10 Best Free Plagiarism Checker 2020 (UPDATED)

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Plagiarism involves taking someone else’s work and using it as your own for some sort of benefit or gain. Plagiarism is unethical and wrong. When it comes to web page content, it’s also damaging to SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) and how Google will evaluate and rank your content.

An example of plagiarising could be you choosing to access a website that covers a topic you want to cover and then you using ‘copy-and-paste’ to steal that content and pass it off as your own.

Writing any piece of online content, whether its for a website or a blog, it’s always good to check that your writing is unique and doesn’t already appear anywhere else online, written by someone else… Equally, if you’re sure that the content you write is unique to you, it does no harm to check that your content has not been plagiarised.


Why should you use a free plagiarism checker? If you really want to write quality content and add value to your readers, then checking for any form of plagiarism is worthwhile and a small price to pay.

We’ve heard time and time again that ‘content is king’ online and that is still the driving force of SEO today.

To better protect your unique content and to help you weed out any unintentional plagiarised content, here’s a roundup of the top 10 best free plagiarism checkers online: that can help you remove any poor quality content.

  1. Duplichecker
  2. One well known free tool is Duplichecker. This tool is great as it incorporates other content related automation like checking spelling and grammar. It’s easy to use. Just upload your content or copy-and-paste it into the text box they provide.

    It’s a short wait from there to get the results of the check – you don’t need to enter an email or create an account. There’s a 1000 word limit per search, but this isn’t much of an issue.

    An easy, smooth and free plagiarism checker that works.

    Duplichecker free online plagiarism checker
  3. PaperRater
  4. This plagiarism detection tool operates as an add-on to a content checker, so make sure you tick the box to include plagiarism checker in the web page checkup.

    There are a few more buttons to click on this one so it might take slightly longer than Duplichecker, but the plagiarism detection is highly accurate so worth the wait.

    Also included in the search you’ll get results for spelling mistakes, grammar, what grade your content is, word choice suggestions and a couple of other tabs.

    Ppaerrater
  5. Copyleaks
  6. Copyleaks is another highly accurate content checker that can give you detailed plagiarism information. Although free, you do have to create an account, and even then you are only allowed to scan 10 pages for free each month. So if you are generating a lot of content, then this might not be the option for you.

    You can upload content to check from either a URL, a local file, or add it using plain text.

    By using an account, you do get the added benefit of having your previous scans saved to reopen whenever you feel like and an additional grammar check tool.

    Copyleaks plagiarism checker
  7. PlagScan
  8. PlagScan is more suited to students, but works well for online content as well. The interface if a little cluttered and like the last plagiarism scanner, you do have to create an account, you do this with a ‘free trial’, but the tool gives you 20 free credits to do 20 scans.

    With the standard import channels being URL, local files, or adding plain text, PlagScan keeps this part simple to use. The scans are saved to your account to access whenever, with additional information like word count and dates.

  9. Plagiarisma
  10. Analysing web content on Google and Bing, this tool is handy for blog posts and other online content. Surfing through the internet’s index, you can see if the content has been copied and on which websites the similar content exists.

    Plagiarisma makes copied content easy to  identify and catch.

    plagiarisma
  11. Plagiarism Checker
  12. This website containing this checker is outdated – like seriously. However, it’s easy to use straight from the homepage. You can paste your content and click search. The search itself redirects to Google and uses search operators to find duplicate content on Google’s index only, so it’s not incredibly accurate. You can set it to search Yahoo if that’s your preferred search engine.

    This tool is ideal for SEO and online content.

    free plagiarism checker
  13. Quetext
  14. By far the best looking and easiest to use checker tool. Quetext lets you copy and paste your content into the text box and check for any plagiarism.

    You can’t, however, upload a file or link a web page to scan, so you’re very limited in how the content can be imported.

    Your results are quick and easy to read with content highlighted with any issues.

    Quetext
  15. Small SEO Tools – Plagiarism Checker
  16. Much like Duplichecker, this is an easy to use plagiarism tool that gives you results quickly. You can upload and insert your content via URL, local files or copy and paste your text. It’s 100% free without the need to sign up or enter any personal information.

