It is strange that the new service I am going to talk about today, iPlagiarismCheck is actually being marketed to a totally different audience, students and teachers, than the one I focus on, internet and niche marketing, but there is a high chance I have a lot of readers who are going to jump on this service as soon as they hear about it.

Yes students have a lot to worry about, they might fail their courses if they are caught for plagiarism but I think this software is going to excel for internet marketers and niche marketers who are outsourcing content creation.

How Relevant Is iPlagiarismCheck To My Readers?

I suppose the proof is in the eating – I just bought a 1 year subscription

2Checkout.com Order Number 9999999999 (this was a 10 figure order number)

Contents of your purchase:
Product ID : 4
Vendor Product ID : SUPER-SAVER (All documents processed on URGENT priority)
Product Description: Unlimited Document Submissions for 1-YEAR (US$ 65.00)
Product Name : SUPER-SAVER EDITION Package
Quantity : 1

Total : 33.66 ( GBP )

Billing Information
Andrew L Beard
IP: 83.23.254.103 IP Location: Warsaw ( Poland )
myemailaddress@gmail.com
+48-62-7382438
Keedz Ltd
56 Rookesley Road
Orpington BR54HJ
United Kingdom ( GBR )

Distributed By:
Plagiarism-Checkers, Inc. ( www.iplagiarismcheck.com )

Affiliate Program

I should point out this review was ordered using the facilities in my sidebar, but in my opinion was an extremely smart move, because whilst they might pay $143 for the review, of which I get $130, I dearly wish they had an affiliate program.

They have already gained half of that back from my own purchase of a full year subscription, and if this review doesn’t send them a few more, I will eat my keyboard.

Outsourcers Have The Most To Lose With Copyright Infringement

If you are paying someone to write content for you for an ebook you are marketing commercially, and they decide to “borrow” some content from elsewhere, you could face rather a large bill, especially if something was copied from material where the copyright was registered in the US.

iPlagiarismCheck state on their site

If a plagiarist receives more than $2,500 for copyrighted material, he or she may face up to $250,000 in fines and up to ten years in jail!

Imagine you had hired someone to write an ebook for you from one of the many out-sourcing services and hadn’t taken the time to check their work.

iPlagiarismCheck Isn’t The Same As Copyscape

Copyscape has all kinds of fancy features such as an API that can be used to process documents, and probably at this time has a more refined, but at the same time totally different online interface.

To test out iPlagiarismCheck I sent them a 60 page ebook I knew contained some sections that were almost identical to some content you can find on the web.

The report I received back was a single long page with direct hyperlinks from within the text to the site the content was potentially copied from.

Some information is lost in this situation currently because if the content appears on multiple sites, only one instance appears.

I should also note that with the current interface every phrase isn’t highlighted within plagiarised text. That is a little confusing for those used to Copyscape “highlighting” of every word. The interface is designed currently for teachers and students, thus they wouldn’t necessarily need to know each individual word that needed detection.
The system noted that around 3% of the document I submitted were thought to be plagiarised, and that corresponded with the 2 pages of the 60 page PDF, even though not every word was linked.

What is important however is if you are dealing with content that has been copied from multiple sources, some of it legitimately, such as public domain, then this gives you an advantage.

Imagine the results you would obtain from Copyscape if you uploaded a 400 page ebook that was supposedly meant to be either original work, or sourced from public domain material.

I can imagine the results would be fairly noisy, and it would be difficult to spot where each text fragment actually came from.

Hopefully they are going to be able to offer listing multiple sources for each fragment, so you can determine the original source such as a .gov site, or Wikipedia. (I have been assured that they are detecting far more than is currently displayed)
I can already imagine some fancy AJAX/CSS solution to pull in a list of all occurrences of a text fragment.

Cost

On surface value, for limited use, some people might think that Copyscape is better value, but you have to take into account how Copyscape works, and how much time you might spend sifting through results for a huge document.

iPlagiarismCheck isn’t providing core Copyscape features such as protecting your website content, they are focusing on ensuring the content you create, submit to examining boards, or just publish on your website, or for sale in various forms isn’t going to get you in trouble.

