One of the biggest hurdles for online writers is plagiarism. It is too simple for anyone to cut and copy your online work, and just paste into their own site. Basically, 2 or 3 mouse clicks and your article is stolen. And the sad part is that many people genuinely don't even know its wrong. Oh, sure, plenty of people know its stealing and just don't care. But there are lots of people who really think that anything "out there" is free content and fair game. Time to take action.

There isn't much you can do about the stealing itself. Text is just stealable, and there is little you can do. Your only form of defense is to monitor where your words end up, which can be a huge task. So give Copyscape a try. They do all the searching for you, and you can even do some searches for free. Just type in the URL of your article, and it will scour the Internet looking for copies. Be prepared for a surprise. I tested a couple and was just sick with the PAGES of results. Granted, I wrote for About.com for years which led to much of the theft (I have republished older articles on my own sites). The service is free, with a limit to the number of searches you can do. I'm not sure what the limit is.

If you find that a lot of your material is being poached, you might want to sign up for other Copyscape services, like Copysentry. For a small monthly fee, it will automatically monitor your website and tell you when it finds copies. You can also add little Copyscape banners to your site, to warn people that you are watching for theft, which can also be a deterrent.

Another aspect of using Copyscape, is you can find people who legitimately quote you. This can lead to making contacts with people who are interested in your subject area, and possibly even new writing gigs. Never hurts to cultivate some online relationships, especially with journalists.

(this article is part of a larger collection of Freelance Writing articles)