Plagiarism can be defined as “the representation of another author’s language, thoughts, ideas, or expressions as one’s original work.” If done intentionally, it is a severe offense. However, even if it is accidental, it can have consequences too.
How is plagiarism terrible for a website?
If plagiarism is detected, it is bad for the website for more reasons than one. Not only can it have legal consequences, but also the website’s traffic can be severely affected. The SEO tools also make the rank go down, and the website can lose popularity.
Search engines use a variety of tools to ensure that only the best page content, on the result page, is delivered to its clients. Thus, any website with plagiarised content can automatically lose importance.
Furthermore, the website from where the content was copied might have copyright laws or DMCA protection. Thus, the content owner might take legal action or demand compensation. If legal actions can be dangerous (as there stringent are anti-plagiarism laws), it might end one’s career.
Also, search engines might penalize the site for plagiarism, and it can lead to a reduction in the website’s organic traffic. Even if legal issues don’t arise, the content creator’s reputation can be damaged irrevocably, and that is perhaps the most dangerous part.
Thus, it is better to avoid plagiarism and steer clear of trouble. Hence, it is important to use a content checker as it helps in producing original content. Content is the most important thing on the webpage, and original content always attracts more traffic than plagiarised one.
How to prevent plagiarism?
With the advent of the internet and social media, it is easy to plagiarize accidentally. Even if one isn’t aware, their website’s content may be a paraphrase of another’s.
So, how can one avoid plagiarism?
1. Plan Early
Most often, plagiarism takes place when there is an impending deadline. People often feel quite tempted to pass duplicate contents as their own when there is no time. So, it is better to plan ahead of schedule so that one can write better with well-formed ideas.
2. Consult more than one source
Most problems in plagiarism arise from the fact that people usually refer to one source. It is then easy to write with only the limited idea, and chances of paraphrasing are high.
But if one consults more than one source, then more ideas are formed, and the chances of verbatim overlaps and duplicate content are less.
Also, one should be sure to keep track of the websites one has consulted so that they can give due acknowledgement to the same.
3. Use a plagiarism detector
Plagiarism scanners or content checkers are easy to use and very helpful. The plagiarism detection tools point out which part of the text contains plagiarism and also provides the website from where the article has been copied. Some additionally provide alternatives to the existing phrase or sentences.
One can also protect their original contents from online plagiarism as some plagiarism checkers also check if a reference website’s work has been copied somewhere else or not.