Scraped site, hijacked searches for business name.
-
Hello, I have a site that was scraped (possibly by a competitor's seo company), who then built links to the duplicate site. When people do a search for the name of the business the scraped site is all that comes up along with the usual third-party sites. They seem to take the site down and put it back up every couple of weeks to maintain the rankings in Google. Has anyone ever dealt with something like this? Any advice or recommendations would be appreciated.
Search: LIC Dental Associates
Scraped site: old-farmshow.net
Legit site: licdentalassociates.com
Thanks,
Emery
-
This might be a problem. If you submit a DMCA agaist a page and that DMCA is rejected, Google will often not accept a second attempt. This seems to be a problem with Google's DMCA system.
Good luck.
-
If the site goes live again, take screenshots. It looks like the site is hosted by Continuum Data Centers. (http://www.whoishostingthis.com/?q=old-farmshow.net). You could contact them with the screenshots and an explanation as to what is going on and they may remove the site.
If that doesn't work, I'd probably get an attorney involved.
Good luck!
-
Thanks Marie, I'll give that a try.
Update: The DMCA was rejected due to the site 404'ing.
-
Weird.
I would think that if most times when Google visits this page they get a 404 error they would eventually drop it from the index.
Hopefully the DMCA will be successful.
In the meantime, have you tried rewriting the content on your home page? It may be that Google thinks your page is a canonical of the old-farmshow site and is treating it as an inferior site.
Usually Google is pretty good at figuring out what your brand name is, but your page only contains the phrase "LIC Dental Associates" in the title tag and then in the footer. I'd suggest adding a paragraph of content at the top of the page that has an H1 tag saying, "LIC Dental Associates" and then a paragraph that explains concisely what you offer. Be sure to put a few keywords in that paragraph, but don't keyword stuff it. Also mention the brand once or twice in the copy of the page as well.
I'd also change up the wording on the rest of the page significantly so that Google doesn't think it's a duplicate of the fake one.
Once you've done that, then I'd fetch and render using Google Search Console and submit the page to the index. I'm betting that will do the trick.
-
No, it has been a 404 whoever did this puts the site back up every couple of weeks and the rest of the time it's a 404. That's been the main frustration with this whole thing.
-
Looks like you succeeded! I'm seeing a 404 error when I click on the old-farmshow site.
-
Nice work! Hope it kills those weasels.
-
Thanks for the response. Our DCMA request is currently under review, I have also submitted complaints to the domain registrar along with submitting the SERP for removal through GSC since the site is currently down. So far everything is pending/under review and it's all moving at a snails pace...
-
If I owned copyright to the pages that they have scraped, I would use my Google DMCA Dashboard to file DMCA complaints against all of the pages on their site where my content is being used in violation of copyright.
https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/dmca-dashboard
If you are not familiar with DMCA it would be good to review your plans with an attorney before taking action. After consulting with an attorney we started filing DMCAs at scale against people who were using our content. The results have been positive.
If they are using Adsense, I would file complaints there too, and possibly with their hosting.
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
-
Is new domian redirection to old domain make risk for my site ?
i have site with Da about 30 and i have many project on it if i register a domain for each project and after that redirect to my site is that bad for my site and my site seo ? for ex: my project is : mysite.com/helloword i register helloworld.com or domain like that helllo-world.com and redirctet to mysite.com/helloworld
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | MidnightShop791 -
Site redesign what to consider to avoid any issues
Hi GUYS I want to avoid getting myself into a bad situation with google, so I'm just wanting to know if there are any steps I would need to take whilst I'm redesigning and developing my site as I'm currently deploying our new designs. One thing I noticed, i have my new designs and content on our development server to run through any checks before deploying it to the live environment, however while our live site is up, I have duplicate content on the live site that exactly matches the dev site for obvious reasons but do I need to tell google that the dev site is for development purposes only so google knows I'm not duplicating content? I have searched around to find some more info about this, if anyone has some insight i would be glad to know your thoughts. Thank you in advance
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | edward-may0 -
Competitors Linking to My Site
One of the more successful competitors in my niche has embarked on new strategy that seems to be working well for him. I noticed that many new links began to appear to my site from my competitor's stable of many websites. It appears that he has setup a link wheel to benefit a site that has been in the top Google position for several months now. The rim of the wheel links back to authority sites, including my own main site (established 7 years, now hanging on to the lowly 10th place on the serp). So the strategy seems to be: a) create a dozen sites that no-follow link back to authority sites including competitors, b) place links in a such a manner (bottom of page, uncolored links, from images) that a customer is unlikely to ever click on it, c.) do-follow to your own site and blast it to the top of Google. I don't think this competitor is worried about getting penalized. I've been watching this for years. When one site gets burned, he just shifts things around and brings up another one of his sites. He seems to age them for years, calling them up one by one as they are needed. Has anyone else noticed this? Is it a trend? Because it sure seems to work. He's crowded the front page now with 4 of his sites. Would it be appropriate for me to "disavow" his links? Would it matter?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | DarrenX0 -
Where is the rule here that forces any home page URLs that include several versions of explicit page name references, such as default.htm or index.html, to redirect to the canonical homepage?
