We Just Found Out One Of Our Writers Has Been Plagiarizing - Now What?
-
I just found out one of the writers we employ has been simply copying and pasting content from other websites into our clients' websites. She's been doing this for about six weeks.
We are going to speak with our clients to apologize and let them know that the problem is being rectified, but my question is how to best address this issue from an SEO standpoint? I know that the content needs to be rewritten, but those links are now six weeks old - is it best to remove them altogether and start from scratch, or just rewrite the content under the old link?
Are there any steps that I'm missing to solve this?
-
Thanks for the input, I appreciate it!
-
There is no reason I know of to delete the pages. Just rewrite the content and make sure you have a valid sitemap. Things should be just fine.
-
Agreed - looks like you caught it fairly soon - so as long as you act fast you should be fine.
-
Hi Rachel,
My advice is to take a look at your analytics to see if the articles are generating traffic or links to the site. If they are, I would keep the same URL and just rewrite them. If the articles are not contributing traffic or links to the site, there's no harm in just removing them, then rewriting the articles and putting them on another URL.
Hope that helps!
-Trung
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Web page or blog ? Which one is preferable
Hello, For one of our sites, 19 keywords are ranking on Home page. But, the home page doesn't have content with those keywords. I am afraid that with Google updates, we will eventually lose all the ranking position for these keywords. Should we ask the client to create blog around those keywords or create separate pages ? Thanks
Content Development | | Johnroger0 -
How does offline-to-online plagiarism work?
I'm in a situation where content is getting muddled up with my client. Explanation **Website A (client) **releases a press release offline; **Website B (third party news website) **uploads this release to their blog; Website A then uploads this release to their blog. Q1: Who will Google see as the original creator of this content? Q2: If **Website A **and Website B upload the content at the same time, who will Google see as the original creator? Any advice on these questions would be highly appreciated.
Content Development | | SocialB0 -
Plagiarism - Tools Do Not Tell Source of Dulpication
Hi There, To check if content on my site is plagiarized or not, i copy it from my site and then paste the text in tools available online. They highlight the green text as UNIQUE and in red as PLAGIARIZED. When I click the plagiarized content to see which OTHER SITE is using the same content as that of mine, it leads me to the pages of my own site. I am confused on this. Where is the other site. Can somebody help how to find the other sites online that have similar content as that of mine. Or there is some fault in my understanding?? Thanks
Content Development | | Sequelmed1 -
What is the easiest and most scalable way to add links from one page to a related page entry?
We have a Spanish language reference site, and want to link related entries to each other. For example, the entry for "home" can link to the page with the entry for "home away from home." What is the best and most efficient way to do this at scale?
Content Development | | CuriosityMedia0 -
Should i 301 redirect my blog to the respective site or just 404 all the blog pages?
Hi guys, We plan to close down our blog, which is a subdomain to our anchor site. I need advice on how to keep the link juice and its SEO value. Is it better to 301 redirect the blog to the homepage of our site, or just 404 all the pages of the blog? Thanks
Content Development | | dimicos0 -
Is it possible to have news from two sites going into one wordpress site
Hi, i would like to know if it is possible to write original content on news on one site and then have it appear on two other sites as an introduction. I am using wordpress so i am very knew to it as i normally use joomla. I am looking for a rss feed that will show the image and allow the intro articles to appear in a category of its own, for example, other news any help would be great
Content Development | | ClaireH-1848860 -
Any freelance writers with viral content / linkbait experience?
Looking for a great freelance writer to assist in creating linkbait and viral content pieces. Please contact me if you are, or know of, such a person. 🙂
Content Development | | AdamThompson0 -
Would you allow guest writers to have google adsense on your site
Hi, i am thinking of building a website where 30% of the writers would be guest bloggers and i was thinking about letting guest bloggers have adsense on the site. What i was thinking of doing was, allowing the guest blogger to have one google adsense advert on the page of the article but not sure what people think. The new magazine would be on one topic but i am worried incase the person kept on pressing the google adsense advert to get money in. The google adsense code would be there code, does anyone know if there is a way from hiding their code so they do not know which one is their google adsense advert, and do people think this is a good idea. This would only be offered to people who write good quality interest content. will be interested to hear your thoughts
Content Development | | ClaireH-1848860