How does Copyscape and others work?

Tough post to classify. I think this is where it belongs.


When you guys copyscape an article do you do the whole thing in one post, by paragraphs or sentences?

I write this stuff but there are only so many ways to say the same thing. I want to make sure I don't "steal" something that pops into my mind because I read it a year ago and it stuck there.

 

I upload the whole text and check because it shows the user the words 'copied'.

Thanks

nut legend

 

I don't recall the meassge I got. I think it was text not found. So that is passed??

What passed? The entire article?

Btw. Thanks for your reply.

 

If it doesnt show any other sites it means it has passed.

nut legend

 

When someone post a duplicated content on another website, copyscpe detects it. This copyscpe is powerful in the sense that it can detact even a sentence in an article that is copied from another website.

 

I must give a warning on Copyscape I've had problems with the copyscape software, some of my clients have told me that they have a "copied" warning but when they send it to me, I review it and realize that there is no copied information, it is the linking that they used when SEO their articles that caused copyscape to detect the links.

so it works, but it is not fool proof. So I would suggest always keep your articles at least 6 months before tossing them to the trash...lol and having an open and friendly communication channel with your client(s) so that if anything like that happens and YOU did not copy, you can review it and see if it is, like in my case, a glitch...

 

i think it scans for like key words, and puts it all together like a puzzle, but the technical side , wow im not sure about that

 

I have found on occasions thought that copyscape passes things, yet a google search of part of the text finds the document elsewhere when copyscape doesn't :S

 

There's never a 100%!

 

Copyscape works great, it does it job very well.

 

Many people are writing about copied content and using `Copyscape', but what constitutes a unique content? How much of it should be original in order to be accepted. Some say 65%, some say 80% yet others say 100%. If I were to do a technical article (say, mobile phone reviews), there is no way I could avoid `Copyscape' since I'd have to rewrite the technical stuff `in toto' like "talk time up to 5 hours"; "256 x 256 pixel TFT display" etc. Your feedbacks appreciated.

 

I use copyscape become people have come to think its the best solution out there for making sure its not copied content. I always double check my content with applications like DupeFree Pro. There is a feature on there that takes 5 random sentences out of your article and does a google, msn, yahoo, and other search engines search on it. It also links to the search.

Im not trying to promote it or anything, but I think its wayyyyyyyyyy better than copyscape. With copyscape it doesnt say anything at all... with most applications they link to the actual google search or the actual yahoo search to prove that there isnt content like that on the internet already.

 

Copyscape detects similarities in words, order of words, order of sentences and order of paragraphs.

This means that copyscape can be fooled. Some people have tested it and found that indeed it can be fooled. I've read somewhere that if you change every third word of a sentence (change the word into its synonym), the article will have no Copyscape hits whatsoever.

There are software available out there that do this kind of job. They are called article spinners. They spin the article to create a new version of it. Many article marketers use a spinner. It helps them produce hundreds of articles based on a single 'seed' article. Mind you, these 'spun' articles won't have the quality that you are looking for. It doesn't think which is the best synonym to use.

Ex:

Original: I am glad you are fine.
Spun 1: I am jovial you are threadlike.
Spun 2: I am happy you are elegant.

So, the question now is, "Is Copyscape useful?" Yes. "Can it test originality?" Yes. "Can it test if the article makes sense?" No. This is the job for humans, not a computer program.

 

You can try PlagiarismDetect.com to check for details in books, blogs and even PDF files. However, I do believe that there is no perfect 100% original article on the web.

 

They're also called "article re-writers." I haven't found one yet that is worth a grain of rice.

 

It detect the content by sentence. You can just replaced some word with its synonym or just make another word with the same meaning.

You can also restructure the paragraph to get the maximum result.

 

Further to what Parsibagan has posted, it would be interesting and informative to know what constitutes uniqueness in an article. The example of mobile usage that he has quoted is very relevant and when you write about technical aspects, it is difficult to find correct replacements suiting the context.

Would like to know from other knowledgeable members as to what they feel about this and how to bypass this constraint.

 

@Mahadevan: I resolved my problems by discussing with my client. I pointed out to him that most review sites use the same specifications as far as technical details are concerned. Regarding unique content, I guess articles containing 80%+ original content are accepted as valid.

 

You haven't looked hard enough!

 

after running your page URL in copyscape, it automatically produces a result whether you have duplicate contents or not. If you're still unconvinced, you can directly copy and paste each of the sentence in google search. There, you will know and avoid plagiarism.