The minimim purchase for Copyscape Professional is $5 (100 credits) but a single search might use multiple credits (I believe it is 1 credit per 2000 words)

I think $65 for unlimited use for a year is a bargain for anyone actively creating content using outsourcers. You might be able to risk using cheaper writers.

If you are creating content for others, you would probably be allowed to provide a link to the plagiarism report you submitted yourself as proof that you are creating quality work.

Working With I Plagiarism Check

It is a new site, it seems they have concentrated more on their back end systems (detection) than the front end, which for some people might make it more or less convenient.

There is no instant result processing currently, and maybe never will be. They have a form to submit documents to be processed after you have registered with them, but for some customers the ideal method of communication is email.

You send them an email with your 2Checkout receipt number in the title, and attach the document you want processed. The document is then added to their processing queue, and after a period of time depending on your subscription level, you are sent a notification back.
It only takes a few minutes to receive a result even if it is a 60 page document.

If you are someone who automates some of your tasks with email templates, this is just so easy to use. Just attach a document with all the content you need checked, and send it to them.

A little later they send you an email with a link to a report which you can have on file, filter to process when you have time, or even forward directly to someone else to check out.

I should point out that the interface as depicted on their demonstration page isn’t currently available, and is certainly subject to change.
I would look on this site as still being in beta, even though the back end technology works well.

iPlagiarismCheck Future Developments

I have been told by Susan Keisler who is their support rep, and who currently answers emails in great detail directly that there will soon be a much improved interface for “members”, and all kinds of interfaces and ways to upload content.
iPlagiarism are quite new to the marketplace, unlike Copyscape, and Susan informed me that their primary target audiences are students, teachers and researchers as a “people-oriented service”.

I would like to strongly suggest that “Information Marketers” of all kinds should jump on this service as quickly as possible, and help them shape it into a useful tool to help defend your business interests.

Blackhats Beware

Some of the patented technology in this system is, at least on paper fairly impressive, but will take a while to test to see how effective it is.

The things of note include:-

• Detecting plagiarism in 20 other languages – I actually asked for clarification on this, the system can detect if someone has taken work written in English, and translated it into French, or vice versa
• Synonyms – replacing words, and even changing word order can be detected

Private Label Rights

This isn’t very suitable for checking whether private label rights articles or manuscripts are “safe” to use, unless you are a site owner and have commissioned original work.
Not long after content is made available, in theory it would be on 100s of websites which would pollute results.

It might be suitable for checking whether articles you have rewritten, adding your own content and “voice” are appropriate for use on your own sites, but I would never advocate then syndicating such articles to article directories.

This is a good example of how technology improvements have a way of catching up with indiscretions, and even though you might have been able to slip things through in the past, eventually the “plagiarism CSI” will get you.

Conclusions

I am going to include the exact link text that was requested in the review request interface. I normally gain written confirmation that I don’t have to include specific linking, but in this case in some ways it is appropriate because they are looking for buzz, and to be honest this is a “buzz” kind of link, and offers very little SEO benefit so I stuck a nofollow on it.
Then I did a little keyword research and the result is the “SEO useful” second link – that one is an editorial bonus, I am happy with my purchase.

Fun Powertip: take an ebook you have purchased or downloaded and see how much of the content was original, or where it was sourced from.

There has been quite extensive coverage of the topic on Problogger, and this comment by Darren Rowse really went into the details about why the Buy Blog Comments service wouldn’t work.

At $19.99 for 100 posts you’re paying them 19 cents per comment. For someone living in the US or Canada to make a decent living at 19 cents per comment (he says they are US/Canadian citizens that make the comments) how many comments would they need to leave in a day? To make $100 they’d have to leave 526 comments….

An 8 hour day has 480 minutes in it. They’d need to be leaving comments at over 1 per minute. Now to make a comment genuine and add to the conversation they’d need to read the post before making the comment….. The site says they also hand pick blogs from relevant niches (more time)…. I guess then that Jon needs to take his cut before sharing it with the people who work for him…. I can’t see how it adds up. Those working on this scheme need some fast way of posting comments – I’d suspect that they’d need to do at least two comments per minute.

