Internet plagiarism continues to be a concern for schools and universities anxious to stamp out the wilful passing off by their students of online content as their own. But it’s also becoming a problem for business, too. Now you might think that having your expert content used by other sites is the greatest form of flattery and, anyway, it all helps to get the message out there.
But you’re likely to feel decidedly less relaxed if the content you’ve laboured over so meticulously has not only been lifted without acknowledgement, but has also resulted in your site being downgraded by the search engines. Search engines don’t like finding the same content on numerous web sites and consider it spamming, so plagiarism could prove damaging to both sites’ standings. Furthermore, there’s the possibility of damage to your own reputation as you could be mistakenly seen as the plagiarist by those who don’t know otherwise.
You can check the integrity of your site content by searching on some key phrases in Google, or by using the free Copyscape plagiarism checker which also has guidelines on how to go about tackling any breaches. Another useful resource is the Internet Archive Wayback Machine which holds digital references of your site’s previous versions to help date and prove that any disputed copy is, in fact, yours.
I was able to find original pages from the first Moving Finger site going back to 2003.
| Tags: internet plagiarism, online content, online plagiarism, online reputation, plagiarism checker, search engines, spamming
