How plagiarism can ruin your SEO strategy | 5 ways to avoid it

Written by Rahul Gupta  »  Updated on: January 03rd, 2024

How plagiarism can ruin your SEO strategy | 5 ways to avoid it

The amount of content available on the internet has increased in recent years. Most enterprises are finding it difficult even to enter the race, let alone keep up.

Unfortunately, the ever-increasing need for content does not always translate into the original standard that search engines (and users) need. If you use the terms of other blogs without permission, you risk damaging your SEO.

If you are working as an online writer for a while, you've already come across the term "plagiarism.” One of the most critical factors in determining a website's rating is content consistency. If there is a problem with the text, such as originality, the search engine should consider it.

Plagiarism is terrible for your SEO strategy. It hurts a page's SEO and marketing efforts. Here are some typical problems you might have overlooked and how to resolve them.

How Plagiarism Ruin SEO

Your content will be indexed if it is not unique. Neither will receive a ranking. You're probably curious how the search engine can find duplicate content within millions of web pages.

On the other hand, Google and other search engines use sophisticated algorithms to determine if the content being indexed is already in their database. 

If the material is claimed to be available on the internet, they will not rank it. Because even if they do, it will have a significant impact on your rankings due to your reputation.

1. Search engines are conscious:

If you want to apply plagiarized material to the blog now, search engines will know where the post was originally written. It aids those incorrectly rating web pages and lowers websites that do not have unique content.

But, now that we know the post you copied isn't going to work for you, it's time to start paraphrasing. If you've already published plagiarized material, now is the time to remove it.

2. Deindexing:

In the worst-case situation, the website could be deindexed from search engines due to plagiarism. And if your blog was classified first, you won't collect organic traffic from search engines after being deindexed. It would also result in a decrease in net visits to your website.

3. Reduction in backlinks:

When plagiarism is discovered in the website's content, your reputation in the online industry will suffer. Backlinks to your website can be removed by the sites that have them to protect their integrity. 

Your website's SEO will suffer as a result, and its search engine ranking will drop. Often, use the backlink checker to ensure that your website is receiving quality backlinks.

Some plagiarism cases 

1. Brad Gerlach

Brad Gerlach is a well-intentioned web developer who stumbled into SEO by accident. He didn't have the money for a full-fledged inbound marketing unit, so he set up his SEO. All Gerlach knew about SEO was that it could boost his website traffic and brand popularity significantly.

He spent a lot of time on black hat SEO forums. He read black hat posts written by people. He discovered how to spin content and create content.

After Google Penguin algorithm updates, Gerlach's website vanished from the search results entirely. In Google, he was almost unnoticed. His methods, which had seemed so profitable only days ago, were now his undoing.

2. Indian Foundation website

Five papers on the Indian Foundation website, according to a report published in the Logical Indian on May 10, 2018, are not original and have been plagiarized. The article clearly shows a word-for-word translation. 

According to the study, the author has copied directly from many reputable sources without sufficient attribution, attribution, or quotation marks.

Even though the author has apologized for it, it does not lessen the act's reality. It poses doubts about the site's trustworthiness.

3. Florida Times-editorial

Lloyd Brown was the Florida Times-editorial Union's page editor in 2004. However, claims that Brown had plagiarized content in some of his editorials surfaced, causing the paper to form a task force to look into the matter. 

Brown resigned from the paper when it was discovered that there were three cases of plagiarism and "even other instances of lack of complete attribution" during the inquiry. After that, this company website suffers a lot for few months.

Ways to avoid it?

If you were previously copying from others on purpose, there is still time to pause. What about unintentional plagiarism? There are several methods for avoiding accidental plagiarism. Many websites provide resources to assist authors in eliminating those risks.

1. Always Link your previous work

If it is necessary to address topics covered in previous blogs rather than plagiarizing, it is preferable to connect to the last work in the current post. You will not only avoid plagiarism, but you will also build an internal connection that will benefit your blog.

2. Present Unique Ideas

Originality is one of the main facets of the successful promotion of content. Engaging, unique articles help websites generate traffic and, more notably, they establish a working relationship with readers, encouraging them to visit the site as a satisfied customer.

3. Plagiarism Checker

You will save plenty of time using a plagiarism checker app to see whether you wrote or not the same thing. And if you spot 1% of the plagiarism, you have to try to remove it. Plagiarism testing instruments play an essential part in identifying and avoiding self-plagiarism. Prepostseo free plagiarism checker is one of the finest examples of free plagiarism checking tools.

4. Quotations

 Avoid copying word-to-word content. Try practicing quotation marks if the very same content is required. You can't quote more than 40 sentences, so try to paraphrase after this point.

5. Proofread

 After the content is finished, do the revision and editing required to ensure quality. Use a plagiarist control to confirm that you did not copy any material unknowingly.

Conclusion

To sum it up, you should be aware of how horrible copying is as a technique. You will immediately prevent it once you realize it. All should look at the right owner's location. When someone takes from you, you feel like it's depressing and frustrating. In the content score, plagiarism would not benefit you. That's why everybody should concentrate on making original content.


Rahul Gupta
Founder & CEO @ IndiBlogHub

A Techie, Blogger & Entrepreneur by heart. Rahul Gupta is founder of IndiBlogHub.com, MentalHealth+ platform and build multiple streams of income via Blogging.

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