Why You Might Want to Copy Content
Many bloggers have asked whether they can copy content from their blogs. There are a variety of reasons why they copy content to their site.
The most significant one is typically the time and effort investment. If you’ve spent time creating an article, why not put it wherever you want to? If you’re creating an online microsite and would like to populate it with blog posts but need more time to make all that content.
The same reason why article spinners were created. Suppose you need to become more familiar with the term. In that case, an article spinner can be described as software (usually an application like a WordPress plugin or a web application) that reads a small amount of text and replaces phrases and words with synonyms. The resultant content isn’t necessarily accurate. It can substitute words for other ones that have no meaning, context, or definition.
It can sound funny, and readers and search engines can detect it. Usually, they syndicate this content stolen on Medium or other social media sites, and any other place they believe will gain some additional traffic or even backlinks.
Another reason is that you want to show other people’s work while providing them with credit. This could fill gaps in your editorial calendar fast and effortlessly. There’s a word specifically to use for this, and I’ll go over it in the future.
Whatever the reason, bloggers may duplicate content from another source on your blog. It could be a better idea. It’s an easy trap that those unfamiliar with SEO get caught in. It’s an appealing idea if you don’t know anything else.
Three Methods of Copying Content
Let’s look at three scenarios I’ve seen the most often when copying content.
1. You have information on a website you own and wish to replicate it on another.
The idea is a plausible one initially. Ultimately, you’ve made the content you want to share; why shouldn’t it be used however you like? You own and create the content; therefore, you have the right to use it and share it wherever you want.
The problem here needs to be legally enforceable; it’s SEO. If the same content appears on two domains, it can only add the value of one, and the other is either taking the content or distributing it.
Google would like to credit the source of the story. What else could prevent a significant site from copying the content of any smaller website they stumble across? The smaller site won’t be able to take on the more substantial place.
The webpage that was first published (and afterward, was able to have Google index the content) is the primary source. But various factors play into this. If someone takes your content and backdates it to a previous date to trick Google, this may not be successful if the website is known for stealing content. It is also essential to consider your website’s reputation when it comes to theft, and websites that take content are viewed as having a bad reputation.
This means that even if you own the content and have the rights to do with it however you want, you cannot make duplicate value from it. However, I’ll get into the issues with the same content in the future.
At this point, it’s not an actual method to increase the size of two websites. It’s impossible to duplicate a website and expect it to function similarly. At best, they may divide the original value, but most of the time, the repeated blog posts need momentum.
2. You are looking to take content from a website you don’t own but with acknowledgment to the original creator.
If you don’t own an item of content but wish to incorporate it on your website in certain circumstances, you can do so with attribution. There are two situations where this is permitted.
One is the concept of Content syndication (not to be confused with content curation). From HubSpot:
“Content Syndication means republishing the same piece of content — an article, a video, an infographic, etc. — on one or more different websites. Publications, big and small, like to syndicate content because it helps them give fresh information to their readers. The original authors also benefit from this practice since it gets their brand in front of a new audience. It’s a win-win.”
This happens often on news sites. All local NBC-affiliated websites will publish the same story on all of their sites using the same writer and exact copy, the same information. It’s also seen on news sites such as Yahoo News, which will include input from news associates. The article published on Yahoo News has a line at the bottom of the page that reads “read the original article on Business Insider,” as well as a Business Insider flag at the top. Yahoo News wasn’t the one who created that content, but Business Insider did, allowing Yahoo to distribute the content.
The most crucial thing in this case is the word “affiliated. To syndicate content, you require an agreement with the publisher who initially published the content. Yahoo also has a syndication agreement with other major news outlets, including Business Insider, Reuters, HuffPost, and many smaller news websites. Yahoo was the first to write a small portion of the content that was published on Yahoo.
You cannot publish content without signing a syndication agreement. If you use the content on an unrelated website that you did not create or own, even if you hyperlink to the original blog post and credit the source to their site, It’s still theft of content.
