How to Use Copyscape to Catch Content Thieves Red-Handed

Nothing kills your creative spirit faster than seeing your hard work copied verbatim somewhere else without credit. But how can you actually find and prove content theft?

Enter Copyscape – the powerful plagiarism checker trusted by over 500,000+ users to sniff out stolen content.

In this detailed guide, I’ll show you step-by-step how to use Copyscape and alternative plagiarism checkers to catch content scrappers red-handed.

We’ll cover:

• What Copyscape Is and How It Works
• Using Copyscape to Check for Stolen Content
• Advanced Search Techniques and Settings
• Interpreting Copyscape Results
• Creating Reusable Project Alerts
• Copyscape Pricing and Plans
• Top Copyscape Alternatives
• Pros and Cons of Using Copyscape
• FAQs About Copyscape

Let’s start exposing content thieves!

What is Copyscape and How Does it Work?

Copyscape is a cloud-based plagiarism checker created by Indiana-based company Indigo Stream Technologies.

It compares text against over 55 billion indexed web pages to uncover duplication and stealing.

Here’s an overview of how it works:

1. Indexes the Web

Copyscape crawls and indexes over 55 billion web pages along with fresh content added at over 2,000 pages per minute. This massive index powers its plagiarism detection capabilities.

2. Submit Content

Users submit text snippets or entire web pages to scan against Copyscape’s vast internet index for matching content.

3. Check for Duplication

Proprietary algorithms analyze the text, checking for duplicates and similar content published elsewhere online. Any unoriginal sections get flagged.

4. See Results

The scan results highlight any unoriginal text also found on other sites. Includes links to view the original source content.

5. Download Report

For full documentation, users can download a PDF report detailing each instance of copied content discovered.

That’s the basic gist of how Copyscape analyzes your content against the wider web to uncover duplication.

Next, let’s walk through using Copyscape to scan your work for the first time…

Using Copyscape to Check Content for Plagiarism

Ready to start scanning your work? Signing up and running an initial check only takes a minute.

1. Create a Copyscape Account

First, head to Copyscape.com and click Sign Up in the top right corner. Enter your email and choose a password.

You can sign in with Google or Facebook as well. No credit card needed for the free plan.

2. Check Text Content

From the Copyscape dashboard, paste or type the text you want to check into the text box. You can enter a few paragraphs or entire articles.

3. Click Search

Once your content is entered, click Search. This immediately scans it against Copyscape’s massive web index for any duplication.

4. View the Results

The results page highlights any text from your content found verbatim elsewhere online in red. Click the matches to view the sites duplicating your work.

5. Refine and Rescan

Based on the initial results, you may want to narrow the search by excluding certain domains or resubmit revised text with rewritten sections.

Running that first test is easy. Next, let’s look at some pro tips and advanced search capabilities…

Copyscape Pro Tips: Advanced Search Techniques

Copyscape offers advanced search settings and options that savvy users can leverage to fine tune results.

Check Multiple Text Snippets

Rather than only submitting a single block of content, Copyscape supports scanning multiple text excerpts in one search across different sites or posts. Very handy.

Filter Results by Domain

Exclude specific domains from the search using the “Omit Site” input box. Useful for disregarding your own site or syndicated content sources.

Identify Modified Text

Enable Copyscape’s Text Filters to also flag text that’s been modified but still similar. Helpful for catching lightly edited stolen content.

Search by URL

Alternatively, enter a URL instead of text content to scan the entire page. Checks public sites only for full duplication.

Download PDF Reports

Click the Save Results button to generate a PDF report documenting each instance of copied text discovered for your records.

These advanced settings allow power users to dig deeper and extract actionable insights during investigations.

Now that you know how to scan and tweak searches, let’s examine how to interpret the results…

How to Understand Copyscape Plagiarism Check Results

Reading the results is crucial. Here are some pointers for interpreting Copyscape results correctly:

Check Match Severity

Full verbatim matches shown in red are clear evidence of content theft. Partial similarity highlighted in orange is more ambiguous and warrants further review.

Review Full Context

Click matched text to see the full stolen content in context on the original site. This provides helpful clues about intentions.

Small Matches Usually Aren’t Theft

Short duplicated phrases likely just indicate commonly used strings or boilerplate text reused without intent to copy. Don’t overreact to minor text overlap.

Who Published First?

Check publish dates on both sources. Your earlier original post proves the duplication happened after you released your work.

Could it be Licensed Content?

If the match comes from an article syndicator or publisher you work with, it may be licensed republication rather than theft. Verify before accusing.

Analyzing results with nuance helps avoid mistaken accusations. Next we’ll look at proactive alerts to monitor for new plagiarism over time.

Setting Up Copyscape Alerts to Monitor for Plagiarism

Rather than only scanning content manually, Copyscape lets users set up alerts for specific projects to be automatically notified of new duplication online.

1. Create a New Project

From the projects page, click Add New Project, name it, and enter the content sources to monitor. This can be URLs or text.

2. Configure Alert Settings

Next, enable email and webhook alerts. Choose alert frequency – real time, daily, or weekly – and similarity threshold.

3. Save the Project

Save your new plagiarism monitoring project. Copyscape will now continually scan your content and alert you of new matches based on the parameters set.

