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Rewriting articles, a good or bad thing to do?

Posted on February 17th, 2008.

Good content takes a long time to put together and so, it’s no wonder people look for quicker ways to create it. However, is using article rewriting software the correct way to go? Plagiarism is a hot topic and prompted by a forum post on digitalpoint.com, I decided to write a post on this issue.

First and foremost – copyright law. You can’t go and steal someone else’s content, and if they’ve copyrighted their work properly, they could take legal action against you. However there is a point where, when an article is changed enough, it’s no longer the original article. Nevertheless, knowing when an article has been changed enough is hard to tell.

Copyright protects the way in which we express ideas, not the ideas themselves. So, if you take an article with information on a subject, and express that information in a different way, you’re not in breach of copyright. DISCLAIMER - I’m not a lawyer, so I may be wrong about this.

Not only can it be against the law, but it’s also unethical. Stealing someone else’s work is wrong, and could give you a very bad name.

Furthermore, rewriting articles could be bad for SEO. If the rewritten content does not pass Google’s content filters, your site isn’t going rank high in search engines. Therefore from a SEO perspective, it’s beneficial to write original content.

There are also problems associated with using article rewriting software. The resultant text can make no sense and be (very) grammatically incorrect. Therefore, at least proofread the rewritten article. At the very least, give your visitors a grammatically good user experience.

There are reasons to rewrite content. Good content takes time to create, so much time that it may not be worth creating original content. Rewriting articles saves a heck of a lot of time, and in many cases - money.

I have got a suggestion, however. Take content which is free of copyright and rewrite it. You’ll not be breaking any copyright laws, and by rewriting that content you will have some unique (and hopefully good) content which will be good for SEO.

Find content free of copyright, rewrite it, proof read it and publish it. That’s probably the best method if you’re not willing to write completely original content.

I used to own, and operate small niche content websites with a friend. My friend created the content, and I did all of the technical stuff. Our content was original and as a result are sites where successful. Perhaps, that’s another option. Find someone else to write the content?

Content creation is hard. Copied content is bad for SEO, but original content takes time to complete and requires money, in some cases. However, if you want a successful site you’re going to have to put the work in to create some top-notch content. It’s the only way to create a good user experience which is optimised for SEO and void of any copyright infringements.

Remember, content is KING!

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