If you're the person responsible for your website's content, you know how hard it can be to get everything right.
You need to have the raw materials, the facts and figures around which you're creating your copy. You have to think about the tone of what you're writing and how it fits in with the rest of the site. You need to construct your argument carefully, deciding the audience you're writing for. You also have to make sure everything is completely consistent, style-wise. Do you say "you are" or "you're"? Do you have them both? "It is" or "it's"? Stuff that may seem over-analysed and not worth the trouble, but absolutely necessary.
That's why it's so maddening when you get ripped off. When someone trawls through your site, sees something they like, and then just steals it for their own site, maybe changing the odd word here or there. And what can you do? The Internet is global, so anyone, anywhere, could right now be looking at your site and thinking "I'll have a piece of that". What's to stop them changing a few things around and then passing it off as something they wrote themselves?
I'll introduce you to a site I use from time to time. It's called "Copyscape" and means I don't worry about people pinching stuff from my website anymore.
The site allows you to input your website's URL. Press "Go" and their search function will do a trawl of the Internet to see if your text has been stolen. It's completely free and will let you know where and by whom your stuff's been stolen. If you have a large site, their "Premium" service allows you to check up to 10,000 pages in a single click, for 5 cents per search. 10,000 flipping pages! What kind of psychopath has a site with 10,000 pages?!
Anyway. Me? I'm cheap, so I just use the freebie part of it. But why not have a look for yourself? I have no links with the makers of the site whatsoever, I just think it's a handy service. Check it out here:
http://copyscape.com/
Good hunting.
You need to have the raw materials, the facts and figures around which you're creating your copy. You have to think about the tone of what you're writing and how it fits in with the rest of the site. You need to construct your argument carefully, deciding the audience you're writing for. You also have to make sure everything is completely consistent, style-wise. Do you say "you are" or "you're"? Do you have them both? "It is" or "it's"? Stuff that may seem over-analysed and not worth the trouble, but absolutely necessary.
That's why it's so maddening when you get ripped off. When someone trawls through your site, sees something they like, and then just steals it for their own site, maybe changing the odd word here or there. And what can you do? The Internet is global, so anyone, anywhere, could right now be looking at your site and thinking "I'll have a piece of that". What's to stop them changing a few things around and then passing it off as something they wrote themselves?
I'll introduce you to a site I use from time to time. It's called "Copyscape" and means I don't worry about people pinching stuff from my website anymore.
The site allows you to input your website's URL. Press "Go" and their search function will do a trawl of the Internet to see if your text has been stolen. It's completely free and will let you know where and by whom your stuff's been stolen. If you have a large site, their "Premium" service allows you to check up to 10,000 pages in a single click, for 5 cents per search. 10,000 flipping pages! What kind of psychopath has a site with 10,000 pages?!
Anyway. Me? I'm cheap, so I just use the freebie part of it. But why not have a look for yourself? I have no links with the makers of the site whatsoever, I just think it's a handy service. Check it out here:
http://copyscape.com/
Good hunting.