Copycat websites
-
Hello,
Do you know if there is anything you can do against a copycat website?
By copycat I mean a website which uses our brand / domain name to steal our brand traffic.
The reason I ask is a new site recently launched with which is optimised to take some of our brand traffic:
Site tile - www.my<ourbrandname>.co.uk</ourbrandname>
Description - For when I need <ourbrandname></ourbrandname>
They gave no physical address or email addresses to funnel customers through an enquiry form which got me suspesious so when I checked the IP address in the MOZ Toolbar and did a WhoIs check on the IP address it brought up one of our main competitors websites.
Anyone got an experiences of this and know what can be done?
-
Hi Opt,
I'm going through old questions that are still unanswered in Q&A. Do you have an update for us of how this turned out? Anything that can be helpful to other people in the same situation? I'm curious to know what happened.
Thanks!
-
If they refuse to take it down we would adopt Lewis-SEO idea first, seems like the easiest and quickest route.
It's a shame situations like this arise really and there is no official way to deal with it. We wouldn't really go down the blackhat route but it is a good stick to use as an for them to stop.
That was an interesting read on the link (why would anyone refuse links in their T&Cs!?)
-
I should have said that Lewis-SEO offered some really good advice, mine was more a fallback (maybe a little bit before the blackhat option.
) if that failed.Yeah you could always reciprocate, then offer a ceasefire when things started to get daft.
Purely by chance (and I really don't put this forward as a serious option) this appeared on hacker news a few minutes ago and I thought it was quite a coincidence.
http://liveatthewitchtrials.blogspot.com/2011/03/search-engine-deoptimization.html
-
Thanks Tompt, ill check out those links to see what can be done but like you say I guessed the legal route would likely be costly although we may have to do it if he starts climbing up the rankings quickly.
Lewis-SEO contacting the webhost is a good idea, I have got their details and may give it a go.
As a quick update since posting originally our MD spoke to their owner who said he will consider taking it down on the threat of us doing the same to them (as we have more resources and with them having a unique, none keyword, name I guess that isnt a route they would choose) <seo wars="">:)</seo>
-
We're in the UK and took down a guy that was sitting on one of our domains (the then system admin had let it lapse) . It was incredibly costly (much more than just buying the domain from them was (but by that point he'd put the directors back up)). Ours was a different situation though, he was just squatting sending traffic to competitors, he wasn't a direct competitor.
Since we're discussing a .co.uk domain you can go to nominet and go through their dispute resolution service.
http://www.nominet.org.uk/disputes/
With this potentially useful section of the faq
http://www.nominet.org.uk/disputes/drs/faq/#rightstest
I can't offer you too much hope though, any legal stuff is always costly and often not worth the cost.
-
I'd kindly ask them to remove it with the veiled threat of legal action.
If they decline then I would approach their webhosts, which can often be worked out from the Whois record, and ask them to remove the offending site giving them the full details.
If none of that works then perhaps you could go blackhat on them (not that I would condone that)
-
Just did another whois from a different site using the domain name and the Registrant field states our competitors company name.
Guess we will have to call them and see what their reasoning is.
-
I think the first thing to do is contact your competitor (if you're certain is it they who are behind this) and ask them in a kind and open email to remove this kind of aggressive advertising. If they are unwilling to comply with this request, you might want to consider legal steps against them.
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
-
Can you recommend a Content Delivery Network for hosting 20 videos across the website?
We want to host multiple videos across our website and are considering which CDN provider to use, with an average of 18.8GB per month for visitors, we are considering the following companies, some offer a free trial. https://www.maxcdn.com/pricing/ http://www.cdn77.com/pricing https://www.cloudflare.com/plans Does anyone have any other recommendations regarding CDNs for video streaming or have experience in this area as any advice would be much appreciated.
Branding | | Muhammad-Isap0 -
Product expansion on website. Best practices for Retargeting Interior Pages with a high concern for brand.
For the past year, I've worked on a website that offered one product (Product 1). The homepage targeted both branded terms and the highest volume keywords for the one product. We've built a lot of strong links to the homepage using the natural variations of the targeted Keywords & the homepage ranks very well for these terms. The brand is now expanding its offerings to two products (Product 1 & 2). Thus necessitating the creation of two product subpages. I'm not concerned about ranking of Product 2's page, only Product 1. From a branding perspective, the homepage URL works wonderfully for the expanded offerings. And from an SEO perspective, offering two products allows me to target a very high volume group of keywords on the homepage that now makes more sense given the offerings. This new group of keywords will make even more sense if brand is able to roll out a 3rd product. The profitability of Product 1 & 2 are about the same. The profitability of potential product 3 is far greater 1+2 combined. Product 3 also has the most natural correlation with the group of KWs I plan to target on the homepage, i.e., I care more about the ranking of the homepage once Product 3 has launched. Product 3 will have its own interior product page as there is plenty of search volume for KWs specific to this product. I'm worried about hurting the rankings of the old product and URL confusion between the homepage & the to-be-created Product 1 page. I don't see myself having a lot of options. Options 301 - It does not make sense to 301 redirect the homepage to the Product 1 interior page. The homepage URL has strong branding and will be used in future marketing. I do not believe that I value the maintaining the rankings of Product 1 enough to push for making the new homepage example.com/home or similar to allow for the 301 redirect. Canonical - The content of the homepage will be changing, thus a rel=canonical to the Product 1 page does not make sense, nor does it make sense from a ranking perspective as I also want the homepage to rank for the new set of KWs I will be targeting The only real option I see is attempting to reach out to strong back links with Product 1 anchor text (or context) & asking them the switch the URL to the Product 1 interior page. Combine this with proper site-wide internal linking to the new Product 1 interior page & an anchor text link on the homepage to the new Product 1 interior page. Am I missing something? Am I dismissing either one of the above options too easily. Am I over-thinking this (yes probably)? Would love another set of eyes on this.
