SEO: Search Engine Optimization Bible

Of these types of duplicate content, two are especially harmful to your site: site mirroring and con-

tent scraping. If you’re using site mirroring, you should consider using a different backup method

for your web site. If you’re using content scraping you could be facing legal action for copyright

infringement. Content scraping is a practice that’s best avoided completely.

Stopping Copyright Infringement

C

opyright infringement can happen to you, too. If you include original content on your site, it’s very

likely that someone will come along and copy that content without your permission for use on

their site.

It’s important that you spend a little time each week checking for copyright infringement on your

original articles. One way to do this is to pull a unique phrase from your article or other content and

search for it on the Internet. If others are using your copy, it’s likely that your unique phrase will pop

up in the search results.

The problem with manually searching for unauthorized copies of your web-site content is that it’s

very time consuming, especially if you have hundreds of pages of content. But there’s good news.

Some services and software applications can help you quickly find duplicate copies of your content.

One web-based service is provided by Copyscape (www.copyscape.com). You can use its free serv-

ice to search the Web for content found at a specific URL. The results are usually accompanied by

links to search other pages on your site.

Copyscape checks the Internet for copies of the content on your web pages.

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