ArticleChecker.com is the easiest and cheapest way to check for duplicate content on the Web. If you're a newbie online freelance writer, chances are, you easily feel intimidated when your client asks you to check your articles for duplicates. Either that, or you simply brush it off as a ridiculous requirement - but it's not.
Joy (my wife) and I used to churn out at least 50 of these types every week ... each. We were also tasked to edit about 125 - 250 similar articles for the same span of time.
One of the major concerns back then was about originality. We had to make sure the articles we produced as a team were 'original' or had no duplicates on the Web. Sure, all sources were found on the Web but you had to make sure no other article existed that had exactly the same sentences.
Most buyers require their writers to check for Web duplicates through either Dupecop or CopyScape. Both tools however require you to pay a certain fee. In most cases, clients don't want to shoulder those kind of expenses so you'll have to take the fee out of your pocket.
Fortunately, there's a site called ArticleChecker.com.
To use, you just have to copy text from your Word Document, Google Docs, or any text file, then paste it into that large text box. You normally use this tool after having edited your work for grammatical and spelling errors. If you have a slow connection, I suggest you copy and paste text by batch (about 400 words per batch).
Basically, when you hit the Compare button, ArticleChecker.com will scan the web using either one or both Google and Yahoo. I usually only check the Google option because, for some reason, Yahoo doesn't generate the desired results. When duplicates are found, ArticleChecker.com will indicate the number of duplicates as well as an excerpt of the sentences that had duplicates.
For this example, when I copied text from the 1st paragraph of the 'oDesk' page in Wikipedia, this is what I got:
If there is zero duplicates, this is what you'll get:
Although some clients allow say, 3% total matched phrases, others really require 0%. Now, I agree that sentences like "This part is a no-brainer" are pretty common and should be allowed to match with others like them on the web, some clients just don't want to be hassled with having to check whether a particular phrase is commonly used or not.
Thus, the only remedy is either to delete that particular sentence or, if you're really up to it, to rephrase it even if the new sentence isn't the best fit.
This site acts up sometimes but don't be alarmed. It usually goes back up after a few hours or a day.
That's it. The next time a potential client indicates the need for 'original articles' in his job opening, you might want to mention ArticleChecker in your cover letter. That way, he'll know you're familiar with the trade.
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