RewriteRule ^search/([a-zA-Z0-9,-]+)/sort-([a-z0-9-]+)/(1)?$ /search/$1/sort-$2 [R=301]
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | esiow2013
RewriteRule ^search/([a-zA-Z0-9,-]+)/sort-([a-z0-9-]+)((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=search&q=$1&page=$5&sort=$2 [L]
RewriteRule ^search/([a-zA-Z0-9,-]+)/(1)?$ /search/$1 [R=301]
RewriteRule ^search/([a-zA-Z0-9,-]+)((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=search&q=$1&page=$4 [L]
RewriteRule ^([r|R])-([0-9]+)((-)([0-9a-zA-Z-]+))?$ index.php?cmd=propertyPage&id=$2&group=1 [L]
RewriteRule ^([s|S])-([0-9]+)((-)([0-9a-zA-Z-]+))?$ index.php?cmd=propertyPage&id=$2&group=2 [L]
RewriteRule ^reset-password$ index.php?cmd=retrievePassword [L]
RewriteRule ^reset-password/([0-9]+)/([a-zA-Z0-9]+)$ index.php?cmd=retrievePassword&act=retrievePasswordConfirm&code=$1&key=$2 [L]
RewriteRule ^map-page.php$ index.php?cmd=mapPage [L]
RewriteRule ^advertise.php$ index.php?cmd=advertiseWithUs [L]
RewriteRule ^my-account.php$ index.php?cmd=protectedMyAccount [L]
RewriteRule ^bookmarked-properties(/((R|S)-([0-9]+)))?$ index.php?cmd=protectedBookmarkedProperties&id=$2 [L]
RewriteRule ^bookmarked-properties/([0-9]+)$ index.php?cmd=protectedBookmarkedProperties&page=$1 [L]
RewriteRule ^bookmarked-properties/delete/([0-9,]+)$ index.php?cmd=protectedBookmarkedProperties&act=protectedBookmarkedProperties_delete&id=$1 [L]
RewriteRule ^register.php$ index.php?cmd=register [L]
RewriteRule ^about-us.php$ index.php?cmd=aboutUs [L]
RewriteRule ^news(/([0-9]+)(.*))?$ index.php?cmd=news&id=$2&title=$3 [L]
RewriteRule ^registration/confirm/key=([a-zA-Z0-9]{150})/code=([a-zA-Z0-9]{5})$ index.php?cmd=register&act=registerConfirm&key=$1&code=$2 [L]
RewriteRule ^terms-and-conditions.php$ index.php?cmd=termsAndConditions [L]
RewriteRule ^privacy-policy.php$ index.php?cmd=privacyPolicy [L]
RewriteRule ^contact-us.php$ index.php?cmd=contactUs [L]
RewriteRule ^sitemap.php$ index.php?cmd=siteMap [L]
RewriteRule ^members/login.php$ login.php [L]
RewriteRule ^rss$ index.php?cmd=rss [L]
RewriteRule ^resources.php$ index.php?cmd=links [L]
RewriteRule ^links.php$ /resources.php [R=301]
RewriteRule ^resources2.php$ index.php?cmd=links2 [L]
RewriteRule ^results.php$ index.php?cmd=results [L]
RewriteRule ^residential-properties((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsRoot&mainDivision=1&page=$3 [L]
RewriteRule ^commercial-properties((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsRoot&mainDivision=2&page=$3 [L]
RewriteRule ^short-term-rentals((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsRoot&mainDivision=1&str=1&page=$3 [L]
RewriteRule ^buy((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsRoot&group=2&page=$3 [L]
RewriteRule ^rent((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsRoot&group=1&page=$3 [L]
RewriteRule ^short-term-rentals/([a-z_-]+)/sort-([a-z0-9-]+)((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsMain&mainDivision=1&country=$1&str=1&sort=$2&page=$5 [L]
RewriteRule ^short-term-rentals/([a-z_-]+)/([a-z_-]+)/([a-z_-]+)/sort-([a-z0-9-]+)((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsMain&mainDivision=1&country=$1®ion=$2&city=$3&str=1&sort=$4&page=$7 [L]
RewriteRule ^short-term-rentals/([a-z_-]+)/([a-z_-]+)/([a-z_-]+)/([a-z_-]+)/sort-([a-z0-9-]+)((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsMain&mainDivision=1&country=$1®ion=$2&city=$3&area=$4&str=1&sort=$5&page=$8 [L]
RewriteRule ^short-term-rentals/([a-z_-]+)/([a-z_-]+)/([a-z_-]+)/([a-z_-]+)((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsMain&mainDivision=1&country=$1®ion=$2&city=$3&area=$4&str=1&page=$7 [L]
RewriteRule ^short-term-rentals/([a-z_-]+)/([a-z_-]+)/([a-z_-]+)((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsMain&mainDivision=1&country=$1®ion=$2&city=$3&str=1&page=$6 [L]
RewriteRule ^short-term-rentals/([a-z_-]+)((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsMain&mainDivision=1&country=$1&str=1&page=$4 [L]
RewriteRule ^rent/residential-properties/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z,()0-9-]+)/sort-([a-z0-9-]+)((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsMain&mainDivision=1&country=$1®ion=$2&city=$3&area=$4&sort=$5&group=1&page=$8 [L]
RewriteRule ^buy/residential-properties/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z,()0-9-]+)/sort-([a-z0-9-]+)((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsMain&mainDivision=1&country=$1®ion=$2&city=$3&area=$4&sort=$5&group=2&page=$8 [L]
