Skip to content
    Moz logo Menu open Menu close
    • Products
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Pro Home
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Home
      • STAT
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Home
      • Compare SEO Products
      • Moz Data
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis
      • Keyword Explorer
      • Link Explorer
      • Competitive Research
      • MozBar
      • More Free SEO Tools
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO
      • SEO Learning Center
      • Moz Academy
      • MozCon
      • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers
      • Agency Solutions
      • Enterprise Solutions
      • Small Business Solutions
      • The Moz Story
      • New Releases
    • Log in
    • Log out
    • Products
      • Moz Pro

        Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

      • Moz Local

        Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

      • STAT

        SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

      • Moz API

        Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

      • Compare SEO Products

        See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

      • Moz Data

        Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

      Enhance Keyword Discovery with Bulk Analysis
      Moz Pro

      Enhance Keyword Discovery with Bulk Analysis

      Learn more
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis

        Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

      • Keyword Explorer

        Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

      • Link Explorer

        Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

      • Competitive Research

        Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

      • MozBar

        See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

      • More Free SEO Tools

        Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
      Moz Pro

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

      Learn more
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO

        The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

      • SEO Learning Center

        Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

      • On-Demand Webinars

        Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

      • How-To Guides

        Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

      • Moz Academy

        Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

      • MozCon

        Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

      Access 20 years of data with flexible pricing
      Moz API

      Access 20 years of data with flexible pricing

      Find your plan
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers

        Simplify SEO tasks to save time and grow your traffic.

      • Small Business Solutions

        Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

      • Agency Solutions

        Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

      • Enterprise Solutions

        Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

      • The Moz Story

        Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

      • New Releases

        Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

      Surface actionable competitive intel
      New Feature

      Surface actionable competitive intel

      Learn More
    • Log in
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Dashboard
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Dashboard
      • Moz Academy
    • Avatar
      • Moz Home
      • Notifications
      • Account & Billing
      • Manage Users
      • Community Profile
      • My Q&A
      • My Videos
      • Log Out

    The Moz Q&A Forum

    • Forum
    • Questions
    • Users
    • Ask the Community

    Welcome to the Q&A Forum

    Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

    1. Home
    2. Research & Trends
    3. White Hat / Black Hat SEO
    4. Do content copycats (plagiarism) hurt original website rankings?

    Moz Q&A is closed.

    After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.

    Do content copycats (plagiarism) hurt original website rankings?

    White Hat / Black Hat SEO
    4
    4
    1523
    Loading More Posts
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as question
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
    • vtmoz
      vtmoz last edited by

      Hi all,

      Found some websites stolen our content and using the same sentences in their website pages.  Does this content hurt our website rankings?  Their DA is low, still we are worried about the damage about this plagiarism.

      Thanks

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • jasongmcmahon
        jasongmcmahon last edited by

        Google "recognises" the original source & will rank it higher, this has been the case for some time

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
        • EGOL
          EGOL last edited by

          You received a great reply from Alex.

          We have lots of problems with content theft and go after much of it.  Our response depends on WHO has grabbed the content and republished it.  If our content is used on a dirtbag spammer site we go straight to the DMCA form that  Alex linked to.  Google responds to them, often the same day, and almost always within three or four days.  They remove the infringing content from Google search. We have done this hundreds of times.   (If you have many to file, you can use the back button of the DMCA form, edit what is different and send it in again).

          If the content is on a large blogging site like WordPress or on a large forum, Google often tells us to go there and have the page taken down.  These sites usually respond promptly.

          Before you go cranking out  DMCA at scale, if is a good idea to consult with a copyright attorney to learn about fair use or similar concepts in your country.  There are many ways that someone can use your content without breaking copyright law.  If you have someone taken down where fair use applies or where your claim to copyright can not be documented, they you could be on the receiving end of civil legal action.

          Sometimes, more frequently than you think, we find our content on sites that should damn well know better than take our content.  These have included law firms of all sizes,  police departments, district attorneys, government regulatory agencies, government law enforcement, or simply the website of an honest and respectable company.  In these cases we don't go to DMCA.  These folks need education. So our attorney gets in touch with firm but friendly greetings.   The culprit is often someone at their office who works on the website and took some shortcuts in content development.  Also, their SEO or web developer grabbed our content, added it to the website and charged them for the content.   These cases of content theft piss you off, but watching what happens can be entertaining.

          ADDED:  I forgot to address your main question.  Can content theft and republication hurt your rankings?   YES IT CAN.  Some of the sites who steal content are powerful and can outrank you.  In addition, you can lose long-tail traffic because your words on their page combine with other words on their page and outrank you in the long tail.

          If a lot of websites steal the same piece of content, Google can have trouble deciding who owns it - even if you have a reasonably powerful site and the content has been on your website for a decade.  Google says that they are "good" at identifying the owner, but I don't agree.  We had important pieces of content descend into supplemental search results after a lot of other sites had stolen it.  It only emerged after we spent a lot of energy on DMCAs and direct legal notices.

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 3
          • Xiano
            Xiano Subscriber last edited by

            If your content is outranking the copied content, that's a fairly decent sign that Google assumes your content is the original and therefore you gain any benefits associated with that content.

            Although Google is generally good at working out who the original content creator is and ranking that content higher, it's not always the case.

            If you find that plagiarised content is ranking higher than your own (or you simply want to get the content removed from search), you can use the form here: https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/dmca-notice It looks like a fairly chunky serious form, but if you work your way through it, you'll be fine.  They tend to take action within a week.

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 3
            • 1 / 1
            • First post
              Last post

            Got a burning SEO question?

            Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


            Start my free trial


            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.

