Do you know plagiarism is considered malpractice or a sin in SEO writing? But have you ever wondered why it is prohibited? Why don’t search engines like plagiarism? Or what makes plagiarism that much worse? In this short article, we will answer all these questions. It will help you understand why you must refrain from plagiarism and only rely on original content.
Let’s start with the basic question!
What is Plagiarism?
According to the Cambridge Dictionary, Plagiarism is the process or practice of using another person’s ideas or work and pretending that it is your own. This simple and small definition perfectly describes what plagiarism is. It doesn’t matter whether that work or ideas are in the form of text, images, audio, or video; if they are stolen from someone else, it is plagiarism.
However, if someone copies others’ ideas and work and doesn’t claim its authority and properly attributes the real owner of the work, it won’t be considered plagiarism. For instance, to define plagiarism, we have used the Cambridge Dictionary’s plagiarism definition, and we clearly conveyed that it doesn’t belong to us. So, it won’t be considered plagiarism as we didn’t pretend it was our own work.
Now, have a look at why plagiarism is considered harmful in SEO blog writing!
Common Reasons Why Avoiding Plagiarism is Necessary
Here are a few reasons why you must ensure uniqueness and avoid plagiarism at any cost:
1. To Avoid Penalties
Search engines, especially Google, don’t like plagiarized or stolen content. So, refraining from plagiarism is not a choice; it’s essential. Plagiarism instances or copyright infringements can de-rank websites, and if the website owner continues publishing plagiarized content, search engines can block the domain and not show it to users.
So, as a blog writer or website owner, you should always avoid plagiarism. Otherwise, Google and other search engines may penalize your website, and you may not get the desired output for your efforts. As a result, willingly or unwillingly, you will have to recreate the website. That’s the only solution to this issue.
2. To Get Quality Backlinks
Do you know your informative and valuable blogs can help you generate tons of backlinks? Many websites that frequently publish high-quality, engaging, and informative articles don’t need to spend much money to get backlinks. Their content helps them get backlinks without any effort. However, for that purpose, you must write unique and original content.
No matter how informative your blogs are, no one will like to give a backlink to your website if they are plagiarised. If you want to get quality backlinks without spending, you should focus on publishing original content instead of stealing others’ content.
3. To Enhance Organic Reach
To get more organic reach and traffic, you need to ensure your content is original. If you think that posting duplicate content can help you enhance reach and get more traffic, you are wrong. You must know that Google always prioritizes original content. So, if you want organic reach, write original content. Otherwise, Google won’t show your content even if it matches the users’ query.
Even if your website has excellent domain authority, uploading duplicate blogs can ruin your website, and your keywords may not get ranked. In fact, your other blogs will also start de-ranking, and you may find a significant drop in all metrics. The only solution to the problem is uploading highly relevant and original content.
4. To Maintain Reputation
Copyright infringement can also ruin your website’s reputation among regular visitors. Suppose your visitors or anyone else realizes you frequently post stolen blogs on your website. In that case, they may complain about your website or post against it on social media or other relevant forums.
Ultimately, people may stop visiting your website, and you may lose regular visitors even if your website’s ranking is unaffected. Additionally, if you steal others’ content, they can sue you in court and damage your credibility. So, there is no need to use plagiarized content.
How to Avoid Plagiarism?
Here is the most critical question. Avoiding intentional or unintentional plagiarism isn’t very difficult at all. If you want to avoid plagiarism, you should thoroughly research your topics before penning them down. After that, you should use your own words to communicate things instead of using others’ words.
However, in some cases, you can find unintentional plagiarism in your content. Those instances of unintentional plagiarism are as harmful as intentional plagiarism. You need to use a sophisticated and trusted plagiarism checker to avoid them. The plagiarism detector can quickly scan your content and compare it with already available data to find similarities. If it finds any plagiarism in your content, it will highlight those instances, allow you to remove them, and make your content 100% original.
So, when you have such tools, there is no need to compromise originality. Otherwise, you won’t have left anything except regret.