Is Plagiarism Becoming A Norm In Web Design?

“Most plagiarists, like the drone, have neither taste to select, industry to acquire, nor skill to improve, but impudently pilfer the honey ready prepared, from the hive.”Walter Colton

The eminent writer was indeed right. Plagiarism once thought to be tough in the digital age is becoming a common phenomenon in writing and design. There are many bestseller authors and song composers who had been accused of copying ideas of other lesser-known artists. Sadly, the tentacles of plagiarism are now becoming visible in the web design field. Browse the web, and you will find some websites that have an uncanny similarity in terms of design layout. The best excuse that they will provide is this is just an incident of INSPIRATION!

So what is not acceptable?

Our professionals recently came across a website of a Bangalore-based IT training institute and its site design is entirely a copy of our sister company site-http://www.karmickinstitute.com/. We don’t think this could be just a case of inspiration. So, we are presenting the following facts to demonstrate the same. Please have a look.

Header

As you can see clearly, the header section of SKMTECHNOSOLZ INSTITUTE-the Bangalore based company has an uncanny resemblance with our sister website www.karmickinstitute.com. Whether it is the use of Olympic blue or the positioning of the contact information, logo and other prominent graphical elements, there is a visible similarity in the header design. Here, the lone standout element is their logo. Now isn’t this quite obvious?

Banner Slider

Next, comes the banner slider. It does not demand more than a glance to notice that it has the same colour palette-white, black and orange. It’s positioning to the left-hand side of the banner image make it even more similar to our banner slider. Ok, let’s ignore this because maybe the designers are highly inspired by our design, but can we deny the extreme plagiarism which they resorted to in the next section?

Body Content

Give a glance at their site and you will be shocked to see the kind of plagiarism that they have done in terms of content. The entire content of our home page has been copied without any changes. They have even paid no heed to the fact that they offer much more number of courses than our sister company-Karmick Institute.

Footer Section

Here comes the footer section in which SKMTECHNOSOLZ INSTITUTE has included the employer section just like we have done even before realizing that the employer text link is redirecting the visitor to the career page! Now, isn’t this too much?

Same images with our corporate logo!

Here they have crossed the ethical boundaries (if any) by using our sister company’s blog images. They have unfortunately forgotten to replace the logo of Karmick Institute with theirs. The worst is not yet over as in one of their blogs in the blog section, they have used our blog image as well as the title. Now how one can be so ignorant while plagiarising the content, images and everything that he or she is even ignoring the fact that their business is not based in Kolkata?

Domain age

The biggest question is establishing that it is indeed they who have resorted to plagiarism of our sister company’s content, web design, and images. So, here we present the screenshots of the results that we got when we inserted their URL and our sister company’s URL in the search bar. By checking the domain age, it is apparent that Karmick Institute is in the business for more than a decade while SKMTECHNOSOLZ INSTITUTE is a new kid on the block.

So, we are left wondering that is plagiarism becoming a norm in web design? Remember, if we all choose to stay mum, this can happen with you too. It is not just acceptable to let any other person reaping the benefits of your hard work. Please comment and share your views.

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