Thinking about copying text from other websites?

No one really actually sits and reads the website text content do they?

Just the thought of sitting down and writing up text content for your new website can be enough to give you a severe headache! And anyhow, does anyone really read that stuff?

Unless words flow effortlessly from your fingertips onto the screen in front of you, writing content for your website can be a thankless, time consuming task. Of course, you know all about the business you’re in. It’s all up there in your head. But to summarize it into something that’s succinct and easy to read for someone else can be really difficult.

Naturally, the temptation to copy chunks of text from pages of other websites will sorely tempt you. Why bother being creative when someone already has? The website you want to copy from is in Australia and you’re in Canada, so it’s not like you’re trying to steal business from them is it? No one will ever know will they? No harm done, eh?

The truth is it has the potential to damage both your website and the website of the person you’ve copied from. When Google visits your website and looks at your text content in detail, it has the means to identify whether any of your content is the same as that on any other website, be it in Canada or Australia. No, I’m not kidding you. It’s frightening ‘big brother’ stuff and very true! And one more thing to add – Google hates duplicate content. This is where the harm bit comes in….

A website that shares duplicate text content with another website can be ‘scored down’ by Google. This means that their ranking position in Google’s search results can drop. This can ultimately mean that less people will visit the website, and of course that can affect business. The bigger the breach in copied text, the more devastating tumble can happen in Google’s rankings.

Google can even score a website down for having duplicate content on its own pages. So, if those two paragraphs of text on your Home Page are the same two paragraphs on your About Us page, well you could be looking for trouble! Seriously – take it from someone who’s been in the industry for 20 years and has paid the price!

So the message is loud and clear – do not copy text from other websites. Even if you are really tempted to. Try your best to come up with unique text content for your web pages. It’s OK to take inspiration from other people’s text content, just make sure that you write it in your own words.

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