Plagiarism
Copyscape Plagiarism Checker Review: Is It Any Good?
Looking for a reliable plagiarism checker? Read our review of Copyscape to see how it scores in ease of use, features, price, and performance. Is it worth it?
Plagiarism detection has never been more important.
With more and more content being published online, the chances of plagiarism continue to grow.
Not to mention the fact that generative AI pulls together information from several locations online, which significantly increases the chances of plagiarism occurring.
(We’ll leave the whole “generative AI is just plagiarism” discussion for another day!)
Here, we look at one of the most popular plagiarism checkers for digital marketers, Copyscape, and how it compares to other, more modern options, including Originality.ai. Copyscape has been around for 20 years and has been a popular choice for digital marketers, writers, and editors.
Overall, the Copyscape tool is very solid and provides great insights into why your content is flagged as plagiarized, which is expected given its popularity for many years now.
However, the platform does have some very noticeable issues, most specifically the user interface.
For many years, Copyscape has been one of the go-to options for plagiarism detection. With its pay-per-use system and detailed results, Copyscape has become a go-to for anyone who wants to detect forms of plagiarism, especially for those in the world of web publishing.
Interest in plagiarism checkers has only increased as our world becomes more and more digital-focused. While most people spend hours crafting detailed and unique content, others may take information from other articles, sometimes even trying to claim it as their own.
Tools like Copyscape are designed for just such occasions, preventing people from getting away with passing off other people’s work as their own.
Learn more about different types of plagiarism and examples of plagiarism.
Copyscape started in 2004 as an easy-to-use Plagiarism Checker.
Little has changed in the tool since then. Below is a screenshot of Copyscape every 5 years…
These screenshots show the changes at Copyscape over 20 years.
Copyscape has been around for so long that it became a go-to tool for the following users:
Marketers can use it to ensure their work is original, and freelancers can even use it to prove it is their own upon submission.
Freelancers can also benefit from using a tool like Copyscape, as it is a great way to show their clients that the work they have produced is their own, rather than that of another creator.
To get the most out of Copyscape, you’ll need to purchase a Copyscape Premium account. Then, all you need to do is copy your text, paste it into the tool, and wait for the score to appear.
Here’s a quick example of what your output would look like if there is no plagiarism, using this article as the example:
As you can see, the result is clear, but the user interface is a little tricky to navigate, mainly due to the small text bar.
However, another nice touch that Copyscape has is that if the text is very long, you’ll need to specifically confirm you are happy for the test to run to ensure you are okay with the cost.
What does it look like when Copyscape flags plagiarism? For this test, we input a section from one of our published blogs to see if Copyscape would catch it.
Here’s what it will look like if you get a plagiarism flag:
From there, you can click the “Compare Text” button to see exactly where your content crosses over, like this:
As you can see, Copyscape highlights the duplicate content, whilst also showing you what percentage of the overall text is affected at the top of the page.
How Much Does It Cost?
Copyscape does offer users a free version of its tool, but these checks are often very basic and will only detect the most obvious examples of plagiarism.
You can also sign up for a Copyscape Premium account, where you can pay per word as you go, giving you access to a much more in-depth plagiarism tool
Prices for this service are 3c per search for up to 200 words, plus 1c per extra 100 words.
Whilst Copyscape has had a pretty firm grip on the world of plagiarism detection for some time now, there are some very impressive alternatives to consider
For many, that might be Grammarly, but as you’ll see from the test below, the Originality.ai Plagiarism Checker is also an excellent alternative to the archaic layout of Copyscape.
But enough talking about what Copyscape can and can’t do. Let’s put it to the test against some of it’s modern competitors.
As with any tool test that we undertake, we ensure that our testing is rigorous, detailed, and fair.
Our recent study evaluated the effectiveness of popular plagiarism detection tools — Copyscape and Grammarly — with Originality.ai, our unique offering.
We explored their key features, results, user experience, pricing, and performance in plagiarism detection.
To ensure a fair comparison, we selected a standardized set of texts with varying degrees of originality, paraphrasing, and plagiarism.
PAN Plagiarism Corpus 2011 (PAN-PC-11)
Source: https://zenodo.org/records/3250095
Identifying Machine-Paraphrased Plagiarism
Source: https://zenodo.org/records/3608000
PAN14 Originality - Text Alignment
Source: https://zenodo.org/records/3716022
We tested each tool using the same evaluation criteria stated below:
We compared these tools at the threshold of 3%, 5%, and 15%.
Threshold: The predetermined percentage of content similarity at which a text will be flagged as plagiarised.
For example, a 15% threshold indicates that if a document has more than 15% matching content from other sources, it will be considered as potentially plagiarised.
At the 15% threshold, Originality performs robustly in Global detection with 86%.
Then, Originality takes the lead in PatchWork detection (43.5%) compared to Copyscape, showcasing its capability in catching mixed plagiarism techniques.
In Paraphrase detection, a notoriously difficult area, Originality’s 27.62% at the 15% threshold is a clear advantage over many tools.
Here is a detailed comparison of the Originality.ai Plagiarism Checker compared specifically to Copyscape.
It highlights comparative plagiarism detection performance across types of plagiarism, including global, paraphrase, and patchwork plagiarism.
As you can see, while Copyscape has long been the go-to tool for plagiarism, Originality.ai’s plagiarism checker has successfully taken plagiarism detection to the next level.
With advanced AI-driven algorithms, it excels at detecting paraphrased and patchwork plagiarism, making it more effective for catching subtle forms of plagiarism that Copyscape may miss.
For scanning 1000-1500 words using API Endpoints:
While Copyscape is reliable, Originality.ai stands out with advanced detection capabilities, especially for complex plagiarism like paraphrasing.
Check out the Originality.ai Plagiarism Checker today!
Copyscape conducts a scan of the web to identify any instances of duplicate copy, comparing your input with what’s already online.
Copyscape does have a free version of its tool, but it comes with quite a few limitations. The premium version of their platform offers more robust features.
Copyscape Premium lets you check content in an array of formats, including the most popular options, such as HTML, DOC, PDF, and DOCX.
