If we take a trip down memory lane and harken back to our school days, we probably all have a pretty good idea of what plagiarism is.
Plagiarism is defined as presenting somebody else’s words as your own. Copying someone’s homework or answers in an exam hall is no different than copying and pasting articles directly from someone else’s website to your own. Not only is it morally (and legally) wrong, but it can also have a negative impact on your website’s SEO (search engine optimisation), which in turn can damage your ranking.
In this blog, we’ll take a look at examples of plagiarism, and why you shouldn’t be passing someone else’s work off as your own if you want your website to rank well.
What counts as plagiarism?
Any instance of using someone else’s work and presenting it as your own constitutes as plagiarism. This extends to unpublished work, too.
This doesn’t mean, however, that you can’t use quotes from other sources to back up points made in your content – particularly if you’re writing a news article.
As a general rule, the piece should contain no more than 20% quotes – so, if a blog was 250 words, for example, no more than 50 words of that should be made up of quotes. You can include the quote in citation marks to make it clear that you are referring to another source.
What impact can plagiarism have on your SEO?
If your website contains content that is over 10% plagiarised, Google will penalise this.
Why? Because the goal of the search engine is to provide users with quality, informative and useful content. So, if your website is essentially ripping off other sources, Google will see that your website has nothing original or valuable to offer, and will rank your website accordingly (or worse, remove it).
Even if you have permission to use an article written by someone else, if the article exists on the source’s own website, then Google will treat this the same way as an authorised plagiarism attempt; it won’t know the difference.
Any writing on your website should be created by yourself, a member of your team or a trained copywriter you have commissioned to create content for you. This content should be original, based on either personal experience (or research provided by a credible source) and provide value to your reader.
If you need quality content written by a professional, reach out to the team at Engage Web today. We take the time to get to you know you before we write your content, ensuring to reflect your brand’s unique voice and your own individual personality – all key to ranking well and establishing unique authority in your industry.
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