But that doesn’t mean that all such services are totally unethical, not by a longshot.

Employees

If you have a full time employee, knowledgeable about your business, there is a high possibility that you would allow them to write comments on blogs. Matt Cutts is “just” an employee of Google , but is trusted enough to leave the occasional comment on a blog. He even uses his own name these days rather than “Google Guy”.

Permanent VA

Lots of people have virtual assistants, who they trust to respond to email correspondence. It is quite possible that such an employee might also be suitable to respond to blog comments that are not too specific in nature, or after sufficient training.

Subcontracted Bloggers

Many companies feel they are not quite “in-the-groove” to do their own blogging, and thus hire a specialist to blog on their behalf.

As an example, a very professional service is offered by Jim Turner of One By One Media, Bloggers For Hire.

Part of such a blogger’s responsibilities might well be monitoring and responding to the blogosphere, and part of that responding could be commenting on other blogs, especially if they linked to the corporate blog in response to an article.

That would be a paid comment

Outsourcing Blog Content and Comments

I haven’t actually had time to look around inside Blog Mastermind yet, but on my trip I spent a lot of time with many of Yaro’s own mentors. I am fairly confident that he doesn’t recommend doing all the blogging yourself, you would use outsourcing for blog posts, and quite possibly expect those outsourced bloggers to respond to comments, both on your own blogs, and those that might have linked to those blogs in response to articles.

Paid commenting again…

I noticed that Darren Rowse also has a special deal to sign up with Blog Mastermind for just $47 per month – if you want to be a problogger, but not tied to your keyboard 16 hours per day making peanuts, it might be a good option, and they have just done a free podcast that is worth a listen.

Outsource As Much As You Like

Many of my readers are probably familiar with Michel Fortin, one of, if not the greatest online direct response copywriters.

Far fewer are familiar with Sylvie Fortin, Michel’s wife who has been running a service called Workaholics for Hire for 8 years, providing outsourcing services, mostly behind the scenes for many of the internet’s most successful marketers.

As well as providing general purpose Virtual Assistants, they also provide a host of specialist services.

• Viability Research – for both niches and products
• Ebook Development
• Content writing – this includes blogs
• Product location for monetization
• Transcription Services
• Customer Support
• Blog Creation & Customization (a very hot offer if you need something professional)
• Sales Page Makeovers
• Webmasters on Call

Absolutely nothing controversial in that list at all, in fact I am sure many of my readers might be tempted to use some of those services, especially the blog creation and customization for one fixed fee.

It is in the blog promotion services that things if looked at in isolation become a little controversial.

• Article Marketing
• Blog Comment Marketing
• Discussion Board Buzz Marketing
• Blog Directory Submissions
• Free Classifieds Marketing
• Press Release Marketing
• Web Directory Submissions
• PPC Campaign Management

Blog comment marketing? Discussion Board Buzz Marketing? That can’t be right… can it?

Before you have some kind of knee-jerk reaction, it is something that is totally logical, and 100% ethical.

Paid Blog Commenting Can Be 100% Ethical

• You pay someone to research a niche you know nothing about
• You pay someone to create a product and sales page for a suitable niche
• You outsource a customized blog design
• You pay someone to write blog content to help promote the niche product
• You pay someone to provide customer support

So if you have all these services, obviously the only remaining task is promotion, and that might include some ethical forum marketing or even writing or responding to blog posts and blog comments.

If you can hire someone for that role for your company on a permanent basis, it is certainly just as ethical to hire someone part time working from home to do it as well, in fact it is more ethical than doing it yourself for a niche that you know very little about.

Other Opinions

Chris at Blog-Op couldn’t see much value and offered a great suggestion for quality traffic, get a review from me and spend the change on more conventional advertising.

Obviously that is good for me, but not always what someone in a specific niche is looking for. I am hardly going to review a squeeze page for a free dating book, and whilst I believe I have cultivated a high value audience, it is not a mass audience.
That review would be better suited to someone in the Make Money Online niche, or a high quality niche specific blog on sexual relationships such as Dan & Jennifer (nothing sexually explicit directly but discusses quite adult topics)
Note: Linking through to Dan and Jennifer has been gnawing away at the back of my mind for ages, as they are a true example of a quality niche site, and you should see how well they use video on YouTube – sometimes the encouragement to visit their site at the end of each video is as long as the content – really well done!

