CopyScape - What percentage is acceptable

[balagan9]

hi all,

I scanned my site COPYSCAPE, and discovered that I have some copied content, can anyone please advise on what percentage is acceptable ?

I searched on Google, and lots of people talk about different numbers... so i'm very confused on this.

what should I do?

Sandra.

[edgarf76]

I have heard a 30% threshold is acceptable. That is still high IMO

[Planet Mark]

Guess this depends on the nature of the copied content... For example if you inadvertently bought content that was stolen from other sites by shady content providers, then even 1% is unacceptable. While the odd legally syndicated article should not hurt, I'd be looking to check the ranking of those pieces compared to 'originals' to see if it is worthwhile having them rewritten.

As for the overall percentage, I personally like to go for as close to 100% original as possible.

[-Shay-]

That depends on what you mean by "copied". If the duplicate content is coming from within your site, then a higher percentage is "acceptable" - providing each page provides value and offers unique content in addition to the duplicate content.

If the "copied" content is content from someone else's websites (i.e. - another affiliates reviews "reworded"), then anything above 0% duplicate is unacceptable in my opinion.

[sweetbet]

The type of copied content needs to be taken into account. For example, quoting what Sheldon Adelson said regarding online gambling during a new conference is more acceptable than posting the same mini review of an online casino on two different sites.

[louie.wilson]

If copied indeed 0% should be accepted as you're probably impacting also the one that actually created the content.
If within your site, i guess 30% indeed is OK. I do have a few sites with always similar "conclusion", and no issue on ranking the pages.
If you're quoting part of other info-sites such as Wiki, i believe it's also OK for Google, but no % in mind.

[F-L-C]

I think you should elaborate on why you have some copied content/where the content is from?

[mikebuchanan]

0 is what is accepted if you want to have good website, if your don't care then it is anther story

[diggdirectory]

I think its 0%

[wettFORM.AT]

first of all the acceptable percentage for copied content from other websites is zero. You cannot really avoid to have some internal duplicate content because also the site structure or site wide links are content as well and some of those stay the same on more than one page. You can also check siteliner.com to check your url for internal duplicate content. I would try to have less than possible but I think something around 10 % should be ok. But you scanned your site with copyscape which searches the web so its external duplicate content and this should be clearly 0%.

[LotusAffiliates]

I believe 15-20% copied content is fair enough.

[Smith John]

It depends on the word or sentence occurring in the particular article, if the article include the words which are name of place, things or some verbs then the 5-10 % of content is acceptable and if the sentence is used to refer some instance or example according to the requirement of the article then it should be not accepted if found in copyscape.

[BingoWriter]

After recent panda updates, there should be no copied and low quality content in your website. So, I would suggest 0% in copyscape. thanks

[-Shay-]

After recent panda updates, there should be no copied and low quality content in your website. So, I would suggest 0% in copyscape. thanks

Just because of recent panda updates?

[freebetsfreetips]

Is siteliner a good site to use? Not really sure what I should be checking for and what is/isn't important on there?

[edgarf76]

Site liner checks ur interior content to see if there is any duplicate content on ur own site.

[Virosss]

Not even quote another source, the probability when checking you out 80-90% uniqueness of the text is quite large. Therefore, we had articles on sites after roughly the percentage of uniqueness, so for me personally to 10-20% copied is OK.

[Excel.Shruthi]

Usually the copyscape softwares works on word to word basis. They scan paragraph-wise(or sentence -wise sometimes). So if the sentences or the paragraph is same-to-same, then it is considered. We cant simply copy and paste word from a different article. If one tries to copy and alter the sentence, the essence of the sentence goes off and the actual intention is lost. So the writer can read the articles, keep the intentions in his mind and write in his own sentence. Always one should write in terms of keeping-the-audience-in -mind. Naturally google considers your writing. Never write an article keeping the Keyword-based articles. Keep the keywords as just a reference and see to that they are used in the article

[Markdiss1992]

Definitely 0% for your money site. If you like to work in different backlinks tiers than you can maybe use 80% unique content for your tier 2. For your money site always use fresh and unique content.