I love Copyscape.
I mean, REALLY love Copyscape.
What really concerns me
though is how many people in
our industry totally misunderstand
and indeed misuse Copyscape.
Have you heard someone say:
“Does it pass Copyscape?”
As you can see, over 2 million
people are questioning in some
way whether an article passes
Copyscape.
Which is kind of important…
…but in many cases also totally
irrelevant.
And it is important to know when
it is important, when it is not so
important and when it really
doesn’t matter.
I really don’t want to get into
the discussion of whether duplicate
content penalty exists or not.
In some way it almost certainly
does.
But what is more important, is
what you are using the content
for and whether it really matters.
Let’s do a search on Google:
and take some text from the second
result (golearnforex.net)
“By reaching GoLearnForex, you must already be aware that Forex trading is a very lucrative way to make money from home”
Now if we do a copyscape search for that,
the top results that it gives are:
If we check Google/Yahoo/Bing to see if those
URLs are in the top 50 for that phrase, we find:
1. forex-dollars.info
Google: NO
Yahoo: YES
Bing: YES
2. golearnforex.net
Google: YES
Yahoo: YES
Bing: YES
3. lyricofsong.info
Google: NO
Yahoo: YES
Bing: YES
4. fcbgbahrain.multiply.com
Google: YES
Yahoo: YES
Bing: YES
5. retno.info
Google: NO
Yahoo: YES
Bing: YES
6. cempluk.info
Google: NO
Yahoo: NO
Bing: YES
7. gallery-tips.blogspot.com
Google: NO
Yahoo: NO
Bing: YES
(From what I understand, Yahoo and Bing share a lot
of results, but obviously aren’t exactly the same.)
It seems to suggest that Copyscape is making use of Bing
to get its results.
So, what does this tell us so far?
Not just that Google isn’t using Copyscape
to decide on whether to penalise duplicate content (duh!), but
that it is likely that Copyscape is putting
an empasis on results returned from Bing rather than Google.
THEREFORE, if you are optimising for Google
then it would be better to use Google itself
to check for duplicate content.
But that isn’t really point, as you will see
in just a sec.
Let’s take the phrase that we used before and
edit every few words:
“By reaching GoLearnForex, you must already be aware that Forex trading is a very lucrative way to make money from home”
changes to:
“By visiting GoLearnForex, you should already have awareness that Forex business is a quite lucrative way in order to earn from home”
and now what happens when we Copyscape that?
So, what we have done is to keep exactly the same
meaning to the phrase, but edited every third word
with a synonym.
So, now we are safe that this is not duplicate content?
No, not at all!
What we now know is that according to Copyscape
they don’t see it as duplicate content.
In reality, I would guess that Google will see it
in EXACTLY the same way as the original.
- the meaning is the same
- the majority of the words are even the same
I am 99% sure that Google does not only test
whether each particular phrase (of 3 words)
already exists in its index but does many many
more checks.
So, I just want to be clear about exactly what
I am saying here and what I am NOT saying!
1. Copyscape is EASILY the best tool for checking
duplicate content. However, it is just for that
and not necessarily to tell you the quality of
an article or ‘how Google sees it’
2. Google uses a far more complicated algorithm
than Copyscape or any other ‘human’ made tool
in order to decide the quality of your content.
I don’t know what it is. You probably don’t either.
And nor does anyone else outside of Google – probably.
But, if you are placing too much emphasis on Copyscape
to tell you the quality of an article then it is highly
likely that you are going to be burnt.
As an aside, I was badly burnt when I had a whole
load of articles written for me which passed all tests
in terms of duplicate content. Only afterwards did
I discover that he used a technique similar to that
above.
3. For different purposes, you need to use different
tools.
Copyscape is great/amazing for finding if someone
has stolen your content or a dishonest writer is
using someone else’s content.
However, as I showed above, this should be a first
test and not the ultimate one.
If you are using PLR content or spun content, then
Copyscape is (almost) irrelevant for trying to understand
the quality of the content.
I don’t generally advise that you should use either
as your primary content. But if you are using it
for backlinking to your site then whether it passes
copyscape or not is not so important.
If you are using spun content, then just the fact
that one instance is different from another makes
it FAR better than using an article that is exactly
the same as someone else is using.
So, next time you hear someone use the phrase:
Did it pass Copyscape?
try and understand exactly what it means and
how important it really is.
Keeping it real in an unreal world,
Ben Shaffer
I never use Copyscape to check content. If I’m buying content from Odesk or Fiverr, I’ll just take a random sentence from the content received and paste it into Google. If nothing shows up, it’s good enough for me.
I would suggest that even this is a mistake as I say in my post above.
ie. change every third word and see what Google throws up…
As a writer myself I think we should all worry about illegally using someone else’s material as their own. This is copyright infringement. I had someone rank in the top spot for an article I wrote and other than a few word changes it was my article.
So, the “good enough comment” isn’t good enough as far as I’m concerned.
Thanks for keeping it real, Ben.
Val
I think it’s hard to impose rules and regulations from the US on a worldwide internet. What you will end up with is only foreigners copying your content and only Americans not. In the end, it will have to be, everything ever put up on the web is fair game, because there aren’t enough jails to hold all the cheaters…..
That leaves us with quite an outsourcing challenge.. I guess all comes down to trust between client and outsourcer(er… wouldn’t that be great…) and no spun text is spider-save I guess.
thanks for the good stuff Ben
PS @Val: respect to the real writers!
Egmond
How would you suggest checking out purchased content if not by Copyscape?
Nice finding…
Lesson learn here, to make serious money, there’s no shortcut
Thanks for sharing this valuable insight with others. I have learned something today. I have lots of trouble with content creation…
It’s hard to post anything without worrying about Thieves! I’ve had my entire web-site stolen, as well as my eBook and sold for less on “their” site. I did find it accidentally while using Copyscape though. It really is maddening (as well is people syndicating your articles without the link)!
I’m learning so much lately. I had ‘unique’ articles written at iwriter and saw a message there that they had been tested and passed for uniqueness. Then I went to have them submitted to article directories via fiverr. The guy there was my saviour because he told me he checked them before submitting them and found they were only 9% and 11% unique. ??? So back to iwriter I go and say please explain. Response is that they are unique, but not spun to a high degree. I thought you spun an article to get MORE unique articles, not to make the original one unique… So I am puzzled. I will now go and have them spun and then try to resubmit.
Ben,
If you search Google for “does it pass copyscape”, in quotes, you’ll see that it is only mentioned on 93 pages.
Or to put it another way, a search for:
exploding cow on the moon
without quotes gets 1.2 million results, and with quotes it gets zero.
Very good article Ben. The fact that you got burned and are willing to share your experience is much appreciated.
I was completely unaware of this and it really make sense once it is brought into the light.
And for certain, Google is weeding out the internet lazies, and its only going to get better, or worse, depending on one’s approach to internet marketing.
You saved any person who reads this a load of money and time
thanks again
Interesting discussion and useful points you make. The reality is that online nothing is ever set in stone. I agree with Val that direct copying of someone else’s work and calling it your own is despicable but unfortunately there are those who do this and apparently get away with it. Long term it is the quality of content on your own sites that really counts since that is what your visitors see and determines whether they become your followers or not.