Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Sites Copying my Content Ranking Higher
-
A number of sites are copying - either 100% word for word, paragraphs, or sentences of my content and are ranking higher.
Some sites are doing this with permission/properly and are linking back to my article Others are not linking back or giving credit.
Some of these sites, in some cases are ranking higher than me in Google results.
What can I do?
-
It will make an impact. I have had authorship set up for months now and it has made a difference to click-throughs. Basically I have more traffic now than before. And I believe this is partly due to the photo in the SERPs.
We put an authorship plugin together for WordPress as we needed to implement authorship on our own sites and client sites. It's free - you can try it if you feel you can't or don't want to do it manually. http://www.authorsure.com.
-
Ben, you can read this thread.
-
Thanks. Is that an automatic thing if I meet the guidelines? Cant see how to sign up for it..
-
Take a look at First Click Free from google.
-
Thanks.
I'm going to try to set up the author profiles and see what happens with that. I gain something from most of the people sharing my content (not as much as I lose from them ranking above me) so I'd rather just find a way to get myself above them 9 times out of 10 and that seems like a great option. Hopefully that will reduce any impact of Panda changes?
-
Hi EGOL,
I am having the same issue also, these websites are not out ranking me for a particular keyword, however if I copy and paste the first few paragraphs of text into Google on one of my product pages lots of other websites are above my listing that has copied my content, even though my page has higher authority and PR.
Should I be worrying about this?
Kind Regards
-
do a search for "wp content protect", you'll have to be cautios because those plugins can harm your seo strategy.
-
Agreed, he needs to evolve a strategy that is based on 2 things:
a) Claiming authorship of his original content
b) Devising ways to prevent content theft
At the same time, if his site was inflicted with a Panda-penalty, he will make a lot of gains using authorship.
-
One of the easiest ways for you to rank higher than those sites would be to setup author profiles and claim yourself as the author of the original content.
I believe that this is a very good idea. However, I am confident that it will not solve the problem. Google is not giving strong weight to claimed authorship at this time.
Your strongest weapon is DMCA actions and to stop giving others permission to use your content.
Your site could be suffering from Panda ranking reductions as a result of your own content being wild on the web.
-
Ok. Thanks... you think this would make a big impact in general with search engine results?
-
That is correct.
-
Headshot and real persons name?
Thx
-
It wont work without a proper headshot.
-
But is there a way to set it so that it wont show my name/picture?
Thanks
-
The author profile is just a way to authenticate yourself to Google. If you have the ability to set profiles for other people of your company, you should be fine.
-
Can I do author profile without using my name? I have stuff written by other people/don't include my name on the site.
-
It must look different where you are. I get the exact match domain, haaretz.com, then a couple of copies of mine, and then mine.
I'll look at the author profile.
-
There is not a simple solution for your particular case. Your site ranks below an exact match domain and another site that is haaretz.com. It would be very difficult to rank above chriscornell.com as it is an exact match domain.
Haaretz.com has a domain authority of 91, while your site's domain authority is 40. Until you tell the search engines that the content posted on haaretz.com is originally yours, it would seem difficult for your site to outrank haaretz.com
As a first step, I will setup an author profile using g+. That should give you more visits since your author profile information should include headshot as well.
Besides this, I don't thin there are many options that are available off the table. You will need to work on improving your site's overall authority.
-
Thanks. I'm using Wordpress, what would you suggest?
-
Thanks for the reply. The site url is www.touristisrael.com and an example is if you Google:
"Chris Cornell in Israel" or
"Chris Cornell in Tel Aviv"
Do you mean author profiles on Google +?
-
Do you mind sharing your site's URL? One of the easiest ways for you to rank higher than those sites would be to setup author profiles and claim yourself as the author of the original content. It would be a way to tell Google that it's your content.
It may take a few weeks time for things to settle down.
-
Try using some plugins to protect your content if you're using any cms, it's not enough but it's a start...
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Content in Accordion doesn't rank as well as Content in Text box?
Does content rank better in a full view text layout, rather than in a clickable accordion? I read somewhere because users need to click into an accordion it may not rank as well, as it may be considered hidden on the page - is this true? accordion example: see features: https://www.workday.com/en-us/applications/student.html
Technical SEO | | DigitalCRO1 -
Help Setting Up 301 Redirects from Coldfusion Site to Wordpress Site.
I have created a new website and need to redirect all of the previous pages to the new one. The old website was built in coldfusion and the new site is built in wordpress. One of the pages I'm trying to redirect is www.norriseal.com/products.cfm to http://norrisealwellmark.com/products/. This is what I have in my .htaccess file <ifmodule mod_rewrite.c="">Options +FollowSymlinks
Technical SEO | | MarketHubb
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
Redirect 301 /products.cfm http://norrisealwellmark.com/products/</ifmodule> The result of this redirect is http://norrisealwellmark.com/products.cfm How do I prevent the .cfm from appending to the destination URL?1 -
Duplicate content on job sites
Hi, I have a question regarding job boards. Many job advertisers will upload the same job description to multiple websites e.g. monster, gumtree, etc. This would therefore be viewed as duplicate content. What is the best way to handle this if we want to ensure our particular site ranks well? Thanks in advance for the help. H
Technical SEO | | HiteshP0 -
Does my "spam" site affect my other sites on the same IP?
I have a link directory called Liberty Resource Directory. It's the main site on my dedicated IP, all my other sites are Addon domains on top of it. While exploring the new MOZ spam ranking I saw that LRD (Liberty Resource Directory) has a spam score of 9/17 and that Google penalizes 71% of sites with a similar score. Fair enough, thin content, bunch of follow links (there's over 2,000 links by now), no problem. That site isn't for Google, it's for me. Question, does that site (and linking to my own sites on it) negatively affect my other sites on the same IP? If so, by how much? Does a simple noindex fix that potential issues? Bonus: How does one go about going through hundreds of pages with thousands of links, built with raw, plain text HTML to change things to nofollow? =/
Technical SEO | | eglove0 -
Site not ranking in Google but comes up #1 in Yahoo and Bing
Hi everyone, I've been working on SEO for this site for about 2 years and for some reason the site has just tanked in google. However it shows up #1 in yahoo and bing for the same search. http://www.nfsmn.com Phrase: "commercial foundation repair mn" If anyone can shed some light on the issue I would really appreciate it. They do have a sister-site: american-waterworks.com that may be causing issues as they link a lot of content to amww but not the other way around. Thanks Eric
Technical SEO | | reynoldsdesign0 -
Redirecting Entire Microsite Content to Main Site Internal Pages?
I am currently working on improving site authority for a client site. The main site has significant authority, but I have learned that the company owns several other resource-focused microsites which are stagnant, but which have accrued significant page authority of their own (thought still less than the main site). Realizing the fault in housing good content on a microsite rather than the main site, my thought is that I can redirect the content of the microsites to internal pages on the main site as a "Resources" section. I am wondering a: if this is a good idea and b: the best way to transfer site authority from these microsites. I am also wondering how to organize the content and if, for example, an entire microsite domain (e.g. microsite.com) should in fact be redirected to internal resource pages (e.g. mainsite.com/resources). Any input would be greatly appreciated!
Technical SEO | | RightlookCreative1 -
What are the pros and cons of moving one site onto a subdomain of another site?
Two sites. One has weaker sales. What would the benefits and problems for SEO of moving the weak site from its own domain to a subdomain of the stronger site?
Technical SEO | | GriffinHansen0 -
Impact of 401s on Site Rankings
Will having 401s on a site negatively impact rankings? (e.g. 401s thrown from a social media sharing icon)
Technical SEO | | Christy-Correll0