hey guys, i was just wondering. Im planning on getting an independant 3rd party to design a very simple website for me..... I was wondering once i recieve the final version of the site, is there a way that i can check if the website design or website as a whole was plagiarized (ie: is a copycat of another site) Thank you.

The only way to tell if it was plagarized would be if they are sloppy enough to leave another sites information in the source code. Otherwise, you would just have to come across the site on the web.

If you are checking to see if anyone has any content like yours you could use copyscape.com.

As for design it would be tough unless you stumbled upon the site. But I would check new websites in your niche from time to time to see if anyone has ripped the design.

Skinny

Depending on how simple it is, it may be impossible. Simple stuff is everywhere, and the less complex it is, the more likely it becomes that someone happens to have the exact same (or a similar) layout/website concept as you without ever having planned it.

If you're that worried about originality, add more functionality to the site and let the design flow from it.