Copy Alerts Closes Shop

Copy Alerts (previous coverage), a service that allowed users to track where their content appears on the Web, has shut its doors, thus ending its service its alerts. Its home page has been replaced with a very brief announcement that directs visitors to this site.

Copy Alerts functioned a bit like a Google Alerts and Copyscape mashup. It allowed users to enter a URL for a page and then receive email alerts when copies of the content appeared, combining the input method of Copyscape with the notification method of Google Alert.

Though Copy Alerts has had much of its ideal functionality replaced by newer services, including FairShare, it still remained a viable service for static pages without RSS support.

Copy Alerts replaced an earlier Copyscape-like search service entitled Bitscan, which used a different methodology than Copyscape and returned different, but still relatively valid results.

Though it doesn’t seem many people were using Copy Alerts, it was still a very interesting service that filled a good niche in this field. It is sad to see it go.

(Note: After writing this article, I am thinking about creating a static page for this site that highlights the list of plagiarism detection applications and services and would be updated as new services opened/closed. Do you have any thoughts on that? Do you think there would be enough interest?)