In a world where businesses are jostling against one another to gain an upper hand in a tremendously competitive market, online marketing has assumed paramount importance. This is where the significance of Search Engine Optimization or SEO lies. There are several facets in SEO and they say that content is the king among them. Something that is largely plaguing present content canvas is the practice of plagiarism.
Plagiarism is a common trait that can bear an impact on the business both directly and indirectly. Not only does the ranking of a website take a dip, but the original creator of the content can also have to face the charge of being the plagiarizer. To most plagiarizers, the art of raising a question on the original content can come naturally. Notwithstanding this the fact remains that plagiarism can have several adverse consequences on the rankings of any website. Here are a few ways in which plagiarism can bear a detrimental effect on the website.
Plagiarism might Outrank Originality
This is often considered the worst case in plagiarism and worse still, it happens quite often. Unless your website is already ranked sufficiently high, there is a great chance that the plagiarized website can outrank it. Only if you are already publishing heavily, is there a chance for your website to escape this jeopardy.
This practice of stealing often consorts to black hat SEO strategies, which on successful implementation send back huge traffic to your (erstwhile) content. This improves the rankings greatly and instances when ‘content thieves’ have been able to achieve top ranks are not uncommon.
Plagiarizers Might Gorge on Your Non-Indexed Content
In case the original content posted on your website has not been indexed yet, plagiarizers have a high chance to claim it as their own through indexation. Once that is done, search engines will regard that as the original content, giving it the credit of being the source. This could very well translate into your ‘original’ content being conveniently ignored by search engines.
Thieves can Knock Your Content down from the Internet
Once the thieves successfully index stolen content, they might just force the hosts and Service Providers to remove your pieces. The issue of take-down notices generally means that the Service Providers and hosts will remove any content that has supposedly infringed on someone’s rights. The hosts generally do not want to land in a labyrinth of liabilities and will take down the ‘copied’ content at the very receipt of the notice.
The implications of this are simple. The plagiarizers will first outrank you using your content and then, to add insult to the injury, in a foray, have you quarantined from the very listings of search engines. Simply put, your, again ‘original’ content will be visible in the internet all right, but some one else will walk away with the credit of being the creator of it.
Escaping Plagiarism (Plagiarizers)
As if the practice were not sorry enough, sadly there is not much that original content creators can do to counter plagiarism. All you can ensure is proper indexing of the content in your website and ensuring a decent rank for the website right at the onset.
Prepared using the http://plagiarism-detect.org/
