Couple of days back, Atul (one of my dear blogging friend) suggested that anyone can be a pro-blogger by simply spending $ 20 on a piece of software which can re-write the articles and those articles easily pass CopyScape’s algorithm and that suggests that it will act as unique content.
He posted an example to show the difference between the original article and the re-written one :
Original Article:
You’ve just pocketed an awesome graduation gift – the kind that folds. Or perhaps you scored a nice sales bonus at work. Maybe you even received a hefty tax refund from Uncle Sam. No matter what the source of the cash – whether it’s a modest $500 or a meaty $5,000 – you now have the happy task of figuring out what to do with it. The Caribbean is calling … you can taste that Pina Colada, smell the salty air, feel the palms swaying …
Rewritten Article:
You’ve just won an impressive graduation gift that the nature of the folds. Or maybe scored a nice sales bonus at work. Maybe you even received a big tax refund from Uncle Saturday Whatever the source of the money if it’s a modest $ 500 or $ 5,000-meat you now have the happy task of determining what to do with. The Caribbean is calling … You can taste that Pina Colada, smell salt air, feel the swaying palm trees …
Atul did a pretty fine job by contacting experienced bloggers (Ajay, Arpit, Sumesh, Technospot) and posted their thoughts on the blog post and made me think that what can be done about these kind of copiers if at all someone starts to target your blog. Is there any way out to fight those copiers or will those kind of acts will help them (copiers) become a problogger ?When I gave it a thought, I got the answer to the question myself and here’s what I think – NO! This won’t help them become probloggers, although , they may be able to make money out of it!
The next question which most of people will ask that what’s the real difference between the two and here’s what I think
Pro-blogging is not just about making money from the blogs, it’s also about putting your point across, making friends and building authority amongst the people who share the same interest as yours.
Apart from that as there are certain technical, legal points which won’t really help the “so called” smart problogger/copier :
1. CopyScape may not be as smart as search engines : Copyscape’s main work is to find out the posts which have been duplicated and search engines have pretty strong algorithms through which they rank the websites. I’m not saying that CopyScape is bad, rather I don’t have any point to prove it either, but I’m giving one of the possibility.
2. CopyScape is just a bot : Copyscape may not be able to differentiate between the two articles however, any person who’ll read both the posts will be able to say that the second section is copied from the first one and if you are concerned about the copyright infringement then you can always drag the other person to court and that will go in favor of the original writer.
3. Blog readers just don’t follow one blog of one niche : Blog readers generally follow decent number of blogs of same niche and if they’ve read one post and the same post gets smartly copied and re-published on another blog then the reader will know that they are being cheated and will certainly not subscribe to that copier’s blog.
The simple fact is that copied content can not help you become a problogger as a copier won’t be able to build the authority which original writer will have. I hope that this will answer the question which was raised by Atul or which may be troubling you all. If you have any other thoughts on it, then feel free to share them with us in comments.
Note : It’s not an attempt to disgrace copyscape service. I think it’s one of the most wonderful service which makes a blogger’s life simple in finding duplicate content and that every blogger should use that service.
Well said
The first question is what can you do if you find someone spinning your content in such a manner? It’s easy actually. Since the content is clearly based upon your work and copyright law only gives the copyright owner the right to permit derivative works, the new work, even though not identical, is still very likely an infringement. Thus, you can report the site as an infringement by filing a DMCA notice (or other relevant notice) against the host or the search engines.
Essentially, you can take the same steps that you would take for verbatim copying, unless the “spinning” were so severe as to be unrecognizable (and likely, at that point, gibberish).
As far as Copyscape’s role goes, I love it as a service but it was not designed for this and neither was Bitscan (bitscan.com). Bitscan *might* be a little better at detecting this kind of infringement but I have not tested that.
But as you pointed out, simply passing Copyscape does NOT guarantee that you will either A) Fool the search engines or B) Fool human visitors. Copyscape is a tool, albeit a powerful one, but there are things beyond its scope. I know well that Google has tools for detecting such spun articles and it routinely penalizes sites it thinks might be spammy.
There is a reason that spammers don’t use this software to become a “pro blogger” but use it to generate thousands and thousands of sites, it is because the odds of it working are so slim they have to throw out countless sites just to have a chance.
If it were as easy as “copy, spin and post” we’d have a LOT fewer spam blogs out there…
I responded that Google is smarter and detects copying in a variety of ways which spammers still cannot understand completely. Yes, we see hundreds of SERPs dominated by spammers, but that pales in comparison to the billions of pages out there.
Besides, if making money is the only aim, evil can succeed anywhere – even in places other than blogging.
I agree with you. I also hate people who use those article spinners and report every single website that uses them to Google. As a freelance writer, article spinners steal work from (me) somewhat, and that’s slightly ticks me off. I also agree that CopyScape isn’t all that great. It’s easily fooled.
I would like to recommend a FREE service similar to copyscape, it is http://www.percentdupe.com/
There is a reason that spammers don’t use this software to become a “pro blogger” but use it to generate thousands and thousands of sites, it is because the odds of it working are so slim they have to throw out countless sites just to have a chance.
If it were as easy as “copy, spin and post” we’d have a LOT fewer spam blogs out there.
As far as Copyscape’s role goes, I love it as a service but it was not designed for this and neither was Bitscan (bitscan.com). Bitscan *might* be a little better at detecting this kind of infringement but I have not tested that.