Scraper Advice

[SafeNet_Interactive_Marketing]

Hi all,

I know we all deal with scraped content issues. I have one I could use advice on. I found a site that is posting our blog content on their site verbatim, including the links I added to the posts (which is good) and mention our blog home page in a right sidebar beside the content (also good). However, they aren't linking to the specific posts from their copied versions anywhere and their pages canonical back to their versions, not mine.

It's not a very spammy site and has a decent domain authority (though significantly lower than our own). I did a long tail search related to one of posts after discovering it, however, and found their version was outranking the original. I know I can report this one via Webmaster Tools.

I wanted to get your opinion on whether asking them to add a link back to the original post on our site might be sufficient, or do I need to ask for that plus a canonical tag update? I know getting both is ideal, but the links and relationship could be valuable, so I want to leave this particular bridge in tact if I can.

Just trying to decide if I take an "either/or" approach to my request when I mention those two action items, or if I need be a little firmer and ask them to do both and potentially risk losing a potential outlet for future content?

Thanks,

Andrew

[EGOL]

Don't second-guess on that myth that scrapers can't hurt you.  These guys are outranking you right now with your own content.  Proof enough to me that Kissmetrics needs to take notice and pull down false information.  Also, this is another clear example of Google not knowing how poorly their systsem is working and they know not that they know not.

Google would not be getting millions of DMCAs per week if they were right about this.  I've sent them hundreds.

[SafeNet_Interactive_Marketing]

Normally, I'd take that harder approach as well. If this was a spammy site that was doing nothing but scraping, I'd definitely be going that route. I still might. I'm trying to see the best way to walk a fine line.

I think #2 on Kissmetrics' 3 Myths About Duplicate Content has me second-guessing myself. If it wasn't a somewhat decent site that has potential to help in terms of referral traffic, it would be a no-brainer.

For the outranking issue, it's weird. For the main term we target, we are top 3 in the SERPs. Change it a little bit and they're ranking, which is the only instance of that I found when testing all posts (5 total).

Thanks for the feedback. I really appreciate it.

[EGOL]

What you do on your first step will set the tone for how they treat you in the future.  So, if you are too liberal now, it will be hard to reign them in and they could start grabbing everything that you own.

If this was my site being grabbed, I would be contacting them to take the content down and be prepared to follow up with an attorney who is already in place for this type of situation, being ready to submit DMCA to Google, Adsense, hosting and more.

If you feel that the relationship could be valuable and have a different philosophy than mine, then I would at minimum insist on the rel=canonical pointing back to the source of the content on my website - and I would require them to ask before they use anything in the future.  The fact that they are outranking you with your own content should have you shaking in your boots over this potential relationship.  You are making deals with Goliath.