The blight of plagiarism
POSTED 14 Mar 2011

Read on to find out what steps you can take.

Having just found that some content and key terms have been 'adopted' from our website here at PAS, I thought that maybe I would just highlight some of the factors surrounding employing such methodology when writing your content.  Now, don't get me wrong - I'm am more than happy to share tips and advice with other business owners but to 'borrow' someone else's ideas is not really something that sits comfortably with me.  I am also aware that unless content is copywritten, it is not against the law but is it really ethical?  There are however, steps you can take to find out if this is happening and what to do if you find this has happened to you:

1. Use www.copyscape.com to find out if anyone has 'borrowed' any of your content.

2. Find the owner of the website in question and contact them.  Remember to be polite as they may not yet be aware that a duplication exists.

3. If the duplicated content is not removed, contact the website's hosting company.

4. If all else fails, you can file an infringement complaint with Google.

I am hoping that most of us will never need to take these steps and hope that often you will probably find that the website owner in question was unaware that duplicate content existed.