Why Plagiarism is so Easy to Do and How it Impacts Your Content

34% of Outsourced content is plagiarized. Why is plagiarism so prevalent in marketing content and how does it really impact your website and SEO performance overall? Let’s find out.

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

When creating fresh content, it’s imperative to make sure you aren’t stealing from others. Unfortunately, it’s easier to do than you might think.

We all tend to want to get things done as quickly and effectively as possible. Sometimes, we may be inclined to cut corners, or even use tools that make creating content easier. It pays to take a few extra minutes or hours to review and write your content just to make sure you’re not lifting someone else’s hard work. In addition to being unethical, it may even hurt your, reputation and your SEO rankings; which generally isn’t your goal with marketing content.

If you’re publishing content online, you understand the importance of creating original content for SEO to generate leads. But what happens if someone copies your work without giving you credit after all the handwork you put into it by incorporating the best SEO? 

In this blog post, we’ll look at just how easy plagiarism is to do as well as duplicate content’s negative effects on SEO and how to prevent it.

Plagiarism

Plagiarism is the act of stealing another person’s property and passing it off as one’s own; it also refers to using someone else’s creation without giving them due credit.

One instance of plagiarism is the deliberate copying and pasting of another person’s words. Most people have an instinctive understanding that something is wrong, and it is simple to avoid by refraining from doing it. The difficult aspect is that occasionally plagiarism occurs without intent. This occurs when someone mistakenly uses the major principles, formatting, or unique ideas from another person’s content. Before submitting the work, authors should double-check it using an accurate plagiarism checker website to find and remove any instances of plagiarism.

Sometimes the line between plagiarism and copywriting gets blurred. When a piece of work is used without credit, it is considered plagiarism. When someone takes credit for something they did not make, an ethical problem occurs. Whether it’s intentional or not, plagiarism is wrong and can have some severe impacts.

Look, most plagiarism isn’t the blatant instance of copying a book or article and republishing it as your own. Additionally, using information from an uncredited source is plagiarism. Even if the data is true, it may still be in violation. When creating content of your own, it’s best to take some steps to protect yourself against unintentional plagiarism.

Digital marketing/SEO and plagiarism

SEO and online marketing has led to a massive influx of content being published. Regardless of whether we are working with a large corporation website, a small online shop, or an Instagram influencer blog, you’re likely to be publishing a LOT of content. It’s safe to assume that not all of this content is original; which makes citations very important.

Content publication is one of the most competitive aspects of being online because the struggle to be innovative is continual.

Plagiarism in content is the biggest no-no for any internet business. If you entirely avoid it, your SEO rankings will improve! There are various ways that plagiarism might hurt your SEO:

• A negative search engine result (rank drop and site removal)
• Reader appreciation
• Plagiarism lowers the content’s value
• Google Smart search engines won’t give copied content a ranking.

The results of plagiarism

1. Google Won’t Rank Content with Issues

In the past, users could post duplicate content that was rich in keywords to boost traffic. But since search engines regularly update and enhance their algorithms, this is no longer the case.

People are employing a variety of tactics to stay on the first page. However, the tactic of using other people’s hard work to increase your traffic and ranking on SERPs has been dropped. It pays to avoid theft because there may be serious repercussions. Even if you skate by with plagiarized content the best case scenario is that Google will identify the content as being attributed to someone else and assign a canonical tag to make sure proper rankings remain with the original publisher.

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   The search engine will penalize you

Websites with above 10% copied content are penalized by Google. Receiving a plagiarism penalty lowers your SERP rating, and in severe circumstances, Google may take your website from the list. Four levels of penalties are available:

• Penalties at the keyword level: Only the ranking for a particular keyword is impacted by keyword penalties.
• Penalties at the URL level are more severe than penalties at the keyword level because they have an impact on the URL rank.
• Penalties at the domain level: These penalties bring your entire domain’s SERP rank down.
• Site removal: This is the most severe punishment and involves completely deleting your website from the SERPs.

3. The volume of organic traffic will decrease.

The user experience on your website is enhanced by organic traffic, which also increases conversion rates. As a result, your revenue increases. Actually, compared to other channels, organic search brings in twice as much money for B2B companies.

To get organic traffic, your website must perform well in SERPs. However, search engine penalties for plagiarism lower your ranking. Therefore, if you want to boost organic traffic to your website, you must provide high-quality, original content with a high SEO value.