4. Review Alerts

As alerts come in, review and confirm new plagiarism instances and take action as desired. The alerts serve as an early warning system.

Setting up alerts takes the manual effort out of ongoing checks. Now let’s examine Copyscape’s pricing and plans…

Copyscape Pricing Plans and Options

Copyscape offers a free plan along with two paid tiers with added capabilities for businesses.

Free Plan

• Scan 500 words at a time
• 2 searches per day
• Basic plagiarism checking
• View match text

Premium ($9.99/month)

Everything in Free plus:

• 10,000 words per search
• Unlimited searches
• Omit specific sites
• API access
• Save unlimited projects

Business ($39.99/month)

Everything in Premium plus:

• Scan unlimited text
• 50 projects with alerts
• PDF reports
• Advanced text filters
• Bulk plagiarism checking

For personal use or individual site owners, the free plan is very capable. Larger sites or publishers may benefit from the expanded search capacities in the paid plans.

Let’s look at the best Copyscape alternatives next…

Top Copyscape Alternatives and Competitors

While Copyscape leads the market, there are a few competitors offering similar plagiarism detection capabilities:

1. Grammarly

Grammarly is best known for its writing assistance capabilities. But the premium version also includes a capable plagiarism checker supporting text uploads and URL scanning.

2. Unicheck

Unicheck offers paid plans focused on education organizations. But they also have a free plan allowing basic plagiarism checks up to 10,000 characters.

3. Plagiarisma

Free plagiarism detection supporting text uploads and Google searches to compare against the web. No account needed and no limits, but lacks some advanced features.

4. PlagScan

PlagScan offers a paid API-based plagiarism detection service used by many software platforms. Prices start at €4.99 per month.

5. PlagTracker

Specializes in academic plagiarism checking. Students and teachers can scan papers against its database of existing works and web sources to detect copying.

Those provide a few solid alternatives to explore beyond Copyscape depending on your specific use cases.

Next let’s recap the key upsides and downsides of using Copyscape…

The Pros and Cons of Using Copyscape

Copyscape delivers the best overall combination of features, accuracy, and usability in the plagiarism checker market. But is it the right solution for your needs?

Pros of Copyscape

• Huge web index for highly accurate results
• Easy to use with good documentation
• Fast scans and real time alerts
• Downloads complete PDF reports
• Affordable pricing even at high usage
• Trusted by 500k+ publishers globally

Cons of Copyscape

• No integrations with publishing platforms
• Requires manual scans and uploads
• Advanced features require paid plans
• Website design looks outdated
• Mostly useless without subscribing
• Seen some accuracy issues with code

For personal use, the limitations of the free plan may be prohibitive. But overall Copyscape remains a recommended solution for finding copied content, especially for professional publishers managing multiple sites.

Finally, let’s answer some commonly asked questions about Copyscape…

Frequently Asked Questions About Copyscape

Here are answers to some of the most frequently asked questions around using Copyscape for plagiarism detection:

How accurate is Copyscape?

Thanks to an index of 55+ billion pages, Copyscape boasts above 95% accuracy in my experience. However, no plagiarism checker is 100% foolproof so always manually review results.

Can Copyscape check PDF files?

No, Copyscape only supports scanning text content or URLs at this time. To check PDFs, you would need to convert them to text first before copying into Copyscape.

Does Copyscape check against paid sites?

Mostly. The vast majority of the web index is public sites. But Copyscape claims to also index select gated content available to subscribers.

Can I check multiple posts simultaneously?

Yes. Copyscape supports multi-page and bulk scanning by entering multiple URLs line-by-line or uploading a text file containing all the content excerpts.

Does Copyscape index social media?

Copyscape does not currently scan text against social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or LinkedIn. It’s focused solely on public webpages.

Does Copyscape work for code?

Copyscape has limited programming language support. For checking source code, a code-specific tool like CodeCup or Simian may produce better results.

Can Copyscape scan non-English text?

Yes, Copyscape supports scanning text in all major languages. However, non-English results tend to be less accurate given the makeup of Copyscape’s web index.

Is Copyscape safe to use?

Absolutely. Copyscape does not retain or make public any text checked through its system. It only indexes publicly accessible web content. Your content remains totally secure.

What happens after detecting plagiarism?

Copyscape just reports instances of duplication. It does not facilitate takedowns. You would need to contact the offending site directly with evidence seeking removal or follow proper legal procedures.

That wraps up the most frequently asked questions around how Copyscape works and the realities of its capabilities detecting stolen content!

Conclusion

Plagiarism destroying your content marketing ROI? Don’t just sit there – it’s time to fight back!

This comprehensive guide walks you through using Copyscape to uncover content that’s been copied without credit.

We looked at how Copyscape indexes the web, scans your text, delivers results, and enables ongoing monitoring with alerts for new duplication.

While no plagiarism checker is flawless, Copyscape makes it almost effortless to search for and document stolen content.

Don’t let lazy content thieves chip away at your hard work. Start scanning your content with Copyscape today and reclaim what’s rightfully yours!

Let me know if you have any other questions about putting this powerful tool to work finding duplicated text across the vast depths of the internet.