Content is the very heart and soul of your digital presence. No matter what you have to say or sell, content is the vehicle that makes the magic happen. Online, content reigns front and center: on websites, social media, videos and much more.
But with so much information at our fingertips, the issue of duplicate content has also become a major problem. In this article, we’ll take a closer look at duplicate content checkers, how they work, how to avoid duplicate content and much more. Let’s jump right in!
Duplicate content is simply content that appears in more than one place online. This can create problems for search engine optimization, as search engines like Google use robots to “crawl” websites, and websites with lots of duplicate content tend to slow down the crawling process. As a result, that duplicate content may cause the website to not even be ranked at all.
This can be particularly problematic if you’re a content publisher who has just published some great content and someone comes along and copies and pastes your content onto their site (with Google having indexed neither of them), your site may very well be penalized for being the “duplicate” even if it was originally your content to begin with.
Just like with ranking a website, there’s no “one size fits all” approach to determine what happens if Google or other search engines find duplicate content on your site. However, some or all of the following can happen as a result:
So you can see how important it is to be able to find duplicate content out there on the web. Thankfully, duplicate content checkers can do just that. As the name implies, duplicate content checkers scan for the content you copy and paste (or upload) and look for matches across billions and billions of web pages. When they find a direct match (or even a strong similarity), they’ll let you know, along with a link to the offending site and the percentage of similarity between your content and theirs.
Duplicate content checkers are a powerful weapon in your content creation arsenal. With the right duplicate content checker, you’ll enjoy several notable benefits, such as:
The best duplicate content checker not only scans quickly and efficiently, but compares content thoroughly and identifies similarities with great precision. As a website owner and content publisher, you can then address these issues proactively rather than reactively.
When you address duplicate content in Google and other search engines, you help improve the potential growth of your site’s ranking, backlink profile, social media shares, and other performance signals. This, in turn, can drive more organic traffic to your website.
Duplicate content checkers can show you where other website owners, publishers or writers have copied your work without your consent. This lets you take advantage of intellectual property laws and optionally initiate a DMCA takedown. DMCA stands for the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and deals with how U.S. copyright is handled on the internet.
When users read impactful, informational or helpful content on your website, their user experience with your site is ultimately a positive one, which in turn reflects well in key search engine signals like the time they spend on your site. This is shown under indicators like “Bounce Rate” if you’re using Google Analytics or another website analytics system to check your web traffic.
Now that you better understand the importance of checking for duplicate content and the benefits it can bring to your business and your website, what do you look for when considering all of the different duplicate content checkers out there? It’s no surprise that given the sheer volume of content on the web, duplicate content checkers are everywhere, but some are more suited for the task than others.
For this reason, we recommend choosing a duplicate content checker with the following features:
If a duplicate content checker isn’t accurate or reliable then it simply isn’t doing its job well. You’ll want to choose one that has a high level of accuracy in detecting duplicate content across a range of web pages, documents and much more. Look for case studies that showcase the tool’s accuracy when faced with different kinds of challenges to ensure it’s up to the task.
There are billions upon billions of web pages, media files and databases out there. How quickly and thoroughly can a duplicate content checker scan them all? In addition, how customizable are the parameters? Can you choose to scan only web pages or also check databases? A good duplicate content checker will be able to do all of this while giving the user complete control over the scanning process and the end results.
Even the most powerful duplicate content checker is worthless if the interface is clunky and difficult to use. You’ll want to look for a duplicate content checker that’s easy to navigate, with results that are simple to understand and act upon. Even if the found text isn’t a direct copy and paste, but there are still enough similarities, users should be able to understand that from a glance.
Many duplicate content checkers are great at what they do, when that’s all they do. But what if you need something more, such as the ability to check for plagiarism, or to check the readability of your content, or to see if any of your content has been written by AI? Look for tools that can help you go beyond just looking for direct text matches and help you continue to create high quality content that ranks well and is engaging and interesting to readers, without plagiarizing, relying entirely on AI or being readable only to Ph.D.’s (unless, of course, that’s your target audience!)
The best duplicate content checkers are also extremely affordable. Checking for duplicate content shouldn’t break the bank, so look for one that fits easily within your budget while still providing a seamless and accurate service.
Last but certainly not least, look for a duplicate content checker that has a lot of great reviews. When users are suitably impressed with something, they won’t hesitate to tell others, and will often leave ratings and reviews. Let these reviews and ratings serve as a guide to help you understand the good points (and maybe the not so good points) of the tool so that you’ll know what to watch for.
As part of our suite of content tools, Originality.AI offers a thorough, accurate duplicate content checker. Easily check for duplicate content using a precise, finely-tuned scan that can locate direct copy and paste content (or highly similar content) and show you the results quickly and easily.
You can also use Originality.AI to scan for many different types of plagiarism, as well as AI-written content to ensure that the content you write or receive from your writers is not only content of the highest possible quality, but is also content that is authentically human-written and properly cites or links to other references.
Plus, with prices starting at 1 cent per 100 words, you can take advantage of a deep plagiarism or AI writing detection scan in a way that’s affordable on any budget. You can also use Originality.AI to compare two texts for free or check the readability of your content according to multiple popular readability scales. Try it now for yourself, we’re sure you’ll be impressed with the results!