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How to Deal With Duplicate Content Penalties?

Why is it Important to Know About a Duplicate Content Penalty?

Websites often use harsh measures to reduce any plagiarism online to protect the interest of the content creators. In turn, this helps content creators avoid a duplicate content penalty.

On the one hand, it has proven to be useful to curb the growing rate of plagiarism in all fields, including the academic field. One must first learn about plagiarism in order to know how to deal with a duplicate content penalty.

A Bit About Plagiarism

Plagiarism refers to the act of creating duplicate content using someone else’s creation as a source. Lack of proper recognition of the content creator and the source itself results in plagiarism. In simpler terms using quotes, lines, ideas, images, etc., which is not created by oneself in their creation, is known as plagiarism.

How Common is Plagiarism?

What is initiated as blind copying has become an issue demanding attention globally. Plagiarism has crossed the sphere of written words and has extended to image, music, ideas, and all sorts of performing arts.

It is much more evident in academics, where students, teachers, and researchers engage in all sorts of written work, including preparing research papers that require the writers’ originality and creativity.

How Do Organizations and Institutions Deal with Plagiarism?

Thanks to advanced technology and the latest software, plagiarism can be easily detected irrespective of its type. It does not require manual proofreading since most of the software is available online and is entirely free of cost.

These easy to use applications ably detect copied content within few minutes by comparing two documents side by side. 

Another method for controlling the creation of plagiarized content is the use of copyright over content. Copyright prevents access over the data available on any website, protecting the digital content regulating unauthorized access sources. Printed sources also have the copyright to protect the interest of the writers. 

How Effective is the Copyright?

Copyright bars outsiders from using the original content of any organization and protects the same legally. Violation of the copyright may lead the offender to face legal consequences in monetary loss and face loss.

The duplicate content creator is penalized if the content on a site does not pass the plagiarism test. Copyright infringement can lead a duplicate content being taken down from the website in some instances.

How to Deal with a Duplicate Content Penalty?

A duplicate content poses a risk for the website on which it has been posted. Publishing duplicate content on a site affects the website’s reputation, and on many occasions, it descends the search engine rankings. For search engines like Google, duplicate content penalties do not necessarily include removing the web site’s content or legal charges, unlike the popular beliefs. 

  • Duplicate content may bear complete or partial resemblance with other contents available in the search engine. How Google search console deals with such duplicate content is entirely different from the other search engine operators. Thus there are many ambiguities related to the penalties for creating a plagiarized content.
  • Most search engines use a filtration process in the search result itself to distinguish original content from a duplicate one. This process itself works as a plagiarism checker. The search engine presents the most relevant search result in this process, comparing it with all other available alternatives.   
  • Search engines aim to determine the original source of the copied content instead of penalizing any site to publish duplicate content. In case there are multiple versions of the same article, content, or blog, these search engines ensure they portray the original one before the duplicate content.

Possession of copied content does not directly harm any website since search engines avoid taking actions on such grounds. However, such websites pose a threat and try to mishandle the information and search results to face a duplicate content penalty.

  • Search engines work on plagiarism reports. For example, if the original content creator reports plagiarism of his or her copyrighted blog posts, they may further their cause by registering a complaint under the copyright act.

How to Avoid Plagiarism?

Creativity:

Focus on being original rather than blind copying someone else’s work. Do researches, read, and make several drafts. Nurture originality rather than being dependent on other’s ideas.

Check for Plagiarism:

The best technique for avoiding plagiarism is to make use of online plagiarism checker tools. Before considering publishing content, make sure they pass the plagiarism test to avoid plagiarism.

Citation:

Even if a writer of digital content creators decides to use others’ work, they must follow a proper protocol. Citation is the best way to give due credit to the original content creator and reduce plagiarism. Acknowledge the sources even if you summarize, paraphrase, or use ideas that are not their own.

301 Redirects:

It helps the search engine to direct the search result of the users. It effectively redirects the users to the designated link from the site that contains the duplicate content. The process is initiated once the search engines determine the original source of the copied content.

Canonical tag:

Rel canonical tag enables the search engines to identify the page that contains the original or source page of a copied content. Multiple versions are available of original sources, which are often too similar to one another.

URL Parameters:

Users may manipulate the search results using the URL parameters. Setting passive parameters on the website allows the owners to remove duplicate content from websites to avoid duplicate content.

Appropriate or duplicate content may form a negative idea about the website in the minds of the users. The website must cross-check content before publishing them to reduce the chances of plagiarism of any kind.

Use Copyleaks to Avoid Plagiarism

Now that there is much awareness about the harm caused by duplicate content, it is wise to use the duplicate content checker to be on the safe side. Now, numerous checkers are flooding the market. One must be very careful while choosing the best because the conman knows to dupe the software available.

However, Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning technologies are those technologies that can easily catch those who spend more time plagiarizing someone else’s hard work. Hence, users receive accuracy that can’t be questioned easily. How to deal with a duplicate content penalty.

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