We Just Found Out One Of Our Writers Has Been Plagiarizing - Now What?
-
I just found out one of the writers we employ has been simply copying and pasting content from other websites into our clients' websites. She's been doing this for about six weeks.
We are going to speak with our clients to apologize and let them know that the problem is being rectified, but my question is how to best address this issue from an SEO standpoint? I know that the content needs to be rewritten, but those links are now six weeks old - is it best to remove them altogether and start from scratch, or just rewrite the content under the old link?
Are there any steps that I'm missing to solve this?
-
Thanks for the input, I appreciate it!
-
There is no reason I know of to delete the pages. Just rewrite the content and make sure you have a valid sitemap. Things should be just fine.
-
Agreed - looks like you caught it fairly soon - so as long as you act fast you should be fine.
-
Hi Rachel,
My advice is to take a look at your analytics to see if the articles are generating traffic or links to the site. If they are, I would keep the same URL and just rewrite them. If the articles are not contributing traffic or links to the site, there's no harm in just removing them, then rewriting the articles and putting them on another URL.
Hope that helps!
-Trung
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
-
Write new articles or republish old ones?
Hi,
Content Development | | Enrico_Cassinelli
we run a tourism information website about a region in italy, and each year, during special occasions such as christmas, easter and so on we publish an article with a "what to do on Christmas / Easter / .... in the Langhe" (collecting events, activities, etc.). Is it better to "reuse" the old articles and change only the year in the title and of course the content (providing that we are gonna keep the URL without year), or to publish a new one? thanks!0 -
Why is the blog link so often found in the footer?
Hello, Can someone tell me please why are the links to a site's blog not displayed prominently? Why are they hidden away in the footer? Wouldn't making the link to the blog more visible increase traffic?
Content Development | | CyrusDariusXerxes0 -
Any recommended affordable content writer or services?
Any recommended affordable high quality content writer for Ayurveda health products website?
Content Development | | JordanBrown0 -
I need to hire writers.
Hi, I have a lot of websites that I am currently developing. Does anybody know of a website to find writers that are for hire. For example, I have websites that are focused on home related content, websites focused on the printing industry, websites focused on bugs...etc. Is there a website that I can post or hire writers that have various focuses and expertise? Any information or advice with this will be appreciated. Sincerely, Garret
Content Development | | eWebify0 -
Same content on site blog as a separate blog. Will unpublishing on one blog evade duplicate content issues?
I just discovered my client was posting the same content as the site I'm working on for him on a separate blog. I don't want to run into duplicate content issues. Both are Wordpress sites. Will it suffice to simply unpublish duplicate entries on the other blog and leave the posts as drafts?
Content Development | | locallyrank0 -
Any freelance writers with viral content / linkbait experience?
Looking for a great freelance writer to assist in creating linkbait and viral content pieces. Please contact me if you are, or know of, such a person. 🙂
Content Development | | AdamThompson0 -
Would you allow guest writers to have google adsense on your site
Hi, i am thinking of building a website where 30% of the writers would be guest bloggers and i was thinking about letting guest bloggers have adsense on the site. What i was thinking of doing was, allowing the guest blogger to have one google adsense advert on the page of the article but not sure what people think. The new magazine would be on one topic but i am worried incase the person kept on pressing the google adsense advert to get money in. The google adsense code would be there code, does anyone know if there is a way from hiding their code so they do not know which one is their google adsense advert, and do people think this is a good idea. This would only be offered to people who write good quality interest content. will be interested to hear your thoughts
Content Development | | ClaireH-1848860 -
The same phrase in many different pages of one site
Hi,
Content Development | | webg
Recently, I had to add the same phrase, with 15 words, nearly, in 700 posts in a same blog. In this phrase is written about the site ownership and eventually some links showing the posts sources. I thought in create a image, but it will be some variations in the source words (2 or 3), therefore I chose to use text format. I'd like to read some comments and opinions about this kind of insertion (the same phrase in many different pages of one site). For exemple, did you handle this in your site? Problems or benefits (mainly with indexing)? Special code to indicate in this case? Any threat?0