Dane on his new WordPress Design Tips blog thinks it is a storm in a teacup and that things like this have been going on for years.
He is quite right, and anyone seriously interested in spamming your blog with junk is already doing it, and clock up 1000s of links per day, or more likely hit your spam filters as they are looking for soft targets.

One idiotic marketer from the UK has produced a “special report” with a list of dofollow blogs he spent a lot of time trying to find and is promoting it on Digital Point – what an idiot, you can find 300 dofollow blogs just by visiting my no nofollow community on Bumpzee, but unless you are going to write something really on topic that will bring targeted visitors and give you a decent relevant link, there is absolutely no point commenting, as the comments are unlikely to stick.
He is the same guy who has also come up with a Google Custom Search engine of dofollow blogs.

Conversation & Measuring Sticks

It is all about joining in the conversation. If the intent of a comment is clearly to join in the conversation and not just for SEO, that is an ethical comment. It is possible to join in discussions to sway them to your way of thinking, or entice people to click a link.

I have been extremely busy offline for the last week, and whilst I have lots of material prepared, I opted not to publish it, because I knew I wouldn’t have time to respond to any questions. I did have enough time to continue responding to comments both here and elsewhere, and to see what was happening in the blogging and internet marketing world.

Outsourcing

Whilst I don’t outsource work on this blog, I do use out-sourcing for other projects online, and heavily use outsourcing offline. The offline outsourcing is actually setup extremely well, though many might look on it as being a little lazy.

Watering The Plants

In Poland they have a saying roughly translated, “Build a house, plant a tree, conceive a son”. Trees obviously have other benefits, such as looking nice, hiding ugly features, sheltering you from the breeze, and giving some privacy.

So for my new house it was decided that we should get some trees planted as soon as possible around the borders. We should have done it a few years ago when we first purchased the land, but small trees have this bad habit of walking off on the back of someone else’s lorry if left unattended and we had other priorities.

Planting trees in my new (future) garden isn’t a one man job.

So we had a team of 6 guys plus a small tractor with trailer, and planted ~300 trees in 5 hours.

At the time we thought the ground was moist enough and plenty of rain had been forecast, but the weather let us down.

Early last week I ended up spending a whole day watering the 300 trees – I couldn’t arrange anyone to do it at short notice, plus every now and then it is good for me to get out of the house, plus I was able to oversee other things going on.

The Water Feature

We always planned to have some kind of water feature in the garden, partially because of the “ambiance”, and partially through necessity – our land has a gradual slope, and water collects at the bottom even though it is well drained.

The initial plans were quite modest until my father-in-law got a little carried away.

By the time the excavator finished the hole is over 2 metres deep in places, a nice figure of 8 with a pedestal in the smaller section approximately 2 metres across that is the basis for some kind of waterfall feature.

The Pool

We decided that whilst we had the heavy machinery available it was time to also dig the pool, and a couple of days later the concrete bed was laid.

That is a view from one of the guest bedrooms. The pool isn’t huge 12m x 5m x 1.5m deep but as I tend not to leave the house too much, it will prove a useful convenience to keep fit.

Roof & Plumbing

If that wasn’t enough, we have roof tiles now being laid, and the whole plumbing and heating installation being finalized.

The guys who are doing the roof also built most of the house, and there is a specialist team of 3 guys doing the plumbing and heating installation.

This Is All About Niche Marketing & Blogging

Some jobs you can do yourself, even gain significant pleasure doing them, but at the end of the day using efficient tools, and sometimes outsourcing specific tasks is necessary.

You can’t afford to do them yourself

I am probably capable of “mucking in with the lads” on the building site, in fact my current 100 year old cottage I spent 3 months full time, with one hired hand renovating, but that isn’t an economic use of my time. Last week was quite exceptional, I have probably spent only 2 weeks so far on the land since we started actually building the house.

In many ways I am probably as far removed from the building of my house as Bill Gates is from the development of Microsoft products.

