Using other peoples published works without permission is the most widely accepted definition of plagiarism. In music, art, film and even politics, plagiarism is a common term. It can be accepted for different excuses. There are those who use the inspiration card to get away with it. Without an original analogy, none other than the first one would be built. They have a point. And hence the need to at least cite appropriately when you use another person’s written/published work. On the internet, plagiarism is widespread. Whereas some plagiarism is intentional and malicious, the rest is innocent or unsuspected.
As a result, in a bid to protect originality and protect publisher rights, the search engines penalize plagiarized content. This is good. However, sometimes, the innocent get caught in between the fire. Their SEO gets hurt because of plagiarism. Sometimes, some sites might even get banned completely. To help these webmasters, this article talks about plagiarism and how to deal with it.
Top plagiarism culprits on the internet:
Plagiarism runs deep. The most affected are the webmasters, publisher and bloggers. And they fall into the trap this way. When these webmasters want to publish on a given topic, all they do is research lightly. They pick pieces or even wholes of other people’s content, publishing it as their own. The most copied content is normally on the first or second page of Google. Even if you manage to spin these around as your own, search engines know it because they are algorithms. They are programs and have dates. Besides, they have been trained, somehow. This is the onslaught of plagiarism.
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Plagiarism implications
The implications of plagiarism are wide and many. Even though there is nothing new under the sun that we know of, search engines can mete punishments for plagiarizing content. Here are some of the common plagiarism implications:
- Plagiarizing somebody else’s work hurts you. First, it makes sure you will never establish yourself as the authority for anything. When Google does compile its index, they use dates. They can tell who published first in a blink. Google wants new and fresh content added into its index to benefit users. They cannot reward you for copies work. Instead, they will reward whoever wrote the work fast.
- Even in the scenarios where your business is ranked in search, it’s quite hard to outrank your competitors. Especially those who published original content. This means your website will be poorly ranked in the SERPS. This culminates into little or no traffic at all. To the online business fraternity, traffic equals sales, revenues and money. With plagiarism, you get none of these.
- It’s also embarrassing to plagiarize work. Some bloggers whose work you plagiarize may decide to embarrass you online, on blogs, among peers, etc. with a soiled reputation, there is no way you can bounce back. Online damages tend to be viral. You would be at its worst to be on the receiving end.
Overall, plagiarism has a bad impact on your website. These can be financial, measurable and sometime embarrassing, when the laws become personal.
Combating plagiarism
The most obvious ways to beat plagiarism is to be original. Sometimes, you might plagiarize innocently. You will still be penalized the same way as one who plagiarized maliciously-a content thief. The best way to deal with this is by utilizing a good plagiarism checker. Plagtracker.com is one of the best plagiarism checkers on the web today. There are still other plagiarism checkers online and many work well. To avoid these challenges and penalties, select a great way to write original content and use a plagiarism checker to be sure.
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