The Story of Content, SEO & Plagiarism

With so much to gain from appearing on that hallowed first page of Google, businesses and websites are trying to do everything they can to make this dream a reality. One of the best techniques to reach this spot and maintain it is by producing content with the best SEO techniques in mind. Done right, and you can soar above the rest of the competition. Done wrong, and your SEO and business could drown at sea.

However, what do we mean by right and wrong? Although Bill Gates said, “content is king,” this isn’t strictly true in terms of keeping your SEO campaign strong. What would be a more accurate phrase is “unique, high-quality content is king.”

Google isn’t interested in how much content you produce. Google is after original, worthwhile content that offers value; that much has always been clear, and so this should always be a top priority. Before publishing content, you want to be checking grammar, spelling mistakes, tone of voice, and that the content is well written.

What they don’t want is rushed and “copied” content. Content like this will not add any value to search users, and you will find that the other search engines will have the same opinion. Few people are aware that plagiarizing content can destroy SEO efforts, but this is exactly what many struggling businesses end up doing. They rush the process and churn out piece after piece, believing that they are helping improve their ranking position. This is simply not the case, and so we will look at what happens when you take more than just inspiration from other websites.

What is Content Plagiarism?

Before we dive into the types of plagiarism that exist, it is first important to understand what it is. In very simple terms, plagiarism is when you take existing content, be it words, images, video, music, and more, and take credit for it. Some might use the terms “borrowing” or “copying” or use more drastic language like “stealing,” but they are all accurate ways of describing plagiarism.

When your content isn’t original or your own, but you have presented it to be that way, it is essentially, in very worst cases, an act of fraud.

Plagiarism isn’t a one-size-fits-all issue, though. Different types and degrees of plagiarism exist, and they are all important to know:

• Accidental

With so much content online, experiencing accidental plagiarism is common, as naturally, there are only so many ways to write certain phrases or content that make sense. This type of plagiarism is when you have used a generic phrase that has been already frequently used in content that is of a similar niche to yours. The problem with this type of plagiarism is that you might not be aware that you are doing it. It could, as the name suggests, be a complete accident.

• Self-plagiarism

Many consider self-plagiarism to be under the same umbrella as accidental plagiarism. If you have been writing for years, you might not be aware that you have little habits regarding sentence structure, tone, and word choice. The more content you write, however, the more you risk self-plagiarizing yourself most of the time unintentionally. In the very worst cases of self-plagiarism, this will be a whole piece published. In others, it will simply be a case of using generic phrases. Both are important to keep an eye out for. To avoid self-plagiarizing an entire piece, make sure to keep track of all your existing content in a good online filing system.

One of the mistakes that many websites make is publishing duplicate contentDuplicate content is content that appears more than once across a single website. Duplicate content can be a sign of poor resource management, low trust, or a lack of quality control.. Many people aren’t even aware that self-plagiarism of duplicate content is a serious problem, but it is common, especially for eCommerce sites that have multiple products that differ in just size or color. Although it might be quicker and easier to upload the same content, it will harm you in the long run.

• Citing incorrectly

If you are producing on-site content, you might be tempted to do everything you can to keep readers on your website by not including any external linksHyperlinks, also known as links, are the connection points on a webpage that take you to other webpages.. However, this could be doing more damage than you think. Not citing your sources correctly, such as statistics, facts, or even a quote, can make it appear as though you are claiming this is your original findings. Anything that you have included that isn’t your own work needs to be cited.

If you find yourself with a statement with no evidence but still include it, you are also citing incorrectly. You are claiming a fact that can’t be backed up.

• Copy and paste or Verbatim

One of the serious types of plagiarism is the copy and paste job. This involves a person directly copying content that already exists online, word for word, and passing it off as their own work. Whether you make no changes or switch out a word or two with a synonym, this is still verbatim plagiarism, and it is a serious act.

• Paraphrasing

There is nothing wrong with researching content to gain inspiration and using this to help you form your work. The problem is it is all too easy for writers to paraphrase content. This type of writing requires little thought into the structure and creation of their piece. Instead, they are taking what they have found online and phrasing it in a slightly different way.

Take this as an example:

Original source: SEO is considered to be a great technique to boost your ranking position.

Paraphrased content: If you want to boost your ranking position, SEO is considered to be a great technique.

Both sentences say the same thing. Naturally, a statement like this will be common, especially when SEO is a competitive market. Google understands there are only so many ways that you can phrase something. However, imagine the same technique used throughout the entire piece. What could be viewed as a 100% authentic and original piece suddenly is not.

When you require content quickly and to a high standard, and the topic is fairly unknown to your writer, paraphrasing is easy. Many writers are unaware of the repercussions that this can have, however.

• Patchwork or Mosaic

A mosaic uses small pieces of glass, usually coloured, or stone to form a work of art. Likewise, a patchwork consists of pieces of fabric patched together. Therefore, it is a very fitting name for this type of plagiarism. Patchwork or mosaic plagiarism will see a writer reword various sources and put them all together as one piece. Just like with the paraphrasing plagiarism, this could come across as an original piece, when in actuality, it is not.

