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
-
Updating Content - Make changes to current URL or create a new one?
I'm working with a content team on a job search guide for 2019. We already have a job search guide for 2018. Should we just edit the content of the job search guide for 2018 to make it current for 2019, which means the job search guide for 2018 would not exist anymore or should we keep the 2018 guide and just create a new web page for the 2019 guide that way both exist. We currently rank very well for the 2018 job search guide.
Content Development | | Olivia9541 -
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 -
Network of small sites or one large site
Hi there, I am taking a group of mums through how to set up a blog and how to build up traffic to that blog. Should I suggest that we all blog on the same domain so www.dsdsds.com/myblogname or get them to set up their own domains. My aim is for everyone to support each other, share and link content so would it be more powerful if they were all on different domains or on the same one? Would love some insight as it is something I just can not get my head around this part. Thank you so very very much 🙂
Content Development | | vcasebourne0 -
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 -
Multiple Domains pointing to one site?
Due to takeovers, different strategies and a certain amount of historical lack of control, we have a dozen sites covering many different specialist areas of our business. To make things easier to manage, we are thinking of merging website content, then repointing some of the domains to the new section within the larger website. The content on each site is all different, but the subject matter is sometimes the same.This will make content, design and management much easier. We propose to choose the best content, then repoint the underperforming domains. Is there an seo risk of having many domains pointing to one site?
Content Development | | GardenGamer0 -
Advice Needed Just Dropped From PR 8 to PR6 - What Do I Do
Hi SEOMoz, I am the GM of http://www.scoop.co.nz Today (or possibly yesterday) we dropped from PR 8 to PR6. Have we been penalised by Panda 2? If so what do we do? I have seen posts about seeking a reconsideration, or something but do not know who to contact or what to ask. best regards
Content Development | | althecat0 -
Displaying archive content articles in a writers bio page
My site has writers, and each has their own profile page (accessible when you click their name inside an article). We set up the code in a way that the bios, in addition to the actual writer photo/bio, would dynamically generate links to each article he/she produces. Figured that someone reading something by Bob Smith, might want to read other stuff by him. Which was fine, initially. Fast forward, and some of these writers have 3,4, even 15 pages of archives, as the archive system paginates every 10 articles (so www.example.com/bob-smith/archive-page3, etc) My thinking is that this is a bad thing. The articles are likely already found elsewhere in the site (under the content landing page it was written for, for example) and I visualize spiders getting sucked into these archive black holes, never to return. I also assume that it is just more internal mass linking (yech) and probably doesnt help the overall TOS/bounce/exit, etc. Thoughts?
Content Development | | EricPacifico0