Effective Writing

How to use Copyscape and Google to track duplicate content

Following up on the last article, a great tool that that allows you to check if your content has been scraped off your site and used elsewhere is Copyscape.com.

You can also pick strings of words at random from several sections of your content and type them into Google (make sure you put them in quotes). This is another great way to track your material.

If your content has been taken and you’ve been penalized, or think you might be, write and ask the owners to remove the content. If they don’t, lodge a formal complaint with Google through the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. You can use it to threaten legal action and apply pressure to both the website owner and host to take the website down.

This also gives web hosts and Internet service providers a measure of protection from false copyright claims. As long as they outline certain notices and take-down procedures in their terms of service and implement them when there is a problem, they are covered in case they are unfairly accused of copyright infringement.