Although this might seem like a lot of effort for the writer, it means they don’t have to understand the topic fully to produce an in-depth piece. This is a foolhardy tactic, though. Even if you change words or slightly amend phrases here and there, you are still plagiarizing content, and any plagiarism checker will pull you up on this.

The Impact of Plagiarized Content

Think back to your time in school. If you ever asked if you could copy your friend’s homework, their reply was likely a yes, but with the addition of “just change it up a little so that it isn’t obvious you copied.” Something like this wouldn’t have got past your teachers, and so it would be foolish to believe Google would let it slip past them. In school, especially colleges and universities, copying another person’s work would damage their grade and their reputation due to the dishonest act. While you won’t find yourself facing an F, there are other repercussions. This is great news if you are the victim of someone else stealing your work, but if you are currently employing the above types of plagiarism, this is the impact you can expect:

Damage to Your Reputation

When you publish plagiarized content, whether you are aware or not, you are risking your reputation. Not just in terms of your overall business reputation, but your online one. If Google discovers that you are using cheap tricks to produce your content, the ranking position you currently hold will not last. Any content you then produce after that has an air of doubt surrounding it. It will be harder for you to claim back any top spot, let alone rank at all, if you continue to practice this type of writing. Trying to outrank your competitors is hard work enough, so don’t let cheap tactics like plagiarizing content make it even harder. Gaining back that trust lost from Google is very difficult.

Losing customers

If your ranking drops, you are also at risk of missing out on new customers. When you are missing out on these customers, they could be finding themselves in the open arms of your competitors. Losing business like this to your competitors means more chance for them to become an industry titan and more hard work for you to build back up trust. Remember, your audience is likely to see through your content and know whether it is original. Aspects like a different tone of voice or sentence structure are all big giveaways. Plus, you might find that your audience reads more than just your blog, and they may even notice that the content is eerily familiar to something they have previously read.

Your Site Could Be Banned

If you have duplicate content, your SEO risks being damaged. However, more than this, if you continue to publish content that has been copied or plagiarized in any of the ways we discussed above, then you risk your site being banned from the SERPs entirely. Any SEO work you have completed up until now will be for nothing, and your customer base will disappear. Building your business back up from scratch after losing investment and trust will take more time and money than it would have to produce original content the first time around. This is not the situation you want to find yourself in.

How to Avoid Plagiarism in Content Writing 

Content plagiarism issues can be avoided, but when it is used, it has damaging long-term effects. If you want to avoid becoming the next victim of plagiarism, then, fortunately, there are some very handy tips that you can take on board. You have already achieved the first one: understanding plagiarism.

If you can start to do the following, then you are onto a winner:

Research is crucial

Taking the time to really understand the topic you are writing about can make all the difference. By writing down critical information about the subject, you can then form your own ideas and opinions and decide on the angle you want to take, without influence from other sources impacting the outcome.

Top tip: When researching, make sure to keep all the sources you find close at hand. This way, if when starting the piece, you find that for more authority that it would be better to include a statistic, then being able to have this source is a must. However, if you don’t keep a list of the sources you find, you may struggle to unearth it again. If this happens, you will have a case of a citing plagiarism issue. If your writer includes a fact, make sure to check this, and if they haven’t included a source, don’t be afraid to ask them to include one.

Plan, plan and plan again

Writers are so keen to jump in with both feet that they can find themselves struggling to know what to write, aware they have a deadline, and instead turn to online sources, which they might end up paraphrasing or simply copying. However, writers often forget how much the planning stage of a piece can help them. While it might take you a bit longer to complete the work, you can avoid the above happening much more easily. You need to know what you are writing about and where you will be taking the piece. An outline will always benefit any piece.

Shake Up Your Writing Style

If you are concerned about self-plagiarizing, why not try shaking up your writing style. This will come with practice, but it could make you a better writer. If your business hires freelancers or works with an agency to produce content, then consider writing out a new style guide that asks for a different tone of voice, for example. This could help you avoid producing content that uses the same phrases repeatedly.

How to Check Content Plagiarism

It is better to be safe than sorry. Even if you have implemented all of the above, you can check for plagiarism very easily to give you peace of mind, and don’t worry; you don’t have to search endlessly online manually. Content plagiarism checker tools will do that for you. There are plenty of different checkers available; some will require you to invest a little bit of money while others are free. However, the free checkers might not be as accurate as the paid versions and can come with some restrictions, such as how many words you can check at once and other types of plagiarism. A paid content plagiarism tool, such as Grammarly or Copyscape, will offer a lot more to you, and if you want to publish content frequently and avoid plagiarism, these could aid you.

What Happens When You Find Plagiarized Content?

If you discover that some or all of your content has been copied from another source, rewriting plagiarized content is necessary. The content checker will display exactly which sections of the text are from other sources, detailing the website it already exists on. Once you have discovered the extent of the copied work, you will need to rewrite the content using the above tips we gave you. If you need more help on rewriting any content, it might be time to outsource to experts who understand the serious impact plagiarism can have on a business.