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Someone has copied my site exactly, every word, every link and because he has a higher PR than me, google takes my site like a duplicate and his site takes all my SERP's.
This is so frustrating what shall i do, any ideas?!
Someone has copied my site exactly, every word, every link
If that is the case, you can file a DMCA complaint with Google, which requests them to remove the offending pages from the index:
[google.com...]
-phish
The good news: If your site is cached before this guy copied, you won't get penalized according to google. Your site is original, this loser is not.
jd
For this reason, I would save copies of these pages as they appear in the Google cache.
Kaled.
I have no idea if what I am about to say is right or wrong legally so don't rip me to shreds, but I'm not sure the google cache is breaching copyright. After all, you can ask them not to cache your site in the robots.txt.
Regards,
zamolxis
So far as I am aware, there is no provision in the robots.txt standard to prevent caching and Google has not suggested an extension to the standard (but others at WW have).
Think of it this way.
1) You have a set of photos.
2) You allow a magazine to archive those photos on their website provided they acknowledge your copyright.
3) Someone steals your photos.
4) The thief allows those photos to archived by the magazine with HIS/HER copyright claim.
5) The thief is clearly in breach of copyright.
6) After the magazine is notified and instructed to remove the offending material, it too is in breach of copyright if it does not comply as soon as it reasonably can.
7) The fact that the same photos are already archived (with the correct copyright acknowledgement) is almost certainly irrelevant, but I imagine a lawyer with dollar signs in his eyes might disagree.
Kaled.
PS The blurb at the top of the Google-cached page serves as the copyright acknowledgement in this case
Certainly in UK law (and I think in most common-law around the World) copyright is *automatic* - that is, if you have written something original, you have legal rights to that intellectual property. You don't have to 'claim' it; it already belongs to you by default.
Nevertheless, I still put 'copyright' etc. at the bottom of some pages, but this is just a reminder to those who might be tempted to steal. There is no legal requirement to *assert* rights to property you already own :)
(Just my 2 billion dollars worth ;)
I wasn't actually referring to nocache idea (although that would be great), but no index (obviously this will affect rankings and is ridiculously heavy handed I know, but it will stop the caching!).
But how about all those web browsers that save content for offline viewing? Is this copyright theft too? Or how about those people with photographic memories? Must we Men-in-black them everytime they read our stuff? Only joking.
I really sympathise with people who have been plagerised, like all that student who wrote the UK's Iraq dossier, but it seems long, drawn-out legal processes are the only real recourse.
One thing I would add, from a legal point of view, is that any letter or email you send to someone that has taken your stuff could well be submitted as evidence in the future. Just make sure you don't descend into name calling or blow your own case by asking for cash for it.
look at this threat:
[webmasterworld.com...]
It could be one possible reason for your hijacked site. You are not alone.
I have lost two sites (only my hobby) and nobody cares about.