You may choose the second option if a specific Creative Commons license covers the content. The Creative Commons license set is a set of permits you may utilize to remove your copyright rights on the content. You can state, “you can use this so long as you credit me,” or “you can use and make changes to this as long as it’s non-commercial,” and that kind of thing. There are several Creative Commons licenses you can look up at the link above.
Nowadays, most content licensed under Creative Commons is written work, not art. It’s graphical, visual, or audio. These are typically elements that people could use in their creations, for example, the stock image you apply as a background for your header image or music clip you can employ as background music for the YouTube video.
Sometimes writing works can be licensed with the Creative Commons license, but the content isn’t worthwhile copying wholesale. It is possible, but it won’t
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It’s also possible to expire the copyright. When a piece of written material is used for time enough, it becomes the public domain, and everyone can access it. Many old fairy stories and tales and older literary works fall under this category. Disney has been fighting this for a long time. That is why copyright law can be described as “the life of the author plus 70 years.” Therefore, if the creator of the material you wish to copy passed away around 70 years ago, it can be applied to your site. But, as mentioned earlier, it’s unlikely to be significant for you as a business blog in the modern age.
3. You would like to take content from a site you don’t control without giving credit.
Why can’t you grab material? If someone puts it up online for everyone to view, it’s free to use.
However, it is an all-encompassing attitude, especially in older generations. It causes a plethora of content rights violations all over the world, from YouTube to blogs and graphic design. Every time a business conducts a Google image search to find images and incorporates them as a part of their branding, they’re violating their rights.
Many of you in the know are shouting, and they have an excellent reason. This isn’t just a matter of content theft; it’s an infraction of the copyright law with many penalties.
- If Google finds out and does, which they will do – they could penalize or eliminate your website’s index.
- If the blogger that initially posted it finds the content, they may issue a DMCA takedown of the post and request it to be removed by your host.
- If you continue to use it, the copyright owner may sue you for copyright violation. The penalties for this could range between $200 to $150,000 for each violation as well as legal fees and, in extreme cases, may even be accompanied by jail time.
It’s true; in the case of content theft, you could face severe legal penalties and prison time because you’re trying to fill in your content calendar the simple method!
Let me be honest and give credit where credit is due: most of my customers and potential clients inquiring about copying content know the consequences of committing copyright violations. They want to repurpose the content they created or have syndicated but need to know how to do it. I’m still required to include this as it comes up repeatedly, and I can’t stress this enough: don’t steal content.
The problem with duplicate content
There are some issues regarding duplicate content, regardless of whether you’re using it legitimately.
If you’re copying content that doesn’t have the proper credits and attributes, Google will consider it theft of content. They’ve taken duplicate content seriously ever since the dark time of online when copying content was commonplace with no enforcer to be discovered. There was a time some time ago – and perhaps many of you are aware that the top 10-20 or more Google results for the search were identical pieces of content published on different domains. This isn’t the case anymore and gives Google users a bad experience. What makes Google unique is the ability to read original content, not much of the same content.
The fact that content can be duplicated is not a good idea from a user’s viewpoint. If you’re searching for information on the subject and get “ten” results, but the ten results are the same, you’re receiving only one result. If you’re looking for something different or something else, you’ll have to look deep for the information or need more time.
Many SEO experts claim that duplicate content is a “myth,” but the reality is that there are many kinds of the same content. If you publish a news article on your website relevant to your target audience, however, it’s likely to prevent your site from being removed from Google. If you copy and paste a lot of articles from your website on an entirely new place, don’t expect the report to attract visitors from Google, even though it doesn’t result in penalizing your website. It could be an untruth that you won’t receive a penalty for manual action; however, that doesn’t mean it’s not a wise choice.
Duplicate content is a thing to stay clear of.
Google did not dislike duplicate content simply because its people didn’t like it, so they began looking for the source of content and promoting the original, and all others were either de-listed or eliminated. They continue to allow duplication that is not malicious by using canonicalization, but there’s a caveat.
If you upload content to your site from another source and put your rel=”canonical” tags to the head, the authority will benefit from the range. There is no natural traffic, but you won’t get penalized.
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