Ensuring you are buying truly unique content

What are ways to check for duplicate?

[icedout]

Hey Guys,
I'm just starting to buy content on elance and I wanted to know all the ways that I can check to be sure I'm not getting copied content. Some of these content providers are overseas so I want to ensure good quality testing before publishing.

The ways I know so far are:

copyscape

and

searching snippets in google in quotes.

Any other ways that you found useful to make sure you are getting what you paid for when it comes to content?

Any feedback is appreciated.

[hunderdown]

If you want to be really thorough, go to the library and spot check in the most obviously relevant reference books...

[EileenC]

Pay them well. The less you pay your writer, the more likely it is to be poor quality or a cut and paste job.

[icedout]

thanks,
I don't know about the library thing, that seems way to inefficient if trying to build content on a massive scale, but thanks for the advice though.

As far as paying them well, surely there must be other ways to check as well?

Also what do you guys consider to be paying them well? Is $10 for a 300 word article considered decent or is that very cheap? How high would you go?

[hunderdown]

I said "spot check"--just to establish if someone is copying passages out of enyclopedias or business reference books or whatever.

$10 for 300 words seems low to me, if there's any research involved. A good article could earn that back in a day via AdSense....

[EileenC]

[q] Is $10 for a 300 word article considered decent or is that very cheap? [/q]
Depends who is writing. For a non-native, offshore writer, it's okay. For an American professional writer, it's a joke.

[icedout]

thanks for the input. I am just starting to buy content and haven't seen the first articles yet (just awarded the bid).

So what do you think is a good rate to get quality content that users will appreciate? $50 for 300 words? $100? Maybe those of you who buy or write content regularly can give some feedback. Thanks.

[hunderdown]

If I'm giving you the right to use it indefinitely on your site, and if it involves any research, I personally wouldn't do it for less than $100. And that's based on the assumption that I'm doing a batch of articles on related topics for you.... But others would do it for less.

[sfcarioca]

Believe it or not, I got about 30 articles between 750 and 2000 words for $10 for each article from 6 different writers... They required no research, one of the writers were offshore, and I think only a couple of them were professional writers. Overall, I think the content was good, and my very quick attempts to review uniqueness by searching on google yielded no duplicates.

One did post a byline to them and offered to include a link to their website. That may have convinced a couple of them.

[Syzygy]

I got about 30 articles between 750 and 2000 words for $10 for each article from 6 different writers...

That's interesting. From freelance writers - providing unique content specifically commissioned by yourself?

Syzygy

[sfcarioca]

It was specifically commissioned by me, but what I did was create a list of about 100 topics and let them choose the ones they wanted. I think that helped because they all saw topics they knew about and could write about easily.

[JPWriter]

I write for constant-content and the writers there write articles for all different kinds of prices. Some want hundreds for a large article, others want $20. It all depends on the subject and length. It’s hard to compete with 1000 writers so some writers cut prices to compete.

You should always use copyscape though, there are to many people that think they can change around some words of an already published article and call it their own. Constant-Content bans a couple people a day for submitting plagiarized content.

[HRoth]

Offshore writers might work for cheap, but that doesn't mean they don't plagiarize. I used to ghostwrite academic books and articles, and the cheap competition was offshore in places like Pakistan. They would simply plagiarize an article, change the title, redo the first paragraph/abstract and the headers, and sell it as their own work without turning a hair, charging about 1/10th what a real ghostwriter would charge. It would never occur to the clients that they were not getting original work.

But I knew Americans who did this too, especially when the pay was low and the customer seemed easily gulled or was uninformed on the topic - or was just a pure-D jerk. What's more, if you do a lot of ghostwriting, you end up with a storehouse of writing you've churned out. If someone asks you to write on a subject you've written on before, it can be very, very difficult to resist plagiarizing yourself.

IMO, you are more likely to get original writing when you pay professionals a decent wage. I would also aim to work closely and regularly with a writer you know personally, someone you can talk to frequently about the work as it unfolds. One way to spot plagiarizers without using any fancy software is to ask them to discuss what they've written. They should be able to do it in depth. If they can't, they didn't write it. If they can only talk about it generalities, you know they are full of it.