The following are some repercussions of presenting copied content in addition to search engine penalties:

• Copying material from another website is considered a form of theft. You commit identity theft when you use someone else’s words and concepts without giving them credit.
• You risk being sued if your website contains copied material from a work that is covered by copyrights. You can be required to pay hefty fines or spend time in jail in addition to facing penalties for sharing material.
• Plagiarized content damages a source’s reputation in the eyes of its users. Because individuals are more likely to share reliable information, which increases the audience value of unique content, the targeted audience is reached more effectively.
• Content that has been plagiarized lacks any sense of originality. Even if only a small amount of your blog is copied, it will cast doubt on the overall quality of the piece.

4. It hurts your reputation.

How could a reader tell if something was copied?

Let’s say a reader was looking for information and visited a number of reliable websites before finding yours. If your website borrowed content from one of those websites, the viewer will be able to tell, which is bad for your reputation. Once readers discover that you stole information, they will cease believing in your brand. No matter how much original content you publish in the future, your readers will still wonder if you plagiarized that as well. If you want to become known as a trustworthy information source, you need invest in original content.

5. Users won’t share your work on social media.

High-ranking websites often have quality social media material and lots of people who share the posts. More people sharing your material will increase the social signal for your brand. Google evaluates a website’s credibility using these social signals. This suggests that social media may indirectly impact your SERP rank. Why is this significant? Non-original content that you post on your website and social media platforms is less likely to be shared by others. This not only decreases brand recognition, but it also gives search engines the idea that your brand is unreliable.

6. There are less backlinks to your article.

Backlinks are an essential part of SEO since they direct traffic from other websites to your website. It’s not just about how many backlinks you have, though. For the best results, you need lots of trustworthy websites to connect to your website. By guest posting, you can raise your website’s SERP ranking and acquire more backlinks. Websites won’t publish plagiarized content though, so you won’t get those important backlinks.

Following these few guidelines can help every researcher avoid falling into the plagiarism trap:

• USE UNIQUE LANGUAGE AND CONCEPTS

To stick with the original concepts and wordings is the most obvious and simple way to avoid plagiarism in any type of writing or writing sector. It can be difficult to come up with creative ideas. As a result, authors or bloggers can thoroughly investigate their blog niche online and borrow concepts from several previous works to come up with a new one. They will never be the victim of plagiarism in this way. Similar to this, a blogger or writer should write about the topics he wishes to cover in his blog if he already knows about them. He can certainly conduct in-depth internet research on those subjects.

• DO NOT SELF-PLAGIARIZE

Self-plagiarism frequently results from using your own prior writing or visuals in new papers. Self-plagiarism frequently constitutes a copyright infringement because you typically give up copyright when you transmit your work to a publication. Republishing content that is already available elsewhere is not a smart idea in addition to possible copyright infringement.

• CITE AS YOU WRITE

Make sure to include citations as you write your paper to prevent missing any. You can forget where you got a certain piece of information or where you got a quote if you put your paper aside for a few days.

• VERIFY THE TEXT FOR PLAGIARISM

It is crucial to check the written content for plagiarism even if the blog writer utilizes unique thoughts and terminology or paraphrases the material to avoid plagiarism. In this situation, bloggers have the option of using a premium or free plagiarism checker. An artificial intelligence-based application called a plagiarism checker compares the inputted or submitted text to online sources and looks for matches. If this programme discovers any matches, it highlights the matched language or phrase and provides a plagiarism report that details the entire process.

It is important to check written material for plagiarism since doing so reveals whether or not it contains self-plagiarism.

• IDEALLY INCLUDE STOCK OR YOUR OWN MEDIA

It’s not enough to use original language and approach readers directly when blogging. But it must also make use of eye-catching infographics that are pertinent. So, choosing original or stock infographics over plagiarized ones could be considered as one strategy to avoid plagiarism in blogging. Most inexperienced bloggers make the mistake of using photographs from the internet without the photographer’s consent. Copyright infringement, another type of plagiarism, arises from doing this. Therefore, inexperienced bloggers can prevent this by choosing stock images.

Conclusion

When detecting plagiarism, specialists can identify it right away if they read extensively in their specialized field. You’ll be able to detect that you’ve read something with a related concept somewhere else before. Due to the daily publication of millions of blog articles, it appears that plagiarism has spread throughout the internet. Additionally, it’s possible that some information will overlap or have a similar structure. Nothing, however, can take the place of your vigilant efforts to refrain from misrepresenting the work of others as your own. You should be aware of the negative effects that copying can have. When you realize it, you’ll immediately steer clear of it. Everyone should consider themselves to be the rightful owner. They’ll be able to relate to how distressing and terrible it may be to have something taken away from you. When they copy your content, they steal your traffic. This frequently happens when a highly regarded website is the thief.

Perhaps they won’t feel bad about copying you. But for the purpose of your ranking, you must occasionally make sure that your work is placed correctly.