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.
Stolen Content reposted on other sites. How does this affect ranking?
-
Visitors often copy and paste my content and post it elsewhere... on Facebook, on Tumblr, on forums and sometimes on competing websites... but they don't link to me.
How does Google treat this duplicated content?
What is the best way to handle it? File DCMA claims or ask them for a link?
-
JVRudnick, your story reminds me of this cool new site you can use to see whether the NSA are watching you: http://AreTheNSAWatchingMe.com/.
Also reminds me of the T-shirt I wore yesterday.
-
As usual, Egol perfectly answered...but thought I'd just add....
That just a year ago, I did file a DMCA and eventually wound up (honest!) talking to someone from Homeland Security in the US as the firm I was after apparently was being "watched!" While I do believe we're all being watched, that experience did worry me a bit...
My content was taken down - but by the .gov of the firm in which the owners of same lived - least that's the answer I got...if you can trust that anything you hear from the ones in charge is believeable.... <knocks on="" desk="">testing testing...you guys still listening in???
:-)</knocks>
-
I think Egol has covered it.
We recently did a DMCA, and it was really quick. Our case was cut and dried though, we're financial services so have to hold a record of everything we publish for our regulator so it was really easy to prove. I did dob the other company in to iStock photo as well though because they are still showing an image we paid for and it's cropped exactly the same as the way our designer did it so we can only assume the other company did steal it.
-
As long as it wasn't that boss of yours forcing you to work!
-
This question was about one of my personal rants. I couldn't help myself.
-
It's Labor Day weekend. Shouldn't you be chasing down a BBQ grill and a beer instead of Q&A questions EGOL?
Appreciate your thoughtful answers on a holiday weekend!
-
Visitors often copy and paste my content and post it elsewhere...
Congratulations! You must have great content!
... but they don't link to me.
Those weasels!
This happens with my content a lot. It makes me mad.
How does Google treat this duplicated content?
They claim that they know where the content originated, but they are either overestimatin' their abilities or just lyin' about them. Some people will argue in Google's favor but they don't know what they are talkin' about. (If you are one of these people, I'll not argue with you, you can keep belivin' it. I know I am right.)
What is the best way to handle it? File DCMA claims or ask them for a link?
These weasels probably don't have public whois and no contact info on their website. If they do have contact info on their website it is probably phony.
If you can send them a message (and a human reads it) the message will probably be ignored, maybe even laughed at. If you get a reply it will probably be the verbal equivalent of being flipped off. Some people just don't understand copyright. Some people understand copyright or are located where they can abuse the copyright of people in your country. They have built a business out of stealing your content and mine. They often have thousands of websites with your content and mine. They are making tons of munny.
If you file a DCMA, you better have absolute knowledge that the content truly belongs to you and that they are not displaying it under a valid "fair use", because they can sue you if you play this the wrong way.
The remaining people who steal your content, just don't know that they are stealing. They think that anything on the web is fair game. A lot of the stolen content is on legit websites. They hired an SEO who hired someone else, in a country where copyright is not thought about, and they grabbed your content, slapped it on somebody's website and said that they wrote it just for the client.
Good luck. Be careful. Find a way to keep the blood pressure down. Buy a punchin' bag. My experience is, chasing weasels only gets you tired, most of them are only out after dark and you will never find them.
So, you can see that I think that this is harmful and it is really hard to do anything about it.
ADDED: Got so busy in my rant I forgot to answer....
How does this affect ranking?
If you have a healthy, vigorous site, having a few pieces of stolen content on other websites will probably not hurt you if they are weak websites. However, it can tank your rankings if the content is on strong websites - stronger than yours. Also, it can kill your rankings if it is on lots of weak websites.
Examples:
I was selling some products that were made in China. My content got grabbed by hundreds of Chinese websites publishing in English. My rankings tanked. Tanked. The result was that I gave thousands of dollars worth of outdoor gear to Goodwill.
I had several articles about commodities (like what is traded on exchanges). They ranked in the top three of google for searches on those commodities. Tens of thousands (I am not joking) of spam commodities websites grabbed my articles or pieces of my articles and republished them. My articles disappeared from google even though I had held those great rankings for a couple of years and they were on PR6 pages. Fortunately, they have recently returned to good rankings and I am making money from them again but lost great revenue for a couple of years.
