Have you ever had an amazing blog post idea while you were in the shower? You wrap yourself up in a towel quickly, almost tripping over the cat (or dog) to get to your computer or find a scrap of paper to scrawl the idea down before you forget.
How to deal with Blog Copycats
Then, you spend time taking just the right photos or researching into the topic or online stores where the products you want to talk about can be purchased. You may even remember a funny story from your past to add in to the blog post. It becomes part of you and there may even be steam coming off the keyboard as inspiration hits and finally all of your notes and hard work come together.
Behold, a blog post you are proud of. The photos are looking ‘on fleek’, you’ve asked a friend or your partner to do that quick read through as you stand over there shoulder like a proud parent on graduation day and they scan your hard work.
Ok, everything is looking great. Your finger hovers over the publish icon and you click the mouse magically sending your creation, words and all of the feels into the websphere for all to see.
A quick share to social media and maybe some scheduling in Buffer and then it’s time to breathe aaahhhh. You totally deserve a coffee, or an iced tea. Grabbing your iPad to catch up on your favourite bloggers in Feedly, you put your feet up and start to enjoy your well earned blogging break.
Scrolling down you look in absolute shock and despair. One of the bloggers in your tribe or niche has written a blog post on the same topic as you! You feel a pain in the pit of your stomache. Has he/she copied my post? Did they read my blog and decide to spew their own content out?
Unfortunately there are some copycats out there, copying you word for word. Imitating how you vlog or blog and just waiting for your next piece of juicy content.
If someone is copying your blog word for word, stealing photos and content I would totally drop them a ‘friendly’ email letting them know you will take further action if they don’t cease with the plagiarism. Let them know you know, they will probably get scared and take it down. Above all Google can totally see original content and copycat blogs will usually be ranked lower in search and let’s face it, they aren’t fooling anyone but themselves.
I’ve had this happen to me in the past, it was a bot scraping my content via rss and it created new WP blog posts from each of my entries. The hilarious thing was I only found out because they were stupid enough to use my affiliate link and so I made money from it! Another time my travel blog was copied by an airport transfer company, they were even ranking higher than me in Google for my keywords. I was furious! If I recall, I reported them via Google and they were de-indexed shortly after.
But remember, you didn’t invent the wheel!
@cuteek I specifically don’t read other doll blogs very often due to this. I don’t want anyone to say that I ‘copied’ them in a review.
— Kewpie (@KewpieDoll83) August 16, 2015
Usagi Mylene has the same agony when blogging. So as you can see it’s a common fear amongst bloggers, myself included to be accused of being the copycat.
@cuteek I’m actually terrified that something I write, I’m thinking is original but someone else has done it and I will be the copycatter.
— Usagi Mylene (@UsagiMylene) August 16, 2015
As amazing as that idea was that you had in the shower, we are all influenced by things. Like just now I was admiring the Covergirl Star Wars makeup on Agents of Geek website. Will I make a blog post about said makeup? Maybe, but it doesn’t mean for one second I will be copying their awesome content. I do have my own opinion and I’ve heard about the makeup from various sources during the last few days. Is it my duty as a cute geek blogger to post about it? Yes, I would say so.
Last year I was so happy to finally discover my blogging tribe Female Geek Bloggers on G+. What surprised me was how similar some of the topics were that we posted about but each with it’s own personal spin. I don’t for one second think that anyone of these geeky ladies where copying BUT, when you find your people on the internet and you all love the same things whether it be everyday cosplay, movie reviews or the latest Funko Pop, you are bound to cross streams at some point.
Sometime ago I ran a couple other blogs, one was about Alice in Wonderland merchandise and the other was Merch City about cool, geeky merchandise for the home, including geeky t-shirts, Disney stuff and so on. After a while, it became hard to concentrate on having so many blogs all for things that I like and find interesting, so I moved a lot of the content over here to Cuteek, but haven’t pushed it as much. I know for a fact I wasn’t the only person blogging about cute Jack Skellington pyjamas or fandom skater skirts, so why do I get so riled up when I see people (who I consider internet friends) blogging about the same stuff?
My answer, that I came up with in the shower, is that you just have to do what you do. There is such thing as coincidence. Don’t compare yourself to anyone else. BE SUPER, be you and keep being inspired by the world to come up with content that makes YOU proud. Content that gives you the warm and fuzzies when someone repins it or comments.
Keep learning the latest blog tricks and tips. Educate yourself watching webinars. Alice from The Geeky Burrow tweeted yesterday about one from The Nectar Collective which I really enjoyed. Surround yourself with people, tweeters, fellow bloggers who inspire you and SUPPORT each other. Find your blogging tribe and high five them if they enjoy a success.
Let me know in the comments below, have you ever felt scared that you copied another blog even when you read their post AFTER you hit publish? Have you dealt with a copycat?
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