Can you Copy Content from Another Website?

Copied content is also known as plagiarism. It is very frowned upon in many parts of the world as it offers no unique perspective to a reader, who has probably read the same content before. However, it is still a common practice in many parts of the world and internet.

Plagiarism isn’t just described as the re-use of an entire paragraph/article on a page. In some cases, plagiarism can just be the copying of a single line. In some cases this can be challenging. For instance, some statistics need to be worded in a certain way in order to maintain their accuracy or message.

And you can’t change the quotes of people from news articles. Therefore, it’s acceptable to copy content in certain scenarios.

It is not acceptable to copy content when you’re copying entire paragraphs. For instance, you copy a blog post or a whole product description. Online plagiarism checkers often look for texts that have more than 15% of the content similar to other content on another site.

And you don’t need to have plagiarism just from one website. You can copy from multiple sites and mix them together and this would still seem like plagiarism.

Google and other search engines take a dim view on plagiarism. They call it duplicate content and based on the page publication (to determine original content), plagiarism can cause your website to be ranked lower online. This will lead to less traffic and fewer sales on your website.

In addition, if you plagiarize a popular article, this can look very unprofessional. You might see your conversion rate drop significantly or your reputation be ruined. Therefore, plagiarism should be discouraged at all times. All product descriptions, website content, blog articles, etc. should be written afresh. You can quote other articles and people, but be sure that they’re given credit.