damaged since the Internet has made catching these predators easy, but you have
to get familiar with the copy-rights you have in order to be able to enforce
them. Some people are not even aware they have copyright rights; that from the
moment they first started publishing on their website their work has been
protected by copyright laws. Check local or government sources, maybe visit
some seminars covering this law area, or get an advice from a professional
attorney so you’ll be better informed.
How to Check if Someone’s Using Your Content?
You can check whether someone is
stealing your web content if you Google search parts of your most unique
sentences, or if you copy/paste your web page URL into duplicate content
checker PlagSpotter and read their
detailed report on the matching content. If your page is the only one that
shows up in the results, your content is safe for now; but if there are also
other pages that appear for the same unique text excerpts you should click the
links to see how they’ve used your copy. If they’ve properly cited the content
and linked back to your original post they are actually helping you reach wider
audience, and these backlinks can also improve your ratings, particularly if
they are coming from a popular website with good online reputation.
What Steps Can You Take if You Find Out
Someone’s Using Your Web Copy?
First try to contact the
webmaster or the company behind the website. Check the footer section for an
e-mail address and send a nice message providing all the information that
proves you are the owner of the original copy and requesting them to remove it
from their website. It doesn’t always have to be intentional; sometimes website
owners are tricked by their own unscrupulous copywriters. In most cases like
this the content will disappear from the plagiarist website and some will even
send an apology email, but it’s all fixed with the first contact.
If the email doesn’t work, you
can check the domain at Whois.com to find the owner’s name and phone number and
directly contact them to immediately take off the copied content. The next step
includes informing the hosting company (whose information you can also find on
Whois) of their client’s copyright infringement, and if you can prove this
content violation most hosting companies will immediately remove the plagiarist
website, particularly if more serious. If this all gives no results, you can
send a formal “Cease and Desist” letter, or even exercise your rights under the
Digital Millennium Copyright Act and file a DMCA complaint directly to major
search engines like Google and Yahoo.
can check the domain at Whois.com to find the owner’s name and phone number and
directly contact them to immediately take off the copied content. The next step
includes informing the hosting company (whose information you can also find on
Whois) of their client’s copyright infringement, and if you can prove this
content violation most hosting companies will immediately remove the plagiarist
website, particularly if more serious. If this all gives no results, you can
send a formal “Cease and Desist” letter, or even exercise your rights under the
Digital Millennium Copyright Act and file a DMCA complaint directly to major
search engines like Google and Yahoo.
The Copyright Protection Basics:
The copyright protection begins
at the exact moment the original work was created in a tangible medium, or in
the case of online content, the moment it is published on your website. Your
content is protected by the copyright laws no matter if you’ve legally
registered it or not. The registration process itself is pretty simple and
requires only a filled out online registration form and a
fee of about $35 (you can get more information on the official U.S. Government Copyright website).
It’s natural to ask why would someone bother to register the website when it’s
automatically protected since creation, and according to the U.S. Government
Copyright website “Registration is recommended for a number of reasons. Many
choose to register their works because they wish to have the facts of their
copyright on the public record and have a certificate of registration.
Registered works may be eligible for statutory damages and attorney’s fees in
successful litigation. Finally, if registration occurs within 5 years of
publication, it is considered prima facie evidence in a court of law. See
Circular 1, Copyright Basics, section ‘Copyright Registration’ and Circular
38b, Highlights of Copyright Amendments Contained in the Uruguay Round
Agreements Act (URAA), on non-U.S. works.”
To prove your web content is the
original and existed first you can visit the Internet Archive Way Back Machine and
check which content was first indexed.
original and existed first you can visit the Internet Archive Way Back Machine and
check which content was first indexed.
Also See:-