RewriteRule ^lease/commercial-properties/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z,()0-9-]+)/sort-([a-z0-9-]+)((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsMain&mainDivision=2&country=$1®ion=$2&city=$3&area=$4&sort=$5&group=1&page=$8 [L]
RewriteRule ^buy/commercial-properties/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z,()0-9-]+)/sort-([a-z0-9-]+)((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsMain&mainDivision=2&country=$1®ion=$2&city=$3&area=$4&sort=$5&group=2&page=$8 [L]
RewriteRule ^rent/residential-properties/([a-z_-]+)/sort-([a-z0-9-]+)((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsMain&mainDivision=1&country=$1&sort=$2&group=1&page=$5 [L]
RewriteRule ^buy/residential-properties/([a-z_-]+)/sort-([a-z0-9-]+)((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsMain&mainDivision=1&country=$1&sort=$2&group=2&page=$5 [L]
RewriteRule ^lease/commercial-properties/([a-z_-]+)/sort-([a-z0-9-]+)((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsMain&mainDivision=2&country=$1&sort=$2&group=1&page=$5 [L]
RewriteRule ^buy/commercial-properties/([a-z_-]+)/sort-([a-z0-9-]+)((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsMain&mainDivision=2&country=$1&sort=$2&group=2&page=$5 [L]
RewriteRule ^rent/residential-properties/([a-z_-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z,()0-9_-]+)((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsMain&mainDivision=1&country=$1®ion=$2&city=$3&area=$4&group=1&page=$7 [L]
RewriteRule ^buy/residential-properties/([a-z_-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z,()0-9_-]+)((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsMain&mainDivision=1&country=$1®ion=$2&city=$3&area=$4&group=2&page=$7 [L]
RewriteRule ^lease/commercial-properties/([a-z_-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z,()0-9_-]+)((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsMain&mainDivision=2&country=$1®ion=$2&city=$3&area=$4&group=1&page=$7 [L]
RewriteRule ^buy/commercial-properties/([a-z_-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z,()0-9_-]+)((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsMain&mainDivision=2&country=$1®ion=$2&city=$3&area=$4&group=2&page=$7 [L]
RewriteRule ^rent/residential-properties/([a-z_-]+)((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsMain&mainDivision=1&country=$1&group=1&page=$4 [L]
RewriteRule ^buy/residential-properties/([a-z_-]+)((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsMain&mainDivision=1&country=$1&group=2&page=$4 [L]
RewriteRule ^lease/commercial-properties/([a-z_-]+)((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsMain&mainDivision=2&country=$1&group=1&page=$4 [L]
RewriteRule ^buy/commercial-properties/([a-z_-]+)((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsMain&mainDivision=2&country=$1&group=2&page=$4 [L]
RewriteRule ^rent/residential-properties/([a-z,-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z,()0-9_-]+)((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsMain&mainDivision=1&country=$2®ion=$3&city=$4&area=$5&category=$1&group=1&page=$8 [L]
RewriteRule ^buy/residential-properties/([a-z,-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z,()0-9_-]+)((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsMain&mainDivision=1&country=$2®ion=$3&city=$4&area=$5&category=$1&group=2&page=$8 [L]
RewriteRule ^lease/commercial-properties/([a-z,-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z,()0-9_-]+)((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsMain&mainDivision=2&country=$2®ion=$3&city=$4&area=$5&category=$1&group=1&page=$8 [L]
RewriteRule ^buy/commercial-properties/([a-z,-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z,()0-9_-]+)((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsMain&mainDivision=2&country=$2®ion=$3&city=$4&area=$5&category=$1&group=2&page=$8 [L]
RewriteRule ^rent/residential-properties/([a-z,-]+)/([a-z()-]+)((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsMain&mainDivision=1&country=$2&category=$1&group=1&page=$5 [L]
RewriteRule ^buy/residential-properties/([a-z,-]+)/([a-z()-]+)((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsMain&mainDivision=1&country=$2&category=$1&group=2&page=$5 [L]