    You can easily see the plagiarism vs unique content in a percentage with matched sources if the content has been plagiarised.

    best free plagiarism checker
  17. Plagium
  18. As a free tool, Plagium performs just fine. It’s easy to enter your text, and the results of the plagiarised text are shown quickly below the search. They search for plagiarised web content only so this wouldn’t be useable for academic papers.

    Again, this is only a copy and paste kind of check that doesn’t offer any file formats, so limited functionality, but you get entirely accurate results for Google’s index. You can use their ‘deep search’ tool, but this isn’t free.

    Plagium
  19. Search Engine Reports

Looking at this interface, it’s almost identical to the Small SEO Tools anti-plagiarism tool. The buttons being a little off and the ads being so close to these buttons, it’s not the most accessible tool to use with this going on. However, with file uploading, plain text, and even the ability to import from Google drive, you can use this as an alternative if the Small SEO Tools checker is down for some reason.

search engine reports plagiarism checker

Bonus plagiarism detector tool:

Plagly

If 10 wasn’t enough, Plagly is a fairly new tool that offers grammar check, plagiarism checks and a premium service. The free tool has a 1,000 word limit and to get your report you have to sign up with an email address.They also offer it as a Google Chrome extension so you can quickly access the tool when writing multiple pieces of content. 

So, which plagiarism checker is best? Small Seo Tools provides one of the best free Plagiarism checkers online. With its ease of use and accuracy, it comes out on top. Perfect plagiarism checker for students and bloggers alike.

But try them out yourself. You don’t need to download any software for any of these checkers. They’re all online (and all completely free).

There is much uncertainty on how accurate plagiarism checkers are, especially if you’re using a free option. For the most part, these free tools work perfectly and can be used as a standalone check. However, remember they don’t check everywhere for copied content. Being free, the majority of these checkers will only scrape for duplicate content on Google, Bing and other search engines. But, this degree of checking is often not needed. As long as the content does not exist online, then you’re pretty much safe to use it.

Whether you’re a freelance writer or a student checking academic papers, these tools will help you check for plagiarism (unintentional, or otherwise) and to write original content.

Watch this space as Creative Asset will soon be releasing our very own free plagiarism checker to rule them all.

Plagiarism FAQs

Is plagiarism illegal?

Not in itself. It depends on the form of plagiarism and whether the materials have been copyrighted. Plagiarism is a moral & ethical issue which in academia is subject to a code of honour. In a commercial context plagiarism is subject to copyright law. So you could face legal action should you plagiarise copyrighted materials to write your content, or not submit original work.

Did I plagiarise any of my written content?

To know for sure if your content is already online somewhere,  put it through a number of the best free plagiarism checkers and avoid plagiarism

How does a free plagiarism checker work?

The best free plagiarism checkers work by scraping through the internet’s index of websites and comparing your written content to that already online. In addition, some premium paid checkers are also able to access private academic databases.

Is plagiarism the same as copyright infringement?

Plagiarism involves taking someone else’s work and passing it off as your own. Copyright infringement can happen when that work has been used without prior permission from the author. You’ll notice that most websites have a copyright sign in the footer of their website. This means you could potentially be sued should you infringe on any of their content.

How do I report plagiarised content online?

One of the easiest ways to report this online is to Google using their Copyright Removal Tool. You will need to report the page and provide your supporting evidence. The tool will then remove the web page (and potentially the website) from Google. You could also use this method to help file a lawsuit.

Why Should I Check For Plagiarised Content?

You should check for plagiarism for a number of reasons. 1.) If content happens to be written elsewhere, you can ruin your academic scores. 2.) It takes 2 minutes so why not? 3.) If you’re writing content online and are using SEO to propel your content, plagiarism would be a real issue and hold your website back in search results.

Is Plagiarised Content The Same As Duplicate Content?

No, duplicate content just refers to 2 copies of the same body of text. So you could have duplicate content from having the same content on multiple pages of your website, but this wouldn’t be plagiarised.

best free plagiarism checker
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Adam Cook