Forum Moderators: skibum
Should I add some code to allow me to "stop" these folks? Should I not worry about it since the information is readily available from Amazon anyway (again, with a bit more work though)? Should I be concerned about them copying these web pages and then just re-branding them?
Hmmm. Decisions.
[pandia.com...]
It's taking place on my site too. You're not by yourself.
Other ways to accomplish similar things: framing your content. 302 redirecting to your content (although Google seems to be working on this quite a bit lately).
Run a WHOIS to see if you can find a site owner
I was lucky enough to find that the domain's owner was in Los Angeles. I wrote emails to them explaining the problem and asking for their help first before escalating the issue to a lawyer. This helped to get the offending pages deleted within a week.
Help others to help you
More than likely this individual has scraped other sites besides yours. Go through the other scraped pages and see if there is a name, business product or event that may be found on other sites. If it is obvious that content was stolen from other sites, (I opened another window and used a search engine like Yahoo! to look for other sites using portions of the scraped content as a search term), email the webmaster/owner and let them know. Plus ask them to complain to the domain owner too. This gets others on your side quickly.
See if the scraped site has affiliate programs on it
Most of the instances of scraped sites I've seen have links to affiliate programs because the individual is too lazy to do the work needed for top ranking pages, but wants the income. They will have affiliate program links that can show up sometimes when you click on the webpages product offerings. The affiliate ID will generally be in the address bar and you will be taken to the company offering a product. Copy the affiliate ID and complain to the company. Do what you can to stop their money flow.
By doing this I ended up having the scraped pages deleted from the domain and am gaining my Google and Yahoo! rankings back. The domain owner was a reputable business who didn't know the pages were there. But that is still not enough, as I am doing everything I can to have the hijacker's affiliate agreements cancelled. No one wants to be sued behind an affiliates actions. Hope that helps!
