Copying Copy

The point of a blog is to update it frequently, with interesting content that invites readers to stick around, leave a comment, and return to read more.

I don’t have that much to say.  If I had, I’d write a book.  The truth is, my noteworthy insights are rare.

Most of what you find here is what the legacy media would call evergreens, articles that you can hold in a drawer (or on a thumb drive) and run any time.  Many professionals already know what I tell you about the basics of SEO, for example.  It’s true--it’s just not really news.

Then why do people from all around the world read this blog? They can easily find information about SEO or public speaking on better-known, easier-to-find websites. 

Could it be the very obscurity that draws them here?  Search engines look constantly for fresh content, as we’ve said.  So everybody wants new words on their websites.

At the same time, search engines penalize duplicate content.  If they find the same text on multiple websites, the search engines figure that somebody’s trying to game the system.

So what’s a site owner to do?

a)      Write fresh material every day.  It doesn’t have to be newsworthy.  It just has to be new

b)      Find fresh material, um, somewhere else and copy paste it

c)      Find fresh material, um, somewhere else, and mash it through article rewriting software to change the nouns and the verbs

d)      Offshore the process

A relatively obscure blog like this one is a good place to find words to copy, because other people are unlikely to find it and copy it.  

I'm not really worried about duplicate content yet.  I am worried about looking ridiculous.  Spammers have run my press releases through rewriting software before.  The results would have been hilarious--if my name hadn’t been on them. 

If this blog is your, “um, somewhere else,” and you’re here to borrow copy, I can’t really stop you.  All I ask is that you

e)      Take only the evergreens.  They have better search terms anyway.

f)        Make substantial changes, like more than 40%

g)      Please, leave my name off your final product.

If you’re here to read, hi there and welcome!  Please leave a message and tell me what else you’d like to read about.