Imagine you buy something from the market but later find that it is not original? Certainly, you wouldn’t feel good. 

By the same token, when readers land on your blog but find your content useless because it is plagiarized, they tend to leave your website. 

Bloggers and content writers, getting themselves fascinated with the revenue side, shy away from the arduous task of writing original content.

This is the reason why content plagiarism devours a major part of the internet. However, the consequences of plagiarism are overbearing, as it is destructive for your SEO. 

Being a blogger, you wouldn’t like your blog’s traffic slump suddenly due to plagiarism. Thus, to make yourself aware of the reasons behind its harmful effects, read the article below.

What is plagiarized content?

Content that is copied from single or various sources is called plagiarized, providing that the sources are indexed by Google.

To put it simply, when you copy any text, infographics, or videos, without the permission of the original creator, you are committing content plagiarism. 

It can have various definitions depending upon the ways and means of duplicating others’ content, but they all are discouraged. 

Two basic types of content plagiarism are:

  • You may plagiarize without knowing: It happens sometimes when you read someone’s content to get inspiration but unintentionally copy the same words into your sentences. 
  • When you deliberately copy: Your intent here is to copy the same to same words or ideas. Without any doubt, it comes under intentional plagiarism.

What could be the reasons for such widespread content plagiarism?

You may find yourself in awe after knowing that almost one-third of the whole internet is simply copy-pasted material.

Internet is becoming a mess with lots of useless content, however, some of it is good. But the content extracted from someone else is good for nothing.

When your search for something on the internet you would see plagiarized content if you observe each website from the top to the bottom keenly.

There could be various reasons behind it, but the important ones are:

Hasty content production:

Every now and then, writers must cope with the enormous workload, as they have to cater to the growing needs of their readers. 

Some even work sleepless nights to meet the deadlines. Getting short of content even after diligent work, they end up plagiarizing the content to go ahead of time. 

Fierce competition:

No two websites can get the same position in Google search results. Knowing this fact, bloggers keep themselves studious to get the top position by creating extensive content.

 Some even work sleepless nights to produce the content, but they fall short of distinguishing original and copied content. That’s why content plagiarism starts appearing in their work.

Writer’s block:

It is a major issue and almost every writer faces this problem at least once in their lifetime. It appears that they don’t have words to dress their ideas and at times they don’t have ideas, in the first place. 

Thus, willy nilly they indulge themselves in plagiarism because they have to give the content to their readers anyway.

Read more: 7 Best Blogs to Learn SEO, Marketing, and Copywriting

Harms of plagiarizing someone’s content for SEO:

Literally, plagiarism stands for kidnapping. However, in modern terms, it means stealing someone’s content. 

As stealth is a negative act morally as well as socially, so it definitely has some disadvantages. In a strictly academic sense, plagiarism has serious repercussions. 

Finding plagiarism in your assignment or research paper, your instructor can fine you for this act. Moreover, you may even get expelled from your institute because of it.

Likewise, the online environment is not different, You may get yourself into serious trouble if your content plagiarism gets caught.

So, you must use a plagiarism checker free to scan your written content for plagiarism.

1. Plagiarized content de-ranks your website:

Internet success is always connoted to ranking. You may get a high ranking if you write your content according to SEO guidelines.

Keeping in view the SEO factors, your content inherits the power to get ranked. Uniqueness and high quality are still the best ranking factors of Google.

Plagiarized content destroys the SEO of your website and thus, it de-ranks. Actually, Google gathers all copied content together and chooses the one which outperforms all other copies for ranking.

Since you have already copied from someone else, your chances of getting a ranking boost diminish greatly.

2. Google may penalize you for copying:

Google algorithms have become very efficient, so your plagiarized content can’t escape from its watchful eyes.

It uses AI and trans its algorithms on machine learning. Therefore, they have become fast enough to detect duplicate content from the bulk.

Google rolls out the Panda update to hit the copied content especially. This update fetches copied and shallow content de-ranks it and even penalizes your website for plagiarism.

3. Affects on-page SEO:

Content is worth ranking when it is optimized for Google. Irrespective of the content quality, the way it gets shown to the readers and to Google matter a lot.

While writing your content, you better know where to use keywords and how to design H1, H2 headings because you are the original writer. 

On the flip side, copying chunks from various sources make on-page SEO very difficult to do. It leads to low ranking and affects your overall SEO strategies.

4. Gets copyright strikes:

Although most plagiarized content does not get any copyright strikes, that does not you can get away with plagiarism.

Since the copied content is actually copied from various sources and you don’t know the exact source, so you may get into trouble if the original website is of some government agency or wants to keep its content original.

You are liable to copyright strikes and therefore you can get charged for this act of plagiarism.

5. It destroys brand reputation:

Branding is important in e-commerce because it helps you identify your audience and also grab a higher position in the market.

To establish yourself as a brand, you need to have a unique voice and a specific tone in which you address your customers.

Plagiarism can hurt your brand reputation because your regular customers will identify it before a second and will doubt your credibility. This may result in loss of traffic.