Me >> My Wife >> My Father-In-Law >> Building Site Manager / Building Firm Owner / Plumbing Contractors / Suppliers >> Manual Labour

I have met most of the people involved, but I don’t handle the day-to-day issues, and when I do it is primarily in consultation with my wife. She actually did her own out-sourcing deal – she runs her father’s manufacturing & wholesale business, and he takes care of the building work (he doesn’t get his hands dirty), and spends time with his friends in “business development” meetings.

We are being “thrifty” with our spending, but that is a much better option than attempting to do everything ourselves.

It is however important to know how to do the tasks you assign to others, or to judge the quality of the work. If I hadn’t spent so much time working on my cottage, I couldn’t possibly spend so little time on the current building work. In the same way, if I didn’t know how to build a website, I wouldn’t be happy outsourcing it.
I also know enough about programming to review code, test it effectively, and release products that work.

Don’t try to do everything yourself

Rich Schefren

My respect for Rich Schefren started with one of the smallest details possible, actually one I had the cheek to criticise John Reese about not too long ago. In fact I would say 95% of Internet Marketing guru blogs overlook this one small factor.

Rich Schefren’s blog uses SEO friendly permalinks

If you are on lots of internet marketing mailing lists, I am sure you have received a few emails about Rich Schefren over the last 6 months. You might have even done exactly what I did.

• I signed up to his list
• I downloaded his ebooks
• I downloaded his audios

But…

• I didn’t read half of his emails
• I didn’t spend time reading his ebook
• The audio files were never listened to

If you are not on a lot of internet mailing list, congratulations, but in this particular case you have probably been missing out on some of the highest quality business growth information currently online.

I have just spent the better part of 8 hours watching free videos in which Rich Schefren blows away many of the problems people face with internet marketing and making money online, and I have decided to share them with you.

Video: Business Building (1 Hour 45 Minutes)

Summary: One of Rich’s most popular presentations. You’ll learn how to think like a real (profitable) business builder. Many marketers cite this talk as being responsible for creating a major transformation in their business philosophy.

If you can’t see the above video in your feed reader, please click through to watch

Video: Startup To Freedom (30 Minutes)

Summary: While the Business Building presentation addresses the mindset required for success, this video lays out the path to building a multi-million dollar company that can run and grow without you.

If you can’t see the above video in your feed reader, please click through to watch
Also available in the Vault: Podcast format and PDF of Slides used in the presentation

Video: Gaining Momentum (1 Hour 45 Min)

Summary: This video is appropriate for anyone who’s looking for a path that will take them to outrageous business success. But I’ve got to warn you, it’s not for those who are looking for a quick fix. It’s not for the weak..

Only Currently Available In the Vault (Free Access)

I actually watched this video twice, even though there was a 4th video available

Also available in the Vault: Podcast format and PDF of Slides used in the presentation

Video: Profit Prescriptions (45 Minutes)

Summary: In this video, your questions are answered. Rich demolishes the mental roadblocks that cause all too many smart but overwhelmed entrepreneurs from gaining the momentum they need to get their business off the ground.

Only Currently Available In the Vault (Free Access)
Also available in the Vault: Podcast format and PDF of Slides used in the presentation

Additional Ebook Bonuses Available

PDF: Internet Business Manifesto

Summary: Downloaded over 182,938 times, this landmark document firmly established Rich Schefren as the premier business building coach. It is still considered to be required reading for anyone who is building an online business.

PDF: The Missing Chapter

Summary: After writing the original Manifesto, Rich asked what challenges readers were still experiencing. He analyzed the responses from thousands of readers and produced “The Missing Chapter.” It’s a critical document that explains how to build a business based around your personal strengths.

PDF: The Final Chapter

Summary: After working with several major Internet publishers, Rich reveals what makes their business models hyper-profitable. Advanced back-end marketing strategies are exposed, and the trilogy is completed.

Business Growth Systems Review

I am a strong believer in concepts like social proof. In a few days time Rich will be launching a new coaching program, and from what I have read it will be priced to be affordable for people seriously interested in taking their internet business forward.

