How To Avoid Plagiarism Online

How would you react if a thief broke into your house, stole some very important things – things that you truly valued, and was found using those things a few days later? This is plagiarism.

It is defined as the act of taking someone’s content, song, article, dialogue etc. and passing it as your own. It is considered synonymous to stealing.

People have varied views about plagiarism. While there are some who support it, most of them do not agree to the concept of stealing. It is unethical and illegal.

What is small business plagiarism?

You want to build a website. Internet marketing is hot these days, right?

You do not have a great budget and want to start small without compromising on quality. You look up the internet to see examples of websites some other small business owners have built. Some of these are pretty impressive.

You draw your inspiration from some of these and copy their content partly or fully, use the same images, change some names here and there and use their ideas.

And your defense? You drew your inspiration from that website!

Yeah! Right!!! You copied their content, called it your own and cited the source as inspiration – that too only when caught!

Is it really to do with the budget?

Small businesses sometimes have budget constraints. Should a copy paste option be considered as acceptable in this scenario?

A lot of small business owners hire freelancers to complete their work, who might charge a small fee but has the potential to ‘lift and shift’ materials, very often, without your notice.

Sometimes guest bloggers spin content and pass it on as their own content. You have a great guest blog on your website without even knowing that it is plagiarized!

Online marketing is not an option today; it is the need of the business. As a small business owner, you want to exploit the opportunity to reach maximum number of potential customers every day. Creating a website, therefore, becomes a business imperative. When you don’t have a great budget, it becomes all the more important for you to ensure authenticity of your content.

So I should care about website content only, right?

Well, yes and no! You should care about all content available on your website but remember that plagiarism is not about websites only; it is about the ad campaigns you create, all content you distribute, and even the vision statement you or your company has.

The implications of plagiarism

Here is an example of how Jon Flatland’s career was finished even before it could take off!

http://problogservice.com/2012/03/01/google-caught-plagiarizing-newspaper-editor-ended-his-career/

What can you do as a small business owner to prevent yourself from getting caught up in the plagiarism jungle?

How To Avoid Plagiarism Online

1. The first step to take here is monitoring your moves. Monitor all your content! You could use copyscape or other free plagiarism checker tools available over the internet. Some of them are available for free and help you keep your image clean. You should also aim at creating all content yourself. If you need to hire an external party, make sure you are hiring someone with expertise and trusted reputation. You do have a budget, but reputation is more important!

2. If you are serious you could register all your content with a copyright organization. This will not only elevate your legal reputation, it will also help building in the trust factor.

3. You also need to keep a track of all the keywords. Think about the keywords people would use to get to your site. Type those into Google. Glance through the results that pop up and investigate suspicious stuff.

4. Do respond to issues if they crop up. Sometimes, you may get a complaint. Make sure you are prompt in responding and closing the loop.

5. You should also review your guest posts carefully. Run these through copyscape before posting on your site, if possible.

6. We all do our research; make notes and then go ahead to create content. All that is fine, however, do make sure not to refer to the original content when you write. Write in a free flow, ideas and words that you own! You can use your research, but chances are if you look at the original source, you would also use those words. Limit that risk.

7. If you do lift content from a particular website, do make sure that you mention the source and provide a link back to the site.

A great business owner generally believes in the power of relationships and works on creating lasting relationships with their clients. Their content therefore, should always be their own. Trust, after all, goes a long way!

Have you any other tips for how to avoid plagiarism online?