RewriteRule ^lease/commercial-properties/([a-z,-]+)/([a-z()-]+)((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsMain&mainDivision=2&country=$2&category=$1&group=1&page=$5 [L]
RewriteRule ^buy/commercial-properties/([a-z,-]+)/([a-z()-]+)((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsMain&mainDivision=2&country=$2&category=$1&group=2&page=$5 [L]
RewriteRule ^rent/([a-z,-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z()0-9_-]+)/sort-([a-z0-9-]+)((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsMain&group=1&country=$2®ion=$3&city=$4&area=$5&category=$1&sort=$6&page=$9 [L]
RewriteRule ^buy/([a-z,-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z()0-9_-]+)/sort-([a-z0-9-]+)((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsMain&group=2&country=$2®ion=$3&city=$4&area=$5&category=$1&sort=$6&page=$9 [L]
RewriteRule ^rent/([a-z,-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/sort-([a-z0-9-]+)((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsMain&group=1&country=$2®ion=$3&city=$4&category=$1&sort=$5&page=$8 [L]
RewriteRule ^buy/([a-z,-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/sort-([a-z0-9-]+)((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsMain&group=2&country=$2®ion=$3&city=$4&category=$1&sort=$5&page=$8 [L]
RewriteRule ^rent/([a-z,-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z()-]+)((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsMain&group=1&country=$2®ion=$3&city=$4&area=$5&category=$1&page=$8 [L]
RewriteRule ^buy/([a-z,-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z()-]+)((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsMain&group=2&country=$2®ion=$3&city=$4&area=$5&category=$1&page=$8 [L]
RewriteRule ^rent/([a-z,-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z()-]+)((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsMain&group=1&country=$2®ion=$3&city=$4&category=$1&page=$7 [L]
RewriteRule ^buy/([a-z,-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/([a-z()-]+)((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsMain&group=2&country=$2®ion=$3&city=$4&category=$1&page=$7 [L]
RewriteRule ^rent/([a-z,-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/sort-([a-z0-9-]+)((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsMain&group=1&country=$2&category=$1&sort=$3&page=$6 [L]
RewriteRule ^buy/([a-z,-]+)/([a-z()-]+)/sort-([a-z0-9-]+)((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsMain&group=2&country=$2&category=$1&sort=$3&page=$6 [L]
RewriteRule ^rent/([a-z,-]+)/([a-z()-]+)((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsMain&group=1&country=$2&category=$1&page=$5 [L]
RewriteRule ^buy/([a-z,-]+)/([a-z()-]+)((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsMain&group=2&country=$2&category=$1&page=$5 [L]
RewriteRule ^rent/([a-z()-]+)((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsMain_categories&mainDivision=1&country=$1&group=1&page=$4 [L]
RewriteRule ^buy/([a-z()-]+)((/)([0-9]+))?$ index.php?cmd=divisionsMain_categories&mainDivision=1&country=$1&group=2&page=$4 [L]0 -
Is guest posting good for main link-building tactic for eCommerce site
Hello, Is guest posting going to be devalued? We've been offering a guest post with one link in the body pointing towards one of our articles, and one home page link in the bio. We're looking at doing this as the main link building strategy. Is this still a good idea now and in the future? Thanks!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | BobGW0 -
Is one of my competitors trying to get my site penalized?
Hi guys, I have been ranking #2 for a popular search term for several months now, and today I noticed a drop to #5, so I went to check my backlink profile, and I'm seeing thousands of no-follow exact keyword matched backlinks, all from spammy looking websites. I looked at some of the links and they do link to me, but I didn't generate these links, and I have never paid anybody externally to build links for me. What is the best course of action for me here? link disavow tool?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | davegill0 -
Indexing search results
One of our competitors indexes all searches performed by users on their site. They automatically create new pages/ new urls based on those search terms. Is it black hat technique? Do search engines specifically forbid this?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | AEM131