How Do You Monitor & Deal With Plagiarism Of Your Content?
-
Hi everyone - hope you can help.
I have an e commerce store with lots of products. I write unique, original content for all of the products we sell. I must be doing a good job because I repeatedly find my content being used in blogs, word press sites, and pay per posts which then link back to competitors. I have the standard free copyscape logo pasted a the bottom of each page - hasn't deterred anyone.
I'm now thinking about using some sort of a cookie based software and installing the code on each page so that when they lift my content and use it, it will send a link back to that page on my site. I have called numerous plagiarizers in the past and threatened to sue using the "Digital Millennium Copyright Act" phrase in the course of my conversation. It's tiresome. It's work. I am thinking after many years of frustration, that if I can't beat them I might as well try using this type of cookie based script/software approach to at least garner a link out it. And if the abuser catches it then maybe he'll stop mid stream and think twice about using...I mean copying my content.
Is using this type of cookie/link back to us script a good or a bad idea? How do you all prevent your unique, original content from being used? And finally, if I'm looking at this from a positive link building standpoint (meaning, maybe I'm looking at it from the wrong angle), what is the best practice for garnering a link from this type of ongoing occurrence?
-
Check out Tynt, use an auto-linking plugin, or periodically drop manual links within your content. That won't stop people from copying, but it will at least you links from lazy copiers.
-
Report it to Google using your Google Webmasters: http://www.google.com/support/bin/static.py?page=ts.cs&ts=1114905&hl=en
<a>What Google product does your request relate to? > Websearch</a>
Please specify the nature of your request > I have an issue not mentioned above that is legal in nature
Choose from the following options > I have found content that may violate my copyright
Are you the copyright owner or authorized to act on his/her behalf? > Yes, I am the copyright owner or am authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed
Okay, mark this question as answered and give me a thumbs up. Also, since I helped you out, return the favor by answering a question for someone else. Happy times!
-
Why not just add anchor text to your works so that you are farming links without work?
-
Hiding links in content using CSS used to be a good way to do just what you want - gain a free in bound link from a scraper. Nowadays, most scrapers will also strip out links so the value is not there (it can still happen).
There are services such as CopyScape that will automate the work of catching plagiarizers. From what you describe, that seems like the best solution. Without an automatic solution you will need to send off the DMCA requests by hand.
Another option would be to block the scrapers at the IP level. This takes some time and skill, but there are turn-key solutions available.
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 optimisation or Link Building first? Small clients & small budgets
Hi there. Apologies in advance for this long message! I have come from a large client-side SEO position where I had a small team of online marketers to assist in our SEO efforts. The effect was that we were able to work on link building and onsite optimisation at the same time and obviously give it 100% of our attention (and the website had very high DA and Trust). I have recently moved to a small agency where I am the sole SEO-Guy and my clients are small. I typically have no more than 8 hours to spend per month on all aspects of SEO (analysis, reporting, link building and content optimisation) per client and I have to strictly adhere to this. To make matters more difficult, these clients typically have weak back-link profiles (low in number and quality and all pointing to the home page) and poorly optimised content (which contributes to low DA & PR). I went through my first 'monthly process' for a particular client in September and focused my 8 hours on optimising the site content for a particular section of the website. This involved optimising meta titles & descriptions, body content and images for our chosen keywords. I didn't focus on links at all. I published the changes to the site on 23rd September. When I look at my rankings as of 6th October, one keyword in particular has dropped by 28 places (from 11 to 39) which seems excessive to me. In my mind, the changes I made were small, so this drop concerns me. The particular URL was ranking in position 11 for a keyword that I subsequently targeted to another (more relevant) page in the site. Both pages have the same MR, PA and links etc. I think I may have effectively cannibalised the keyword and to make matters worse, the new page isn't even in the top 50! Both pages are in the Google Index. So, this is my longwinded way of asking for your opinion on whether other SEOs in my position would recommend spending time on building the back link profile to strengthen DA and PR of deeper pages before you start making content optimisations (given I am unable to do them at the same time). It's tricky with small clients as they don't necessarily understand how long these things can take. Cheers! Laurie
Link Building | | Laurie-Tomahawk0 -
Content Marketing - Getting Webmaster to Link to Article
Hello, We're doing a niche article and we want to do a link building campaign around it. I'm not as interested in being linked to in resource sections - that will happen - but my question is for other links. What types of links am I looking for, is it guest posts - is that the best? If so, how do convince them to allow a guest post around an article? Thanks.
Link Building | | BobGW0 -
Moving content archive from a new blog to a mature content website?
I'm working with a publisher who has a young blog that is 6 mos old and is considering folding it and moving it's archive of content into a relavent, more mature website. This blog already has numerous links directing readers to this more mature website. My question is would it make more sense to leave the blog in place and continue to publish new posts and benefit from the link relationship with the mature website? Considering the blog is relatively new, would it matter much if we folded and moved it's archive?
Link Building | | accessintel0 -
Backlink's using duplicate content in article directories
I've had a link build report of all the links an SEO company have got us but a simple search for some of the content in Google with phrase match brings up about 3 pages of the same content posted to different article sites. I think it is doing something but will it just be penalised over time?
Link Building | | acs1110 -
Dealing with theft
Hi I paid for a listing on the page below about 3 months ago, I still haven't received a listing. Any suggestions on what sort of action to take? http://www.melbournedirectory.com.au/
Link Building | | dantmurphy0 -
Companies Copy Content with links
One of our customers has been getting a whole bunch of really relevant links recently as many of his competitors are actually going to his site copying the text from his page and forgetting to remove the links that are within the text. Its amazing we have links from major UK providers of his products totally for free. This is where linking to the actual page itself is coming into play and we are gaining good back links. Has anyone else experienced this before ?
Link Building | | onlinemediadirect0 -
How to Add Content to a Product-Focused Site
I recently took over management of the SEO work for the following site: http://www.grovercorp.com/rings-and-seals/. I want to do link building, but don't have a ton of experience with it. From what I've read, offering linkable content is the best way to get links. However, this site -- like many in industrial B-2-B -- is focused primarily on promoting their products. I'd like tto offer an article or add an infographic, but am not sure where I would put it? It doesn't seem like the architecture offers a good place to add linkable content. Anyone have thoughts or suggestions?
Link Building | | EricVallee340 -
Are "Content Farms" still good for backlinking in articles?
Out of morbid curiosity, are "Content Farms" still a good source to use for backlinking within articles that you share? I have yet to see some results to base an answer off of for myself. Some co-workers are wanting to utilize sites like Suite101, ArticlesBase, etc for sharing articles and gaining the benefit of getting some backlinks from these sites. Is this still a good tactic to utilize? My research is telling me no since the Panda Update... Anyone have any insight on this? Thanks!
Link Building | | TKIGWebTeam0