Altavista, hidden gem for finding stolen content

Found pages Yahoo and Google clean out of their index

[motorhaven]

Recently I found (yet another) one of my popular articles is being published on other sites, with people having the nerve to list themselves as the author.

I used my standard method: copyscape, and unique strings in Google/Yahoo. Several DMCA notices later the pages are down, and out of Google/Yahoo.

Considering how popular this article has been with thieves (including a so-called professional from a three letter network) on a whim I decided to try what was my favorite many years ago: Altavista.

Bingo! Many more copies found! Say what you want about Altavista no longer being unique and using the same data as Yahoo... but apparently they do not use the same level of duplicate content dampening Yahho and Google do. I have now tried this on other articles and found more thieves then I would have found on the big engines.

So now Altavista is a new weapon in my stolen content arsenal!

I felt my fellow webmasters would find this hidden gem useful so I am sharing it here.

Your thoughts?