It's no secret, we here at ReadWriteWeb are fans of RSS. Still, we have to admit that the format has its benefits and its drawbacks. In a world of RSS feeds, the syndication of content is a foregone conclusion - for readers. But as we all know, any number of sites have cropped up that take RSS content, publish it to another page, and wrap that page in ads. They've been around for years and they don't show any sign of going away. But wouldn't you - at the very least - like to know who is repurposing your content? Of course you would. That's what makes CopyGator - a site that helps you find the sites that are copying your content wholesale - so interesting.]]> Simply take the URL of your site and feed it to CopyGator. In a matter of seconds, the free service will return a post-by-post assessment as to which sites appear to be copying your content - and how similar that content may be.
How does it work?
"The copygator service aggregates data from over two million blog feeds, and parses over a half million new blog posts a day. Our servers then crunch all of this data and evaluates every post against each other to determine if any two are roughly, nearly, or exactly alike."
Once you've set CopyGator up, you can continue to monitor your content via email, RSS, or by returning to the site and running another query.
The service is simple, fast, and accurate. Within a few seconds, I was able to find any number of sites that were repurposing ReadWriteWeb content in one form or another.
At the very least, it's interesting to see where the content turns up. But it can also provide details on the types of sites that find your content valuable - and which readers are interested in what you're writing.
To try the service for yourself, visit CopyGator and enter your URL. Or, if you're looking to get caught by CopyGator, feel free to copy and paste this entire article into a blog post.
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