Copyright law. Sounds boring, right? Besides, what does copyright law have to do with search engine optimization and marketing? ...as it turns out, a lot more than you might realize.

As you know, we've long touted articles and other forms of content as a highly-effective way to attract traffic and links to your web site. After all, if you want someone to link to your site, you must give them something worthwhile to link to. Having lots of great content is a sure-fire way to get those links.

Mandatory Disclaimer While I hold several college degrees, none of them come from a law school. Thus, please be advised that this is not qualified legal advice and should not be regarded as such. Rather, the information in this report is drawn from the accumulated experience of an SEO who's had to deal with these issues and apply these techniques on a number of occasions to protect and enforce the copyright on a number of sites, including this one.

However, as soon as you begin adding that content to your site, you're likely to notice that other sites will begin to, uh, "borrow" that very same content you worked so hard to create. You'll find other sites reprinting your content on their own sites—often without a link back or even an acknowledgement of where they got it from. Aside from the unpleasant fact that they're presenting your hard work as their own without permission, this can also lead to duplicate content filter problems and perhaps even diminish the value of your content within your own site.

And it's not just articles that get used without permission. It's not uncommon to have ad copy, web pages, or even whole sections of your site reproduced by other...