            • See all categories

            Related Questions

            • 1kB_man_YWH

              Does Google only show high rankings to webmasters?

              google seo

              Hello! I'm using Google Chrome browser. On the browser logged in with the Google Web Master account, the keyword ranking of my site is ranked on pages 1 to 2. However, in the case of the Google Secret tab and other browsers that have not logged in to the Google Web Master account, the keyword ranking of my site is only 10 pages. Which one is more reliable?
              Does it only show higher rankings to webmasters?
              Or will you soon be able to see the high ranking that has only been seen by webmasters in other browsers? I desperately need your help. Thank you. I look forward to your kind cooperation.

              White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | 1kB_man_YWH
              2
            • Sam09schulz

              Why am i ranking great in canada but not in the US?

              hi, some of my keywords with high volume are ranking on first page in canada, but in the states i am on 3rd pages first result. what factors are contributing this disparity. what can be done here in this case. is it because of my links and tld distribution or some server location thing. what should i do to rank better in the US? i have shared hosting server in singapore.

              White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Sam09schulz
              0
            • rahat64

              My Brand new website shows 79% spam Score, what is the reason and how should I deal with this?

              Hi, I have just launched my website 1 month before and I have used all paid images, Uniquely written contents, Everything is genuine for better SEO experience in the future. The actual problem is its showing spam by 79% in MOZ bar, I don't have a single link on my website also my content is unique, Images are unique. Why its showing so much spam on this brand new website? Can you please help me? I am very stressed due to this problem.

              White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | rahat64
              0
            • Boodreaux

              New Flurry of thousands of bad links from 3 Spammy websites. Disavow?

              I also discovered that a website www.prlog.ru put 32 links to my website.  It is a russian site.  It has a 32% spam score. Is that high? I think I need to disavow. Another spammy website link has spam score of 16% with with several thousand links. I added one link to the site medexplorer.com 6 years ago and it was fine. Now it has thousands of links. Should I disavow all three?

              White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Boodreaux
              0
            • imjonny

              Question regarding subdomains and duplicate content

              Hey everyone, I have another question regarding duplicate content. We are planning on launching a new sector in our industry to satisfy a niche. Our main site works as a directory with listings with NAP. The new sector that we are launching will be taking all of the content on the main site and duplicating it on a subdomain for the new sector. We still want the subdomain to rank organically, but I'm having struggles between putting a rel=canonical back to main site, or doing a self-referencing canonical, but now I have duplicates. The other idea is to rewrite the content on each listing so that the menu items are still the same, but the listing description is different. Do you think this would be enough differentiating content that it won't be seen as a duplicate? Obviously make this to be part of the main site is the best option, but we can't do that unfortunately. Last question, what are the advantages or disadvantages of doing a subdomain?

              White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | imjonny
              0
            • edward-may

              I'm changing title tags and meta tags, url, will i loose my ranking?

              Hi Guys QUESTION: I'm currently going through a re-design for my new website that was published in November 2014 - since launching we found there were many things we needed to change, our pages were content thin being one of the biggest. I had industry experts that came in and made comments on the title tags lacking relevance for eg: our title tag for our home page is currently "Psychic Advice" most ideal customers don't search "Psychic Advice" they search more like "Online Psychic Reading" or Psychic Readings" I noticed alot of my competitors also were using title tags such as Online Psychic Readings, Free Psychic Readings etc so it brings me to my question of "changing the title tags around.  The issue is, im ranking for two keywords in my industry, online psychics and online psychic readings in NZ. 1. Our home page and category pages are content thin.... so hoping that adding the changes will create perhaps some consistency also with the added unique and quality content. Here is the current website: zenory. co.nz and the new one is www.ew-zenory.herokuapp.com which is currently in development I have 3 top level domains com,com.au, and co.nz Is there anyone that can give me an idea if I were to change my home page title tag to **ZENORY | Online Psychic Readings | Live Psychic Phone and Chat ** If this will push my rankings down though this page will have alot more valuable content etc?  For obvious reasons im going to guess it will make drop, I'm wondering though if it is worth changing the title tags and meta descriptions around or leaving it as is if its already doing well? How much of a difference do title tags and meta descriptions really make? Any insight into this would be great! Thanks

              White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | edward-may
              1
            • mcany

              Cross linking websites of the same company, is it a good idea

              As a user I think it is beneficial because those websites are segmented to answer to each customer needs, so I wonder if I should continue to do it or avoid it as much as possible if it damages rankings...

              White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | mcany
              0
            • Casefun

              Does having the same descrition for different products a bad thing the titles are all differnent but but they are the same product but with different designs on them does this count as duplicate content?

              does having the same description for different products a bad thing the titles are all different but but they are the same product but with different designs on them does this count as duplicate content?

              White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Casefun
              1

            Get started with Moz Pro!

            Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

            Start my free trial
            Products
            • Moz Pro
            • Moz Local
            • Moz API
            • Moz Data
            • STAT
            • Product Updates
            Moz Solutions
            • SMB Solutions
            • Agency Solutions
            • Enterprise Solutions
            • Digital Marketers
            Free SEO Tools
            • Domain Authority Checker
            • Link Explorer
            • Keyword Explorer
            • Competitive Research
            • Brand Authority Checker
            • Local Citation Checker
            • MozBar Extension
            • MozCast
            Resources
            • Blog
            • SEO Learning Center
            • Help Hub
            • Beginner's Guide to SEO
            • How-to Guides
            • Moz Academy
            • API Docs
            About Moz
            • About
            • Team
            • Careers
            • Contact
            Why Moz
            • Case Studies
            • Testimonials
            Get Involved
            • Become an Affiliate
            • MozCon
            • Webinars
            • Practical Marketer Series
            • MozPod
            Connect with us

            Contact the Help team

            Join our newsletter
            Moz logo
            © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
            • Accessibility
            • Terms of Use
            • Privacy

            Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.