{"id":3085,"date":"2015-05-01T08:57:25","date_gmt":"2015-05-01T08:57:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.pmpazure.co.uk\/blog\/?p=3085"},"modified":"2015-10-02T19:48:28","modified_gmt":"2015-10-02T19:48:28","slug":"website-plagiarism-and-what-you-can-do-about-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.promotemyplace.com\/blog\/website-plagiarism-and-what-you-can-do-about-it","title":{"rendered":"Website Plagiarism and What You Can Do About It"},"content":{"rendered":"

Imagine this \u2026<\/p>\n

You spend time building your holiday let website.<\/p>\n

Taking the perfect photo of each room, outdoor space and local area. Thinking about your holiday let and what it is that makes it the perfect place for guests to stay. Figuring out its key selling points. Noting down all there is to see and do nearby to keep your guests entertained.<\/p>\n

Then you sit down to write the website content.<\/p>\n

You draft out a version of each page and decide which photos you\u2019ll place alongside them. You ask a friend, relative or neighbour to take a look over your draft to get an unbiased view.<\/p>\n

You sit back down and write another version. And perhaps another. Until you\u2019re happy that you\u2019ve captured everything that\u2019s special about your holiday rental and its location to help market it online.<\/p>\n

Finally, you add that content to your website.<\/p>\n

You\u2019re thrilled with it.<\/p>\n

You know it will work hard to get those enquiries flooding in.<\/p>\n

Then you come across a website that\u2019s pretty much identical to yours. Not necessarily in design, but the words.<\/p>\n

They\u2019ve plagiarised your words.<\/em><\/p>\n

The property could be different. The location different. But essentially, the words are the same.<\/p>\n

The words that took you so much time to create.<\/p>\n

Why does it matter?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Well aside from it being immoral and offensive, it could<\/em> be detrimental to your website ranking in Google.<\/p>\n

Google doesn\u2019t like duplicated content.<\/p>\n

They see it as a potential way of manipulating the search engine ranking or to win more traffic to a website.<\/p>\n

So your content being displayed on another website, could have a negative impact on your search engine rankings because Google thinks you\u2019re \u2018playing\u2019 the system.<\/p>\n

But the good news is that very often, just by following the first couple of steps outlined below, the whole issue can be resolved within a reasonable amount of time.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s what you can do to fight website plagiarism \u2026<\/p>\n

Step 1 \u2013 Find out if your website has been plagiarised<\/strong><\/p>\n

By using this free tool – Copyscape<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Pop your website URL into the field provided and click Go.<\/p>\n

\"Copyscape<\/a><\/p>\n

If another website\u2019s content does match yours in any way, it will be displayed in the results.<\/p>\n

Clicking on each one in the list, will display how much of their content matches yours.<\/p>\n

\"Copyscape<\/a><\/p>\n

And below that, a snippet of the text will be presented.<\/p>\n

\"Copyscape<\/a><\/p>\n

In our own example here, I\u2019m pleased to say that this isn\u2019t plagiarism.<\/p>\n

The website in question is giving a review of our product, which is apparent if you click on the link to read the entire page.<\/p>\n

And the clever Google bots, know this.<\/p>\n

So first and foremost, if any websites appear after checking Copyscape, take a minute to look at the source before going any further.<\/p>\n

What is the website? What\u2019s the context?<\/p>\n

If it\u2019s a website listing your property with links to your website<\/em>, that\u2019s okay. In fact, it\u2019s great. You\u2019ve got yourself a backlink which helps with your own SEO.<\/p>\n

However, if it\u2019s another holiday let website that\u2019s ripped off your content, then that\u2019s another matter and needs to be addressed quickly.<\/p>\n

Step 2 \u2013 Capture your proof<\/strong><\/p>\n

Before racing ahead to the next step, take screenshots of their website for proof:<\/p>\n