Scraped site, hijacked searches for business name.
-
Hello, I have a site that was scraped (possibly by a competitor's seo company), who then built links to the duplicate site. When people do a search for the name of the business the scraped site is all that comes up along with the usual third-party sites. They seem to take the site down and put it back up every couple of weeks to maintain the rankings in Google. Has anyone ever dealt with something like this? Any advice or recommendations would be appreciated.
Search: LIC Dental Associates
Scraped site: old-farmshow.net
Legit site: licdentalassociates.com
Thanks,
Emery
-
This might be a problem. If you submit a DMCA agaist a page and that DMCA is rejected, Google will often not accept a second attempt. This seems to be a problem with Google's DMCA system.
Good luck.
-
If the site goes live again, take screenshots. It looks like the site is hosted by Continuum Data Centers. (http://www.whoishostingthis.com/?q=old-farmshow.net). You could contact them with the screenshots and an explanation as to what is going on and they may remove the site.
If that doesn't work, I'd probably get an attorney involved.
Good luck!
-
Thanks Marie, I'll give that a try.
Update: The DMCA was rejected due to the site 404'ing.
-
Weird.
I would think that if most times when Google visits this page they get a 404 error they would eventually drop it from the index.
Hopefully the DMCA will be successful.
In the meantime, have you tried rewriting the content on your home page? It may be that Google thinks your page is a canonical of the old-farmshow site and is treating it as an inferior site.
Usually Google is pretty good at figuring out what your brand name is, but your page only contains the phrase "LIC Dental Associates" in the title tag and then in the footer. I'd suggest adding a paragraph of content at the top of the page that has an H1 tag saying, "LIC Dental Associates" and then a paragraph that explains concisely what you offer. Be sure to put a few keywords in that paragraph, but don't keyword stuff it. Also mention the brand once or twice in the copy of the page as well.
I'd also change up the wording on the rest of the page significantly so that Google doesn't think it's a duplicate of the fake one.
Once you've done that, then I'd fetch and render using Google Search Console and submit the page to the index. I'm betting that will do the trick.
-
No, it has been a 404 whoever did this puts the site back up every couple of weeks and the rest of the time it's a 404. That's been the main frustration with this whole thing.
-
Looks like you succeeded! I'm seeing a 404 error when I click on the old-farmshow site.
-
Nice work! Hope it kills those weasels.
-
Thanks for the response. Our DCMA request is currently under review, I have also submitted complaints to the domain registrar along with submitting the SERP for removal through GSC since the site is currently down. So far everything is pending/under review and it's all moving at a snails pace...
-
If I owned copyright to the pages that they have scraped, I would use my Google DMCA Dashboard to file DMCA complaints against all of the pages on their site where my content is being used in violation of copyright.
https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/dmca-dashboard
If you are not familiar with DMCA it would be good to review your plans with an attorney before taking action. After consulting with an attorney we started filing DMCAs at scale against people who were using our content. The results have been positive.
If they are using Adsense, I would file complaints there too, and possibly with their hosting.
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
-
Search ranking for a term dropped from 1st/2nd to 106th in 3 months
Hello all, Just a couple notes first. I have been advised to be vague on the search term we've dropped on (in case this page ranks higher than our homepage for it). If you search for my name in Google though you should be able to figure out where I work (I'm not the soccer player). While I am looking for an answer, I've also posted this question on a couple other forums (see https://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4934323.htm and https://productforums.google.com/forum/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer#!msg/webmasters/AQLD7lywuvo/2zfFRD6oGAAJ) which have thrown up more questions than answers. So I have posted this as a discussion. We've also been told we may have been under a negative SEO attack. We saw in SEMRush a large number of backlinks in October/November/December - at about the same time we disavowed around 1m backlinks (more on this below) but we can't see this reflected in Moz. We just got off a call with someone at Moz to try and work this out and he suggested we post here - so here goes... On 4th October for the search term 'example-term' we dropped from number 2 to number 9 on Google searches (this was confirmed in Google Search Console). We also paid an external SEO consultant to review our site and see why we are dropping on the term 'example-term'. We've implemented everything and we're still dropping, the consultant thinks we may have been penalised in error (as we are a legitimate business and we're not trying to do anything untoward). In search console you could see from the graphs on the term we used to rank 1st and 2nd (you could go back 2 or 3 years and still see this). The thing we do find confusing is that we still rank very highly (if not 1st) for 'example-term + uk' and our brand name - which is very similar to 'example-term'. Timeline of events of changes: 2nd October 2018 midday: Added a CTA using something called Wisepops over the homepage - this was a full screen CTA for people to pledge on a project on our site helping with the tsunami in Indonesia (which may have had render blocking elements on). 