Should You Use a Plagiarism Checker?

Make no mistake: plagiarism is bad. But if you thought it was bad when you got in trouble for copying your friend's history paper in 11th grade, just imagine how much worse the consequences will be if you plagiarize content for your website. Google has consistently amped up its efforts to deter plagiarism by actively punishing sites that do it; ensuring that the content on your site is unique is one (very important) way to keep your site from taking a hit. The best way to do this is to simply write your own content. Another thing you can do is use a plagiarism checker, such as this one from Small SEO Tools. Simply paste your content into the tool and run a check. The tool searches the internet to determine whether someone else has already used the same phrases. It will highlight in red the phrases that are not unique, and tell you what percentage of your content is unique. Rewrite the phrases in red to increase your percentage of unique content. I had a client who requested that I use this tool to check the content I wrote before it went live. These tools are easy to use, but are they worthwhile? There are some common phrases that will appear often in marketing copy, particularly for industrial B2B companies. For example, you might write "contact us to request a quote," or "we offer custom solutions designed to meet your unique needs." Is it really worth it to reword phrases like this just to increase your "unique content" percentage? [caption id="attachment_3091" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Results from a plagiarism check. Is it worth while to rework the phrases in red?[/caption] I say no. If the rest of your content is solid and well-written, there's really no reason to gnash your teeth over a call to action. It's my view that it's better to leave those sentences be. After all, if you sweat over every word, you might end up with something like this: