4 Reasons Why You Want To Re-Think Copying Someone's Content

4 Reasons Why You Want To Re-Think Copying Someone's Content

The search engines love new content, if you're a website or blog owner looking at ranking well in the search engines you know this all to well. But writing unique original content isn't always easy, let's be honest it can be hard to come up with something new on a regular basis. Many take the easy route and simply copy and paste content from another more established site. And while this can provide a quick solution to the content problem, the long term effects can and will have a very negative effect on your site and its reputation. Here are __ reasons why you should never copy someone's content.

1. Search engines hate it

Google and the other search engines hate duplicate content with a passion. Google for example has made it very clear over the years that they don't like it and punish sites that practice it. The recent panda update punished thousands of websites and blogs that were copying content from other sites. These sites have been dropped down in search results, lost page rank, or banned from the search engine all together.

2. The original owner can find out

This obviously depends on the site that's being copied from. A well established site for example with a large and loyal viewer base might contact the site owner and let them know about the copied content.

If the copied source is linked to the original (which I've had happen) and that link is clicked it'll show up in your analytics. Google analytics will display the URL of the link, allowing the site owner the option to visit that site. A quick visit will reveal what's going on, and if that site owner has a large fan base can go out of there way to trash and bad mouth that site.

3. You could be banned from AdSense

If you're using Google AdSense to monetize your site you could face having your account banned. Anything that is attached to Google follows the same rules, so if you're copying someone's content and your reported you'll not only drop in rankings but lose your revenue as well. Also any earnings not paid out will be held by Google.

Trying to get your ad sense account back is next to impossible, so if you're relying on it don't do it.

4. Your site can be reported to Google

If a site owner discovers duplicate content that can go to Google directly and report your site to them. Sure Google is a huge search engine and a report about your site could take awhile to process, but it would be extremely foolish to think it wouldn't be investigated. When they do, and if they discover duplicate content your site will be penalized for it.

There are some exceptions to the rule. Using content from an article source such as EzineArticles for example is perfectly accepted by Google and the other large search engines. The code used to copy content on Ezine forces you to include any links and acknowledge the original writer of that post.