Sites Copying my Content Ranking Higher

[ben1000]

A number of sites are copying - either 100% word for word, paragraphs, or sentences of my content and are ranking higher.

Some sites are doing this with permission/properly and are linking back to my article Others are not linking back or giving credit.

Some of these sites, in some cases are ranking higher than me in Google results.

What can I do?

[diywm]

It will make an impact. I have had authorship set up for months now and it has made a difference to click-throughs.  Basically I have more traffic now than before.  And I believe this is partly due to the photo in the SERPs.

We put an authorship plugin together for WordPress as we needed to implement authorship on our own sites and client sites.  It's free - you can try it if you feel you can't or don't want to do it manually.  http://www.authorsure.com.

[clotairedamy]

Ben, you can read this thread.

[ben1000]

Thanks. Is that an automatic thing if I meet the guidelines? Cant see how to sign up for it..

[clotairedamy]

Take a look at First Click Free from google.

[ben1000]

Thanks.

I'm going to try to set up the author profiles and see what happens with that. I gain something from most of the people sharing my content (not as much as I lose from them ranking above me) so I'd rather just find a way to get myself above them 9 times out of 10 and that seems like a great option. Hopefully that will reduce any impact of Panda changes?

[Paul78]

Hi EGOL,

I am having the same issue also, these websites are not out ranking me for a particular keyword, however if I copy and paste the first few paragraphs of text into Google on one of my product pages lots of other websites are above my listing that has copied my content, even though my page has higher authority and PR.

Should I be worrying about this?

Kind Regards

[clotairedamy]

do a search for "wp content protect",   you'll have to be cautios because those plugins can harm your seo strategy.

[avassa]

Agreed, he needs to evolve a strategy that is based on 2 things:

a) Claiming authorship of his original content

b) Devising ways to prevent content theft

At the same time, if his site was inflicted with a Panda-penalty, he will make a lot of gains using authorship.

[EGOL]

One of the easiest ways for you to rank higher than those sites would be to setup author profiles and claim yourself as the author of the original content.

I believe that this is a very good idea.  However, I am confident that it will not solve the problem.  Google is not giving strong weight to claimed authorship at this time.

Your strongest weapon is DMCA actions and to stop giving others permission to use your content.

Your site could be suffering from Panda ranking reductions as a result of your own content being wild on the web.

[ben1000]

Ok. Thanks... you think this would make a big impact in general with search engine results?

[avassa]

That is correct.

[ben1000]

Headshot and real persons name?

Thx

[avassa]

It wont work without a proper headshot.

[ben1000]

But is there a way to set it so that it wont show my name/picture?

Thanks

[avassa]

The author profile is just a way to authenticate yourself to Google. If you have the ability to set profiles for other people of your company, you should be fine.

[ben1000]

Can I do author profile without using my name? I have stuff written by other people/don't include my name on the site.

[ben1000]

It must look different where you are. I get the exact match domain, haaretz.com, then a couple of copies of mine, and then mine.

I'll look at the author profile.

[avassa]

There is not a simple solution for your particular case. Your site ranks below an exact match domain and another site that is haaretz.com. It would be very difficult to rank above chriscornell.com as it is an exact match domain.

Haaretz.com has a domain authority of 91, while your site's domain authority is 40. Until you tell the search engines that the content posted on haaretz.com is originally yours, it would seem difficult for your site to outrank haaretz.com

As a first step, I will setup an author profile using g+. That should give you more visits since your author profile information should include headshot as well.

Besides this, I don't thin there are many options that are available off the table. You will need to work on improving your site's overall authority.

[ben1000]

Thanks. I'm using Wordpress, what would you suggest?

[ben1000]

Thanks for the reply. The site url is www.touristisrael.com and an example is if you Google:

"Chris Cornell in Israel" or

"Chris Cornell in Tel Aviv"

Do you mean author profiles on Google +?

[avassa]

Do you mind sharing your site's URL? One of the easiest ways for you to rank higher than those sites would be to setup author profiles and claim yourself as the author of the original content. It would be a way to tell Google that it's your content.

It may take a few weeks time for things to settle down.

[clotairedamy]

Try using some plugins to protect your content if you're using any cms, it's not enough but it's a start...