Don't Let Your Copy Get Copied
It's amazing how just a little bit of plagiarism can literally sink your SEO. You always think: it will never happen to me. Well, believe me when I tell you, it CAN happen to you. Because it happened to us!
Websites thrive -- no, REALLY! -- on SEO. Without high rankings, customers will have problems discovering your site and seeing what you're all about. When another website uses the exact same content as your own website, this lowers the uniqueness of that content, which will cause your individual website ranking to take a steep nose dive, sometimes to the point of obscurity.
In our specific case, we discovered that multiple pages of content from our sister website, www.yourpagetoday.com, had been plagiarized and used on another site. Not only did they copy our FAQ's, they put them in the exact same order with the exact same answers. They also copied the photo from our services page, used the same "easy as 1-2-3" steps, and even stole our slogan. Yes, our slogan! Suffice it to say, Your Page Today was more than a tad furious!
So how can you ensure that you're not either a victim or perpetrator of such a nefarious act? Here are some simple steps to take:
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Be Professional -- Getting upset is not the answer. If you're the victim, simply contact the site owner in a polite and professional way. No need to get snippy or rude. Just let them know what you've noticed and wait for their response. In our situation, we discovered that the website had paid a content writer for the copy, and they were completely unaware that the person they had hired had simply copied the content from our website.
We were fortunate that this web site owner removed the copied content right away. But if you ever run into a situation where they are not cooperative here are some steps that may be useful.
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Send a cease and desist letter with details and instructions to remove or further action will be taken.
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Submit a DMCA-compliant notice and always seek legal advice
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Utilize Copyscape -- If you hire a content writer, use Copyscape.com (to prevent your copy from getting copied), which is a program that searches the internet and comes up with any matches to the content you're about to publish. This can save you a lot of time and hassle.
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Hire Zerys -- Zerys.com is our "go to" website for content, an online service that gives you a choice of writers who will create your content. Not only will they automatically use Copyscape, they also keep your content in their database and "keep an eye out" for any later use by another website.
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Issue a Warning -- Add a disclaimer to your website that tells visitors "this content is protected by Copyscape," and be sure to add the year. This should ward off any plagiarizers. You might even want to disable right mouse click ability.
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Utilize Google Alerts --Google Alerts is a fantastic way to get an email alert when ever a mention of a brand or key word phrase is used on line ...not as easy to use as copy scape but it keeps you up to date on what new content is popping up online that is surrounding your identity.
Yes, it can happen to you, but with a little pre-planning and "know how," you can easily prevent your copy from being copied, and keep your SEO intact.