Branding | | 2uinc0 -
If someone leaves a review on a website, is there any way to syndicate this out to 3rd party review sites?
a client of mine receives loads and loads of review on their website but few on 3rd party review type sites. i want to be able to push reviews left on client site out to these other sites. is this possible?
Branding | | Christoffa0 -
Should I fix a high quality link when the website linking was complaining? What would you do?
While reviewing 404 errors in Webmaster Tools, I noticed that a client had a link from a high authority, well respected forum, to a page which no longer exists. When I checked out the linking post, it was from 2004 and showed a campaign against the company for it's advertising tactics. I'll spare the details but the company has since changed their ways. It's tempting to implement a 301 to get the link juice from this DA 80 post, but since the reason for the link is a negative one and the co-citations are not going to be positive, is it better to just let this link go? Or what about something more up-front, such as setting up a page which states the company's mission statement and commitment to quality and standards and 301 redirecting to there? Even if we let this link be broken, a potential customer could be put off, so it might be a good idea to address this past issue on site? Let me know your opinions on whether there is a way to benefit from this link or whether we are better off allowing the 404.
Branding | | McCannSEO0 -
Whar are the Keyword and Link Implications of renaming a Website
I'm about to change the name of a popular site classyauto.com to nationalvehicle.com. The reason for the name change is mainly because of the negative report on classyauto from years past. We've decided to rename the company to National Vehicle for that reason and other reasons. With that, the current site does not currently rank high for many of the natural organic niche keywords we want to target. But, it does have a good amount of links and traffic. I would like recommendations on the best method to rename the site including any ideas on what to do with existing directories, links, etc. efficiently and effectively. I would also like input on what NOT TO DO. Thanks in advance and any tools, tricks, or additional resources you can point me to would be greatly appreciated.
Branding | | JosephFrost0 -
Which industry has the HIGHEST % of awful looking websites! ??
I have an auto upholstery client that wants a new website and some SEO work done here locally. I take to Google to check out the competition in some other states to get a feel for whats other sites are doing and I just spent 30 minutes looking at 53 different websites and I swear not a one of them is worth $20 Have you run into any industries that historically have terrible websites? Have a great Christmas everybody! Matthew
Branding | | Mrupp440 -
Long term risks of using .org for commercial websites
Hi everybody, I'm having a 'heated' discussion with a collegae about .org domains. Originally .org domains were created for non-profit organizations and it was fairly difficult to get a .org domain ( like .gov and .edu still are). Nowadays it's easy to register a .org domain and i see plenty of commercial .org emd's ranking well. We are planning on launching a new white label in the Netherlands (.nl) and have several domains in our portfolio that we can us for this. I recommend using an exact match .org domain (.nl and .com are already taken) for the new white label www.exactkeyword.org. **My collegae says don't use www.exactkeyword.org, because we aren't a non-profit organizaton and we can't garantuee we won't lose our rankings over the next 3 to 4 years. He would recommend going with the available www.exact-keyword.info. ** Who right and who's wrong and why? Can i garantuee no risk with .org for a commercial organization?
Branding | | PrizeWize0 -
Using mlm and 'scammy' websites to identify brand/reputation management opportunities
I think this almost warrants a youmoz post, but I was wondering if anyone has used MLM or 'shady' industry companies to see where they place their reputation/brand links to dominate the first 2-3 pages of google for things like 'company name + scam' 'company name + reviews'. On a side note what is your opinion of a company that goes to great lengths to create a very strong push to control those keywords? Would you recommend your clients dominate the first 2-3 pages with 'honest review about company x' and 'the truth about company x' fakeditorials? Do you guys think people see right through them. Take any MLM..for instance legal shield scam (not my company, but an MLM that I am very wary of) as professionals what do you think of their reputation management build out......what do you think consumers would see when they read this? is there such a thing as going to far to refute false claims and building sponsored reviews? I'm personally against doing sponsored reviews and spamming with them, but maybe I am naive.
Branding | | ilyaelbert1