Let’s face it: most of the content on Google’s first page is not the best that could be published on a particular topic.
Neither is it the most informative or original, for that matter. It just contains the highest-ranking keywords that the search engine associates with the search term in the title.
Worse still, that “top-rated” content is rewritten repeatedly by wordsmiths from around the globe.
Stolen Content Clogs Search Engines
Rewritings on a given topic often fill up Google’s first and second pages, as the exact keywords have been replicated.
The vicious circle described above results in the first pages of every search engine out there being “clogged” with hardly informative, let alone exciting, rewritings.
If you’ve hired writing professionals and field experts to produce highly-informative and 100% original content for your blog, the last thing you want is to see it on a competitor’s site.
5Efficient Ways to Protect Your Content from Plagiarism
Here is what you can do to protect your site’s content from scavenging wordsmiths that won’t hesitate to sell it to the competition for a fraction of the price you’ve paid.
1. Introduce access control
If you’ve paid a substantial amount to populate your site with highly-informative articles, you must lock your content on WordPress so that only premium subscribers can access it.You can achieve this goal with Content Locker – WordPress’s top-rated content-gating plugin.
Content Locker not only designates membership areas but can also prompt users to share your content on social media or opt-in for a newsletter to get full access.
2. Disable the “copy” function
The simplest way to do this is to download and install the WP Content Copy Protection & No Right Click plugin.
Despite its lengthy name, the plugin can selectively disable the copy function on web pages, such as blogs, home page snippets, tables, and pie charts.
3. Set up membership levels
If you’ve already designated membership areas on your WordPress site with Content Locker, you can put an extra layer of protection on your content by setting up membership levels.
With Paid Membership Pro, you can set up Standard, Premium, and Elite membership categories. Only elite members will receive exclusive and unlimited access to your most valuable content.
4. Partial content lock
This function is particularly useful to scriptwriters and playwrights, who’d like to let their website’s visitors sneak a peek at their latest teasers without showing them the whole work. They can do this with a plugin called Social-Locker.
5. Use anti-plagiarism tools
Before uploading anything on your site, run it throughanti-plagiarism tools like Copyscape, Plagtracker, and TinEye. While checking an article with Grammarly Premium, you can also verify its authenticity.
After some time, you should rerun these tools on your most popular articles, lest someone might have stolen them.
What to do if your content has been stolen
Even if you take every step described above to protect your content, you may still notice that part of it has been used by unauthorized third parties.
Fortunately, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) gives you the right to enforce its removal from a particular site. Here is what you should do
- Contact the infringing website’s owner and ask them to remove the plagiarized content
- Identify the website’s host and send them a DMCA warning
- File a DMCA complaint with Google and ask them to stop indexing the content
Final Thoughts
Anti-plagiarism tools and access control plugins alone can’t entirely eradicate online plagiarism. However, you should follow the above tips and steps to minimize the chance of content theft from your website.