Do you want to know how to protect your content from being copied? That’s possible by disabling the right-click from your blog and other easy methods I will describe below in this post.
I don’t know whether you are aware, but yesterday, I noticed the content of one of my posts was duplicated on another site.
I spoke about it in a community I am a part of, and I found that I was not the only one to have faced this issue.
So this morning, when I woke up, I quickly searched for how to protect my website content from being copied and safeguard my site from plagiarism.
I don’t want this to happen to you. If we work so hard to write a high-quality article with research, it’s not polite for someone to just copy our content for their usage.
In this article, I will explain to you how to protect your content from being copied and how to react correctly to plagiarism.
So, guys, let’s see how together!
See also: Why your Blog is not getting any views.
Why Should You Care About Content Theft?
Fraudsters don’t steal intellectual goods for pleasure. Their purpose is to acquire advantages that someone else’s content can provide them.
These might be site traffic, places in Google results, and much more. But here’s the problem: if they earn a profit, the creator of the knowledge loses it.
What Happens If Someone Steals Your Website Content?
1. Traffic reduction. If your content has been stolen and the search bot has mistakenly identified the source, there is a danger of losing place in the search results. This implies that the original content will get less traffic.
2. Loss of reputation. If a person discovers identical information in two sources at the same time, he will lose faith in both sites. People are not interested in finding out whose original stuff it is and who has taken it.
They will cease accessing the site and may even offer a bad opinion in the comments. For a business endeavor, this represents the loss of a prospective or regular client.
3. Risk of incurring penalties (most typically, it is a drop in search results positions or removal from results). A few years ago, Google examined a case when one site replicated a post from another, and the algorithm detected the plagiarism as the original source.
This circumstance is labeled “theoretically possible”. This also occurs in reality, particularly if they take content from fledgling projects (their indexing frequency is not high, and during this period, the stolen information might be indexed on the plagiarist’s website). Also, the resource might be fined for a decline in the originality of the content.
Does Google Rank Sites Containing Duplicated Content Higher?
Yes, you heard me right! Google sometimes (Sometimes) ranks sites containing duplicate content higher than the original site.
Google and the other search engines use quite intelligent algorithms that are capable of detecting exactly that we are the owners of what we publish, but they can decide that the duplicate content has more relevance than the original, therefore favoring it by showing it before ours in the results of the searches.
What determines this Google search ranking?
- • Authority and PageRank of the site posting the duplicate content.
- • Added value when uploading duplicated content.
- • Problems in the original source, such as mistakes in the coding, etc.
How To Protect Your Content From Being Copied
It is preferable to protect your website content in advance than to cope with the repercussions after the theft.
How do we protect information against plagiarism? Let’s take a look at some of the most efficient strategies to block the most plagiarists online.
Disable right click
The plagiarist picks text or lingers over an image, hits the right mouse button, and searches for “copy” or “save” in the context menu.
If you deactivate this option, it will be much more difficult to steal the content of your sites.
Do you use WordPress? There are plugins that you can use to disable the “right click”: for example, Envira Gallery Lite or the No Right Click Images Plugin for WordPress.
You may also use JavaScript to protect your website content from being copied.
Attention!: If you do not have the understanding to carry out this operation, call a professional!
All you need to do is insert the following code into the “body” element of the web page:
<body oncontextmenu=”return false;”>
Note to bear in mind:
1. Experienced plagiarists can evade the right-click limitations.
2. By blocking the presentation of the context menu, you restrict your users.
Therefore, examine how effective this strategy works for you.
Create content outside of text format.
In general, on a blog, we read text content, but we are ignorant that many of our visitors feel comfortable with infographics, for example.
If your infographics are complemented with a nice design, you will attract the reader or user to remain on your website to study a certain subject.
Create PDF files since it is another format that can help you avoid your content from being copied if done right. It will help you enhance your website traffic.
Duplicate content detection tools
You can use a detection program that finds duplicate information on the web. Copyscape, Kill Duplicate, and Grammarly are suitable examples.
All you have to do is put your content in the tool, which will then search the web to see whether your work has been copied or partly or entirely reproduced.
If you have delegated the authoring of part of your content to editors, you may, therefore, check that their work is not the product of an act of plagiarism.
You also have to continually monitor the web to swiftly find duplicates of your content. In the case of detection, you can then protect your content by filing an online complaint, etc.
Google Alerts
You can enable Google Alerts, which can help to recognize content identical to yours on the web.
Effective in detecting sites that steal or practice plagiarism, it enables you to get an email warning that alerts you that some of your words or phrases have been stolen by others.
Submit your page to the search engine before you are exposed to plagiarists.
After putting your content on the blog, it takes a while to be indexed organically.
It may take a long time for Google to incorporate it into their collection for it to show up in search results.
But you can be sure that plagiarists won’t wait till your content is indexed to take it.
So, before that time arrives, speed up the indexing of your new page through the Search Console.
The indexing procedure will not take more than 24 hours.
Carrying out this step is vital because when Google discovers that the information is copied, it will know by the publishing date, which is the copy.
The Creative Commons license
The Creative Commons license enables authors of unique content to secure their site and encourage its spread via right transfer clauses:
- • The authorship of the content may or may not be needed (display of your name) when your work is utilized;
- • You may allow or deny that your utilized content be changed;
- • You may allow or deny that your content be used for commercial reasons.
The canonical tag
The canonical tag is the one that helps Google to distinguish original online content and copies. Without it, you risk losing visibility, even if your article was first.
All you have to do is place this HTML element in the header (or head ) of the sites you wish to protect to convince Google that your page is the original.
How To Protect Your Photographs And Videos From Being Copied
Adding a sign that identifies the images with your project will help protect your photos. You can also protect your videos from theft in the same way.