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
-
site speed
i use mid-quality pic and... but my site speed is low
On-Page Optimization | | zlbvasgabc
any suggestion?
my site is:
https://bandolini.ir/0 -
Canonical: Same content but different countries
I'm building a website that has content made for specific countries. The url format is: MyWebsite.com/<country name="">/</country> Some of the pages for <specific url="">are the same for different countries, the <specific url="">would be the same as well. The only difference would be the <country name="">.</country></specific></specific> How do I deal with canonical issues to avoid Google thinking I'm presenting the same content?
On-Page Optimization | | newbyguy0 -
Does using Yoast variables for meta content overwrite any pages that already have custom meta content?
The question is about the Yoast plugin for WP sites. Let's say I have a site with 200 pages and custom meta descriptions / title tags already in place for the top 30 pages. If I use the Yoast variable tool to complete meta content for the remaining pages (and make my Moz issue tracker look happier), will that only affect the pages without custom meta descriptions or will it overwrite even the pages with the custom meta content that I want? In this situation, I do want to keep the meta content that is already in place on select pages. Thanks! Zack
On-Page Optimization | | rootandbranch0 -
Will changing a URL negatively affect ranking?
Hello Mozzers, We would like to change the URL for a page on our website which ranks well for some our keyphrases/words. We are hoping the change of URL, through the addition of an additional keyword would help boost the rank of that URL further. At the moment out page gets 2 x A and 2 x B 1xF on the MOZ page rank tool using 5 keyphrase/word variations . One phrase ranks 4, one ranks 3 and the other 3 are 'not in the top 50' Our plan was to change the URL, using SHF404, and use 'Fetch' in the Google search console to re-submit the page to Google. Appreciate you can't give any guarantees how Google will behave, just wondered what your thoughts were on the wisdom of changing the URL in the first place? Thanks Ian
On-Page Optimization | | Substance-create0 -
New site pages are indexed but not ranking for anything
I just built this site for a client http://primedraftarchitecture.com. It went live 3 weeks ago and the pages are getting indexed as per Webmaster Tools. But I'm not seeing it rank for anything. We're adding blog articles regularly and used Moz Local for local links and have been building links in other local directories (probably about 15 so far). Usually I get some rankings, although very low, after just a week or two for new sites. Does anyone see anything glaring that may be causing a problem?
On-Page Optimization | | DonaldS1 -
ECommerce Filtering Affect on SEO
I'm building an eCommerce website which has an advanced filter on the left hand side of the category pages. It allows users to tick boxes for colours, sizes, materials, and so on. When they've made their choices they submit (this will likely be an AJAX thing in a future release, but isn't at time of writing). The new filtered page has a new URL, which is made up of the IDs of the filter's they've ticked - it's a bit like /department/2/17-7-4/10/ My concern is that the filtered pages are, on the most part, going to be the same as the parent. Which may lead to duplicate content. My other concern is that these two URLs would lead to the exact same page (although the system would never generate the 'wrong' URL) /department/2/17-7-4/10/ /department/2/**10/**17-7-4/ But I can't think of a way of canonicalising that automatically. Tricky. So the meat of the question is this: should I worry about this causing issues with the SEO - or can I have trust in Google to work it out?
On-Page Optimization | | AndieF0 -
Best practice for franchise sites with duplicated content
I know that duplicated content is a touchy subject but I work with multiple franchise groups and each franchisee wants their own site, however, almost all of the sites use the same content. I want to make sure that Google sees each one of these sites as unique sites and does not penalize them for the following issues. All sites are hosted on the same server therefor the same IP address All sites use generally the same content across their product pages (which are very very important pages) *templated content approved by corporate Almost all sites have the same design (A few of the groups we work with have multiple design options) Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks Again Aaron
On-Page Optimization | | Shipyard_Agency0 -
Sister Sites or Joint Family?
A large News Media Group has a Tv Channel, print newspaper, radio channel (for music primarly) and an online website that includes the newspaper content and other original content in different media. My question is, is it better to have independant websites for these different mediums or have all the content on one big website. Currently the newspaper and blog are online as one whereas the radio channel has its own website and the television has its own. So should we maintain sister sites and cross link to each other or have one big happy family under one house? Best, Rishad.
On-Page Optimization | | RishadShaikh590