6. It affects your content marketing:

Content marketing through blog posts is an effective way to get new buyers. However, your relationship with your buyers is not personal. The thing which regulates this connection is the quality of your content.

Unique content builds trust as readers expect your blog to resolve their life issues. They give you a position of high acclaim and spread your word to others. 

Thus, content marketing can multiply your business if you do it properly. Nevertheless, plagiarizing leads to a loss of trust because readers soon find your content useless.

Damaging your content marketing also damages your SEO strategies.

7. Plagiarism also affects your off-page SEO:

Getting high-quality backlinks from authoritative websites makes your website more credible in the eyes of Google.

Google boosts your website when it finds credible backlinks to your website. Your domain authority also increases with linking domains.

You may also get awesome traffic from linking websites. But unique content gets natural backlinks without any effort. 

Moreover, out-reached webmasters also ask you to provide high-quality content free from plagiarism. They won’t give you website backlinks if you provide them with plagiarized content.

Hence, copied content hits your link-building strategies and affects your overall SEO.

7 Actionable Tips to Follow to Avoid Content Plagiarism

The importance of unique content cannot be denied but first, it is important to be aware of the harm plagiarism can cause to your website.

After getting proper awareness, you can remove it. If your content gets plagiarized, you can apply these seven techniques to remove it from your content.

This would not only improve your content marketing but also your website SEO. 

1. Read, read, and read:

A good writer is also a good reader. If you aspire to be a prolific writer, you must read a lot. Being unique in your content has to do with being creative.

Good writing provides you with new ways of thinking. It is better to start with the classics and to move towards your favorite authors.

Exposition and argumentation are the necessary parts of high-quality content. You can never spellbind the reader with thought-provoking content of your reasoning ability is not top-notch.

Reading good content teaches you the art of persuasion, which helps you come up with some out-of-the-box thinking and unique ideas.

Read more: The 7 Best Books for Aspiring Entrepreneurs

2. Empower your content with a perfect lexicon:

Do you know the thing that separates you from the best blogger is the ease of using diverse words and the flow of expressing an idea?

A top-ranked blogger can simultaneously express small ideas into extensive words and complex ideas into a few words.

If you want to get rid of writer’s block you need to have handsome knowledge on the use of words. Moreover, you must have to know the intricacies of language.

Building your own dictionary is a good option to expand the use of words. Although it takes time, though it is a good technique to write flawless content devoid of plagiarism.

3. Research your content before writing:

Your words revolve around your knowledge about the topic you are dealing with. How can you write about anything if you don’t know what to write?

Having sound knowledge naturally makes you confident in your writing. Thus, you do not spit facts only but create easy-to-understand and seamless content.

Plagiarism appears when you know little, or you know nothing about the subject matter. Therefore, you must research your topic before writing it.

Research also provides you with hidden windows and the untrodden paths if exemplify an idea and build arguments.

4. Cite the sources:

Adding proper citations helps you legitimize your copied content. It does not come under plagiarism because you are after all giving credit to the original content creators.

You can do it by using different citation techniques such as APA, MLA, Harvard, etc. As these techniques are mostly used in academic writing, you can refer to the original sources by hyperlinking to the website.

It also gives a good impression to the readers as they think that you have well-researched your content. On the other hand, Google can promote your content by linking to credible sites.

5. Paraphrase your plagiarized sentences:

Paraphrasing is a technique used to replace old words that cause plagiarism with their synonyms. Originally, teachers employ this technique to teach their students the use of language.

It builds their linguist’s muscles, and they can easily make complex writing into simple ones. 

Nonetheless, in the online world, you can get rid of plagiarism by paraphrasing the sentences into new ones.

6. Work on your first draft:

Most writers think that writing their first draft can suffice the needs of readers as well as search engines. But it is not so because human writing is prone to errors. 

That’s where the role of editors comes into play. You never know how good you have written until you do a qualitative analysis of it. 

An unbiased view of your content can reveal the hidden mistakes in your content. 

Moreover, Plagiarism occurs when you carelessly submit your draft without analyzing it. So, you can remove similar content through back-to-back editing.

7. Plan a content strategy:

Planning a content strategy is as essential as writing the content. Without planning you can do better but you cannot achieve any sustainable space without a long-term strategy.

Planning the topics with the number of days will give ample time to create unique and top-notch content. In this way, you can easily avoid plagiarism.

Final Thoughts: Why Content Plagiarism is Harmful to Your SEO – 7 Actionable Tips to Follow Right Now

The above discussion centered around the word plagiarism. Knowing the ins and outs of plagiarized content is necessary that’s why we have underscored the best insights on the reasons to avoid plagiarism. 

Along with these, You can also know about some practical ways to write unique content.

Now It’s Your Turn.

I hope you enjoyed this article about Content Plagiarism, SEO, and some tips to avoid your content plagiarism.

Please feel free to share your thoughts or if you have any additional information, please let me know in the comments section below.

If you enjoyed reading this article, don’t forget to share it with your friends and fellow bloggers.

If you have any questions feel free to contact me. I’m always available to help young hustlers like you.

Keep hustling!