4th October: we added a Google MyBusiness page showing our corporate headquarters as being in the UK (we did flag this on the Google MyBusiness forums and both people who responded said adding a MyBusiness page would not affect our drop in rankings). 4th October: dropped from number 2 to number 9 on Google searches (this was confirmed in Google Search Console) 4th October: Removed the Wisepops popup 5th November: Server redirect so anything coming in on / was redirected to a page without a / 12th November: Removed around 200 junk pages (so old pages, test cms pages etc that were live and still indexed). Redirects from any 404s resolved 19th November: Updated site maps and video site maps to reflect new content and remove old content. Reviewed the whole site for duplicate meta tags and titles and updated accordingly with unique ones. Fixed issues in Google Search Console for Google search console for 404 and Mobile usability. Removed embedded YouTube video from homepage. 11th December: Removed old content and content seen as not useful from indexing; 'honey pot' pages, old blog, map pages, user profile pages, project page ‘junk pages which have little SEO value’ (comments, contact project owner, backers, report project) from indexing, added ‘no-follow’ to widgets linking back to us 3rd January 2019: Changed the meta title from to remove 'example-term' (we were concerned it may have been seen as keyword stuffing) 7th January: Disavow file updated to refuse a set of external sites powered by API linking to us (these were sites like example-term.externalsite.co.uk which used to link to us showing projects in local areas - our SEO expert felt may be seen as a ‘link farm’) 11th January: Updated our ‘About us’ page with more relevant content 15th January: Changed homepage title to include 'example-term' again, footer links updated to point to internal pages rather than linking off to Intercom, homepage ordering of link elements on homepage changed (so moving external rating site link further down the page, removing underlines on one item that was not a link, fixed and instance where two h1 tags were used), removed another set of external Subdomains (i.e. https://externalsite.sitename.co.uk) from our system (these were old sites we used to run for different clients which has projects in geographical areas displayed) 18th January: Added the word 'example-term' to key content pages We're at a loss as to why we are still dropping. Please note that the above changes were implemented after we'd been ranking fine for a couple years on the 'example-term' - the changes were to try and address the drop in ranking. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Nobody15554510997900 -
Client Wants To Use A .io Domain Name - How Bad For Organic?
Hi, I have a U.S. client who is stuck on a name that he wants to get as a .io (British Indian Ocean) domain name for a new site. Aside from the user confusion/weirdness, how much harder do you think this makes this sites organic in the U.S. in the future with a .io domain name? FYI, the other part of the domain name he wants to use is short, meaningless and implies nothing in and of itself. Thanks!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | 945012 -
Non Manual penalties, should I trash my site?
My URL is: www.adserve.com.au I get no traffic from google and I am convinced that I have penalties from the links that point to my page. I have written to google previously and they told me that there are no manual penalties on the site. I give up... I am shelving my ENTIRE brand and starting again with a new site, http://www.trusignage.com, I do not want to do this but... If I do a search for
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | AdAdam
"Using and implementing the AdServe digital menu board system couldn’t be easier! Just get any screen installed by a tradesman or electrician, plug the digital menu board device" two pages from within my site come up but my homepage does not, it comes up when you click on "In order to show you the most relevant results, we have omitted some entries very similar to the 2 already displayed" A search for
"The AdServe system comprises of only one tiny component that can plug directly into the HDMI port of a screen. Traditional digital signage systems require drilling into walls, running cables, a bunch of valuable space and the installation of several pieces of costly"
Brings up another 2 pages from my site, when clicking on "In order to show you the most relevant results, we have omitted some entries very similar to the 2 already displayed."
My homepage does not even come up... but the homepage of my new site http://www.trusignage.com comes up. My new site is at http://www.trusignage.com there is only 2 pages of duplicate content, the about us and the buy now page.
Is google going to penalise my new site? I WILL NOT DO ANY SEO, only on page......... I wont hire any SEO firm at all. My old site has a few great links to it
http://www.sixteen-nine.net/2013/06/24/android-digital-signage-closer-adserve/
http://www.crunchbase.com/company/adserve-digital-signage
I also have many of my REAL youtube videos that link to my site, maybe about 15
If I 301 redirect my penalised site to my new one am I just poisoning my new site as well? I could get the links changed instead. I will have to keep my old site www.adserve.com.au as I have customers who go to that site to lookup my contact details for support etc. will google see the same phone number and address etc and think I am trying to fill google up with duplicate websites? I would really prefer to keep www.adserve.com.au for Australian clients and usewww.trusignage.com for international clients, if the site layout is the same but all of the site passes copyscape then will I get hurt by duplicate content?
