Hundreds of thousands of web pages daily upload content on various topics. Although there is a lot of information available at the click of a button, we must accept that not everything is rosy: just as there are positive factors, there are also negative ones. For example, a widespread and annoying practice for any creator is copy and paste. Detecting content plagiarism is a cumbersome and bitter task, but fortunately, there are tools to do so. The only way to be sure of something is to review it yourself.
In this article, we will detail what content plagiarism is (has it happened to you? Stay alert to the signs) and the best tools, websites, and applications to track content copied from one page to another.
What is content plagiarism?
Content plagiarism is when someone usurps, copies, or steals material from an author and uses it as if it were their work. It can occur with both text and audiovisual content, and a key to identifying it is that the page or user who does the plagiarism does not give the necessary credit.
Even when it comes to free-use material, such as photos or videos exposed in free banks, it is important that, if you extract something, you have the habit of offering credits. In this way, you save yourself from the problems that can arise from plagiarized content. You should also check whether the photo, text, video, audio or any other file type is copyrighted and authorize its reproduction.
In case it is prohibited, you will not be able to use anything, not even if you give the corresponding credits.
Tools to detect content plagiarism
In almost all countries, intellectual property is regulated by law, and plagiarism is punishable even with imprisonment. It is more difficult to detect content plagiarism on the web, so sometimes it can be overlooked, or the creators do not even notice it. However, thanks to the work of many people, there are now tools to find it.
1- Google Panda
This tool to detect content plagiarism is a Google algorithm that cleans search engine results. It focuses a lot on the page's usability, the backlinks used, the user experience (remember that the more useful content is, the more likely it will be chosen at the top by the algorithms), and reputation. This last category includes content plagiarism.
This software penalizes duplicate content with low page visibility, which affects overall metrics. There are other reasons why Google panda could penalize you (the content of fewer than 100 words, excessive keyword repetition, and heavy pages), but plagiarism is the main reason.
2- Grammarly
It is a page to detect content plagiarism in general, with very good usability. Through a web mechanism, the page launches URLs of content that match what you have written. Just paste your text in the search bar or upload a file, and it performs a quick analysis and returns the matches.
Grammarly uses the ProQuest database, where many academic documents are uploaded; it scans over 16 billion web pages. Therefore, it is a good option to detect plagiarism of content with accurate results.
According to the official website, important institutions such as Harvard, the New York City Department of Education, and the University of California, Los Angeles, use this tool.
3- Plagiarism
This site for detecting plagiarism of content works similarly to Grammarly. You enter your text in the box or upload a document, and the system searches for exact phrases. The good thing about this tool is that it allows you to scan the content in Google and Bing. This way, you have at your disposal two search engines to scan.
Plagiarism also has an application you can download for Windows and Google Play; it is free, and its plagiarism detector supports up to 190 languages. Definitely a good option!
4- Copyscape
It is another one of the best tools for detecting content plagiarism. Copyscape specializes in finding duplicate content, and although it is in English, it is a favorite among hundreds of content creators because of how easy it is to use. In addition, its agreements with Google have made it one of the most effective plagiarism detection sites.
The free version works like the two aforementioned tools, but Copyscape also has a paid version, which offers advantages such as finding the original text from which the plagiarism took place, comparing several similar extracts, and uploading files in different formats.
Without a doubt, content plagiarism is dangerous, and you want to stay away from it. Which of these tools will you try first? We hope you found this article useful and that you will share it with your colleagues.
