Scam with content writing

[Clinton]

Thanks to this webmasterworld thread

Content writers have found a novel way to trick you into thinking their work is original. Their work even passes copyscape and Google searches ... but it's just a scam as the material is 100% stolen.

How do they do it?

They simply replace a few characters within the text with cyrillic or foreign characters that look exactly like the ones they're replacing.

Just a warning!

That's just one more thing to check when you're buying a "content" site. Have a look at the source code for the text!

[grynge]

Whenever I purchase content my first job is to copy and paste into a text editor , which will soon show you any unusual code that ms word or any other way of getting the document will hide.

[Clinton]

Notepad isn't necessarily the solution as it depends on whether it's unicode and what code page you've got set as default in your operating system.

There's a regex solution here and php preg_replace solution here.

Of course, the quickest and easiest way is as I said in the OP to skim through the source code as our goal isn't so much to rewrite the text but to identify whether special characters were used to disguise the fact that material was copied.

[Thomas]

This trick has been around for years, I'm surprised WebmasterWorld only just picked up on it. I guess I spend too much time on BH forums

Same goes for when buying articles - make sure you spot check a few first. Or just buy from a reliable writer rather than a $3/500 word freelancer

[tke71709]

They simply replace a few characters within the text with cyrillic or foreign characters that look exactly like the ones they're replacing.

Hey now, don't be giving all the secrets away on how to fool Google into thinking that something is unique when it isn't.

Another tip, replace letters with their ascii codes

[Dan Thorley]

This is a new one on me. And glad I found out about it. Something to keep an eye on. Is this an issue when you are paying someone to write content for you from freelance websites, or is this more to do with individuals tweaking their own content to make the same of work look original and therefore reusing it?

[Clinton]

This trick has been around for years, I'm surprised WebmasterWorld only just picked up on it.

Once something has become public it's easy to say one has known about it for years

I believe you, but if you start a thread disclosing other such tips it would be useful to new members and they'd quote your thread as the source of their information in any future discussions and they'd be able to use it to judge your expertise in the field.

Dan Thorley, welcome to experienced-people.net. I see where you came from and suspect you share our interests in website buying/selling. Why don't you start a thread in our welcome section telling us something about yourself?

[Kay]

The OP refers to buying content sites but the advice could apply equally to buying content of any kind for a website. If you're hiring someone in a poor country and you're paying them rock-bottom wages for their work, you can't expect top quality work or their loyalty. If you pay them a dollar a day, then you have to expect them to spin it somehow to make a bit more for their efforts. Obviously, cheating is wrong but I can understand why some people would do that if they can't put food on the table by more honest means.

Writers should be autonomous, in as much as they can get on with the job, but the editor (or publisher) should also be on it too to advise occasionally if there's a query about style or pitch or anything else about how the writer can best meet the brief. That way a relationship of trust often develops between writer and editor.

I'd never even thought to check that my usual writer hadn't provided unique content. Now I'm wondering if anyone has checked mine on writing jobs I've done for others. Nah! I have enough to say of my own without needing to copy'n'paste.

Ah well, maybe some people did know about this trick all along but it's still worth flagging up another potential pitfall. There are quite a few newbies on EP so IMO it was definitely worth mentioning it.

[KenW3]

This is a new one on me. And glad I found out about it. Something to keep an eye on. Is this an issue when you are paying someone to write content for you from freelance websites, or is this more to do with individuals tweaking their own content to make the same of work look original and therefore reusing it?

There are a couple of article spinners that do this. About a year ago, there was even a WSO for an autoblog WordPress plugin to replace characters. It's a BH technique that is another way to steal someone's content and make it look original. This has been around for a while.

There are also content spinners that change to another language and back to the original, to provide an automated method to distort original content scraped from other sites in an attempt to fool the SE spiders.

Once something has become public it's easy to say one has known about it for years

I'm also one of those guys who find this easy to say

[grynge]

Notepad isn't necessarily the solution as it depends on whether it's unicode and what code page you've got set as default in your operating system.

There's a regex solution here and php preg_replace solution here.

Of course, the quickest and easiest way is as I said in the OP to skim through the source code as our goal isn't so much to rewrite the text but to identify whether special characters were used to disguise the fact that material was copied.

Notepad is not really what I would call a text editor. jEdit or UltraEdit something along those lines.