Those who have been reading my blog for a while will recognise this page as a placeholder for a full review that will no doubt be a worthwhile read when the course is launched, but I urge you to take some time off and watch the videos.
Some of the material above was a quick copy and paste from inside the profit vault – I will be writing original summaries and bullet points. I have to have something substantial posted today, and I seriously want to go out and have dinner with my wife, and spend some time relaxing.

I have always stressed that I am a guy that looks at the “bigger picture”, and I have also hinted a number of times that many topics I write about are strategic in nature.
In many ways I have been doing things suggested by Rich in these videos, but personally I gained more from these videos than any ebook I have ever purchased.

Take the time, it’s worth it.

Are You Too Scared To Give Your Email Address?

I have been on Rich’s email list for more than 4 months, and in that time I have received 24 emails from him, mainly notifications for new free training materials, and follow up reminders. I use a tracking link, and I can see how many people click through and also what percentage sign up.
If you are too scared to give someone your email address, who is a legitimate marketer offering valuable information for free, I warn you never to leave a comment on any blog, because most blog owners have no idea about legitimate email marketing practices.

If you sign up for access to the free vault, you get to see more great videos (I think the 2 videos in the vault are actually even more powerful than the first two), and access to more free videos in the future.

Rich is going to try to sell you his new coaching system, I have no doubt about it, but the best way to sell such a product is social proof, thus it is a guarantee he is going to provide even more great free resources.

If you want more social proof that this is something special, take a look at the responses on Rich’s blog. These responses are from people who have watched the videos, and there are more to come.

Alternatively, take the time to watch the other videos in the vault, and read the ebooks, it’s worth it.

Business Growth Systems Review

Is not going to happen, because I didn’t buy the service

• I expected the monthly subscription to be slightly lower – for those that did sign up I am sure they will get their value for money
• The sales page didn’t work for me – the build up was full of lots of incredible information, yet the sales page itself was a little flat, maybe deliberate.
• I was disappointed that the promotion was intended to “sell out” in a few hours. The affiliate program suggested that the service would allow more long term signups, thus people would be able to consider their investment

If they open the doors again in the future, I will most likely sign up as it will then be better timed within the growth cycle of my business.

I have read all 59 pages of this free report. It certainly isn’t junk, and it shouldn’t be ignored.

Mike Filsaime goes into great depths about how things are going to be changing in the Internet Marketing arena in the coming years.

This report is full of statistics and discussion on why certain types of websites have been successful, and he gives real examples of the type of sites that will be successful going forward.

He even points out services he will continue paying for, because it would cost him a huge amount of time and money to switch over to another solution.

So the content is very good, and if you read it, and take action, it will make you money.

Towards the end of the report, he goes into 2 very personal, and in some ways embarrasing situations Mike found himself in regarding copyright infringement.

I was already aware of one of these situations, in regards to legal documentation, and I extrapolated that out a little when I recently highlighted potential copyright problems if you share RSS content.

But he has actually been caught out twice. The second time all he did was display a graphic on a website sometime in the past, and the usage was discovered by the company who owned rights in the images.

If you are at all serious about what you are doing on the internet, I highly recommend reading his report. Not only for the insight into what might be successful for marketing in the future, but also to read about his very real copyright problems, and how much it cost him to resolve them.

Read The Death of Internet Marketing

It is quite possible you have seen other people promoting this free report, and you felt it was just another “me too” report, similar to the “Death of Adsense” report that caused such a stir just a few weeks ago.

Mike is using a similar technique to get the word out. The content within the report is insanely valuable, and I agree with a great deal of what Mike has written.

Mike actually skirts around some of the things I am working on with my own large project, but is certainly unaware of what I am looking to create.

It is not often someone gives away what could be a number 1 best selling ebook for free.

Disclosure: I will receive a small payment ($1) if you sign up to download Mike’s free report, and most likely he will send you the occasional email regarding his other products in the future. Mike Filsaime is one of the few Internet Marketers whos mailing lists I sign up to with my primary email account. It is always interesting to watch what he is promoting, but also how he is promoting it.
The tags I have used for this post give some indication of some of the contents, and also hint at some of the unwritten topics it can also affect.