If you wish the copyright of the photos to be protected by law, add the statement “© (year of publication) <First and last name of the author or title>” to the Watermark.
This is an excellent protection method: it is incredibly hard to erase. Thus, most plagiarists soon lose interest in such photographs. Also, watermarks act as branding components (if you place a logo or business name on them).
A watermark is a text or image on a transparent backdrop that overlays photos and photographs. You may do it online at Watermark.Ws or PicMonkey.
Protection of videos from theft is also achievable using watermarks. To add a channel logo, utilize YouTube’s dedicated tool. The provided picture will be instantly posted to all videos on the channel.
How do you create a watermark?
You can do it personally using Adobe Photoshop or engage the services of an illustrator. There is also a simpler way: utilize an online generator, for example, Logaster or Logomakr.
After you have made a logo, you may save it on a transparent backdrop and then use it to add to pictures and images.
Use copyright notice to protect your photography and videos from being copied.
This option is not an active anti-plagiarism mechanism. However, remember the responsibility for the theft of copyrighted content. It is a notice to users: the content is protected, and it is prohibited to reproduce it.
Correct format: copyright mark, year, last name, and name of the author or company name.
To include a copyright notice on a site with automatic date change, add the following code to the footer:
© <?php echo date(‘Y’); ?> nombre o razón social
The following will be displayed: © 2023 name or business name.
Add the DMCA logo to the website so your content doesn’t get copied.
The DMCA gives website protection, whether purchased or free. Under this statute, the plagiarist may be brought to court in the United States.
By selecting payment protection, legal steps may be automatic: the organization indexes all additional projects and can identify information theft. In this method, the DMCA logo will alert plagiarists.
How to add the DMCA mark to your website.
To add the DMCA mark to your website, you need to:
- • Register.
- • Sign in to the DMCA Protection Portal.
- • Click > My Protected Pages > Add new pages to My Protection Plan
- • Choose the icon you prefer.
- • Copy the code and put it at the bottom of the webpage.
- • All pages having the mark will be immediately indexed and added to the list of protected pages.
How To Check If Your Website Content Has Been Copied?
There are still some people who will copy our content despite any action we may have taken to protect this content. Therefore, we have to know how to check if our website content is plagiarism.
There are numerous techniques to check if your website content from text, photographs, and images has been copied:
• Copyscape is an originality-checking service. It is helpful for checking texts. It reveals who has copied and what content they have copied. You can examine specific posts or the full site.
• Pingback. In many CMS, this functionality is implemented automatically. The system tells you if another resource has duplicated your work and added an active link to the source. The difficulty is that plagiarists do not do this – this procedure can be utilized only for the legal copy.
• TinEye and Google Image assist trace who has stolen your pictures, images, or infographics. Important: Services specify only indexed images.
You Have Noticed The Theft Of Your Content: What Should You Do?
I believe I have explained how to protect images from theft, how to protect your videos from being downloaded, and how to protect your content from being copied.
But if these safeguards did not work for you and your publications were copied, you must act.
I will have to tell you in advance that the struggle will be rough. What can you do?
Send a complaint email to the plagiarist.
Content is not always taken by wicked individuals. Someone may not know the subtleties of copying content on the Internet or simply neglect to include an active link to the source.
In such circumstances, a simple email will be enough to solve the issue.
You may write in any way: for example, say hello and offer a link to the original and a copy. Request to delete it or offer a link to the original post.
Remind him that your information is protected by law. At the conclusion, you might mention that, in case of not complying with your request, you will have to go to court.
Send your claim to the owner or administrator. Use the contact information indicated on the website.
Can’t find the contact details? Use the Whoishosting tool to discover the hosting provider of the plagiarist’s website and send an email to this firm. The hosting supplier might supply the plagiarist contact data or claim on their own.
Ask Google to delete stolen content from SERP.
Google does not have the capacity to eradicate plagiarism, but it can delete a page or site from search results or drastically degrade its ranks.
To make a complaint, visit the DMCA dashboard page and select “Create a Report.” It is a step-by-step procedure; the system gives explanations at all stages, so there will be no issues.
Google examines complaints for up to 14 days. Notify the owner of the reported resource to delete the stolen content. If no action is taken, the site will be removed from search results. The complaint will get an email announcing the findings.
Complain to authorities on social networks.
If your content has been stolen on a social network, make a request and ask for the plagiarism to be deleted.
In most circumstances, this can be done by submitting a complaint afterward. If the administration does not react, your appeals will be relevant for future court procedures.
Go to court
It is an extreme measure: it is important if the preceding steps did not lead to a result. Litigation is costly and time-consuming. But if you have incontrovertible proof of an infringement, the court ruling will compensate all fees.
Remember: you should sue the infringers who are causing genuine harm to your business. Evidence is vital. You need to gather them and mull about all the complexities of the upcoming procedure. Hire a skilled lawyer to win.
Conclusion
Have you ever wondered why they steal your content? The fact is that I personally don’t see a logical need to spend time copying other people’s work, but from what I’ve seen. I believe your content is so amazing that it gets a lot of attention.
We all know that content marketing is the key to developing a presence on the Internet and high sales without the need to make advertising. Content stealers know this, and they want to utilize yours to get traffic and money.
The best way to filter sites to advertise is by knowing their traffic, and if it’s good, that site will almost certainly be a natural source of advertising. And that is exactly one of the reasons why they will steal your content.
Having a website requires a lot of time on your part. If you are successful, build really great content, and have everything you need to generate qualified sales, you should know that you are always going to have a large number of users, malicious or not.
It is in your hands that you always show yourself alert to external agents that want to affect you.
