Copying & Pasting the Moz Glossary onto my site.. is this white hat or black hat?

[StoryScout]

Hi,

I run a small business writing optimised content for small businesses in Melbourne.

I want to add a Glossary page to my website that lists all of the different words associated with website marketing and SEO.

I found the Moz glossary and I am wondering if it would be a bad idea to copy and paste the list straight into a page on my site. I'd prefer to not have to reword all of the descriptions as it will take me ages and I don't want to compromise the information in the descriptions.

Here is a link to the Glossary: http://moz.com/blog/smwc-and-other-essential-seo-jargon

Obviously I don't want to do the wrong thing ethically or from Google's perspective.

Any advice would be great.

[Hutch42]

So you are asking on Moz if you should steal content from Moz then not credit them to increase your search ranking, and then your concern is not if what you are doing is wrong (it is) but only if Google will penalize you for it?  I believe that if you want content for your site you should make it or pay for it, not steal it, if you write optimized content then maybe people would expect copy on your site to be written by you.

[StoryScout]

First of all, I did not once say I would not credit it as being written by Moz. In fact, I every time I mention Moz (and how awesome it is) I provide a link to the Moz website.

The reason I don't want to rewrite it is because I don't want to lose the accuracy in the descriptions.

Secondly, if I was intending on 'stealing' anything, why would I bother asking the Moz community about the ethics of using content written by Moz? I am obviously aware that copying and pasting is not ethic in nature but given that this is a glossary and Moz are the experts on technical terms, I thought there might be a way of working around this so that I can use the proper definitions without my visitors having to navigate away from my website.

So thanks for your friendly response.

[Netrepid]

I mean, I guess you could borrow it. Better give Moz some link love though :)... and I wouldn't expect great rankings for that long term.

I would think it better to use their glossary as inspiration and then put your own spin on a version of it.

[StoryScout]

So if I were to reword the sentences in my own words, would that still be ethical?

[Christy-Correll]

Hi there, thanks for your question. Yes, this would be a very bad idea. Duplicate content issues aside, copying content and passing it off as your own is plagiarism. This is unethical and violates copyright law. If you are interested in publishing someone else's work on your site, you are both legally and ethically obligated to obtain their permission to do so, and then properly attribute to work to the original creator if granted permission to republish it. Rather than going this route, however, your time would be better spent implementing Hutch42's advice. (That is, create your own authoritative content that will naturally earn links, show off your content creation skills, and rank in organic search engine results.) Best of luck!

Christy

[StoryScout]

Thanks Christy.

Could you provide me with a link to Hutch42's advice as you mentioned? I Googled it but I got mixed results.

Meaghan

[Christy-Correll]

Hi Meaghan, happy to help! I was actually referring to Hutch 42's advice above, in this thread. (The anchor link to his response to your question is http://moz.com/community/q/copying-pasting-the-moz-glossary-onto-my-site-is-this-white-hat-or-black-hat#reply_270109.)

[CommT]

well said