I may not like the answers I get to this question, but on the other hand, I can't afford to not ask it....

I am working on an affiliate marketing website. I have not yet posted it for reasons that will become clear momentarily.

Here is what I did to create the content for the home page:

1) I did a cut and paste of a site I liked.

2) I went through the copy and "re-worded" every single sentence. The content remains essentially the same, but no sentence has been used word-for-word.

3) I went through the text a second time, and deleted about 25% of the sentences, and replaced them with completely new ones off the top of my head.

I now have good, solid copy, but I'm still concerned about plagiarism. If I'm still too close to the line, I planned to pull content from one other, similar site, and go through the steps mentioned above, while interweaving all of the information together into my final work.

Here 'tis. Is what I have done plagiarism? If so, what additional steps might I take to ensure that I can never be accused of crossing that line? Modeling the success of others is one thing, but I don't ever want to be accused of stealing it.

Thanks for listening. I appreciate any and all responses, no matter what they may be. If the consensus is that I have not plagiarized, I'd be happy to post the site for opinions about it.

Mike Long