Google is ruining me.. I have no money to spend on adwords right now. I have a new highly inovative software product that has taken almost 2 years to develop and I think I deserve more than 4 visits per month. My actual business has been around for 7 years.
I invented SaaS digital signage in 2007 http://youtu.be/-YpyjLALoBU find me some web based digital signage system that was around prior to 2010?
This is me and my product http://youtu.be/ClXSiIA5DRY
Why should my site be treated as trash by google? I have in the past employed a SEO firm and if I search for "If you are looking for the top provider of digital signage in Australia, visit today" I find 70 absolute crap links to my site. I have disvowed them, there must be more links somewhere but I have no money or time to chase down site owners to remove them when I do not even know if I can get them all and have no guarantee that this will even help.. So bottom line, do I need to junk my www.adserve.com.au site? There is no getting away from what some SEO company has spammed in the past?
And again, using a tool to hunt down these spam links and try to get them removed will tie up my own time that needs to be spent on developing my software and I have no cash to pay people to do this for me. [edited by staff because line breaks weren't showing]0 -
Site dropping in rank even through there are more backlinks being added
Hello, One of my client's sites is ranking lower than he should. This happened when we took off backlinks (20 little blogs, several site-wide paid links. It really dropped the site, but it had to be done. Since then we've increased his # of root domains by 10% through white hat link building in his non-competitive niche, and rankings are still poor. I know that's not much in the way of added backlink value, but we're working on it. My question is, how have the recent (and coming) updates possibly effected us. We want to take the remaining problem areas off right away, but another drop in traffic is not a good idea. Even though the blogs (see below) have no backlinks of themselves, they cause drops when taken off) He still has -20 little blog backlinks w/ a quarter of them being exact match anchor text.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | BobGW
-1 sitewide paid link - an image, exact match alt tag anchor text
-1 non-site-wide paid links that is an image near the footer, exact match alt tag anchor text.
-3 links on a domain, this one looks fairly editorial, but there are a bunch of paid links on that page. Changing to non-exact-match anchor text
-2 links on two domains that look completely editorial with no other paid links on that page. non-exact-match anchor text -70 backlinks total with about 1/3 being problematic. How does this site look in regards to updates and when to take links off without tanking our site even more? Thanks.0 -
Search query for SEO Brisbane
Would love to get some opinions on the latest Penguin 2.0 update and how on earth the #1 rank is #1 ranked, very, very peculiar... http://www.google.com/search?gs_rn=14&gs_ri=psy-ab&pq=sila&cp=8&gs_id=10&xhr=t&q=seo+brisbane&pf=p&client=safari&rls=en&sclient=psy-ab&oq=seo+bris&gs_l=&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_qf.&bvm=bv.47008514,d.aGc&biw=1300&bih=569 Any and all theories welcomed and appreciated. Thanks, Mike
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | MichaelYork0 -
How can I tell if my site was penalized from the most recent penguin update?
Hey all, I want to be able to see if my website was penalized from the most recent penguin update because we have several hundred websites built and at the bottom of each on it says something along the lines Website by, Web Design by, Hosting by and links back to our homepage. Could this possibly be penalizing us since these links have similar anchor text and on sites that have nothing to do with our services? Thanks, Ryan
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | MonsterWeb280 -
How to know if a link in a directory will be good for my site?
Hi! Some time ago, a friend of my added our site to a directory. I did not notice it until today, when in the search results for my domain name, the directory came in the first page, in the four position. My friend wrote a nice article, describing our bussiness, and the page has a doFollow link. Looking at the metrics of that directory, I found the following: Domain Authority: 70; main page authority: 76; linking domain roots: 1383; total links: 94663 (several anchor texts); facebook shares: 26; facebook likes: 14; tweets: 20; Google +1: 15. The directory accept a free article about a company, does not review it before it is published, but look for duplicated articles representing spam; so one company can only have one listing (in theory). Is there any formula to know if a directory is safe to publish a doFollow link? If they don't review the link I would say is not a good signal, but is there any other factors to take into account?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | te_c0 -
Is it outside of Google's search quality guidelines to use rel=author on the homepage?
I have recently seen a few competitors using rel=author to markup their homepage. I don't want to follow suit if it is outside of Google's search quality guidelines. But I've seen very little on this topic, so any advice would be helpful. Thanks!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | smilingbunny0