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Three sites (with which I'm working for now) have been removed from the Google yesterday. One of the sites I put in my profile. Two of them have similar content and affiliated with a third one. One of the sites oriented on UK market (in my profile).
Yes, I have a good guess why it happened and I really need good sound advice. Last week one of my clients received e-mail from Go Daddy informing them, that somebody complained about three websites that one of them in one of the pages was copyright infringement, because one of the paragraphs had almost the same text. This paragraph indeed was looking similar and I advised clients to make changes. It was done this Monday.
Here I have to mention that I really hate when somebody just copy and paste from others web sites. But on defense of my clients I have to admit that this paragraph was less then 1% from all contents of the website, but still bad no question about this.
I personally read complaint about copyright infringement. And what I can say. The guy who wrote these complain is an owner of five websites with the same topic. He never wrote to my clients directly, otherwise in his complaint to Go Daddy he was asking to cancel service for three urls, because in one of the urls was used his paragraph of text. He also accuses my clients in attacking his server, and as a result it affected somehow his position in search engines. This is really a lot of nonsense, because my client is not a techie at all.
All his complains are about how to cancel client urls.
My clients’ sites don’t use any tricks, they cannot be penalized for that. If somebody tells me that they were penalized because they have similar content, I will not agree: content is only similar on two sites not in all three, but similar it’s not the same (not duplicated). Even three deferent duly incorporated companies operated this websites. They are not cross linked, because in reality they somehow compete with each other.
Now my guess, he complained to Google also and Google took an action and removed urls from the index, because they didn’t want to deal with copyright infringement problems. This was manual removal (by human) and it was done yesterday. All three sites showing PR0, but some how still showing backward links and cash (I don’t think for long time now). When you search for URL no result is shown also.
Now my questions:
Did it happen to anybody else before?
If a complaint to Google about copyright is really the case, what an options have I got?
-Block from Google old sites and advise clients to change urls and put the some content to new urls and work with them (but complainer can continue again and again)?
-Beg to GoogleGuy in this forum to have a look and give his opinion?
-Don’t worry and hope that after two month everything will be all right (I personally don’t believe that it will work, if it is copyright issue)
-Try to write to Google and ask what’s happened (personally I don’t believe I will get any answer)
-Advice clients completely redesign and rewrite all sites?
How to explain existing situation to the clients? (One of site affiliated to you in one page got problems with copyright and you site has been removed?)
How to prove them that it is not my fault, that all this urls has been removed?
Any help and advice will be greatly appreciated.
I don't know the legal procedures in your country, but I think that it is necessary several steps before wiping a site ( the minimum is a letter from a lawyer etc.).
The person that complain should proof the situation; otherwise it could be very easy to "cut & paste" some content from competitors, place them in one of your managed sites and send a complain to Google (too easy to fire competitors..).
Thanks for reply. Complainer pretended to be from USA (no address, telephone or e-mail on his website, only forms), don’t forget Google is in the US also.
Once again I don’t like copy and paste way building websites. I believe this paragraph was indeed copied from his site, but I can mention ones again that it was only less than a 1% from all site content and he never ask my clients to removed or change it, his idea was to remove my clients (his competitors) from search engines or cancel all their urls. And as I can see he was finally successful, nevertheless clients’ changes this paragraph ass soon as he received complains.
The questions that arise in this situation, besides that I mentioned in my first post:
- How can three URLs be removed if only one of them had violating copyright?
- Why has Google removed urls (if it the reason, what I believe, because in his complain exactly this three URLs) after complaint about copyright violation?
- Is it really so easy to just check your competitors sites (especially those who block websites from cashing, it means they don’t have a chance to prove that they have the same paragraph earlier) copy and paste one paragraph and after, let say, two months send Google e-mail and legal notice by post and competitors out, and not only competitors and all their affiliates. I still want to believe that is not so. You will be surprised how easy it is to find Google’s telephone and specific e-mail to deal with copyright infringement. I understand that it is much easier for Google just to remove all URLs which mention in the complaint than spend some time to investigate.
Anybody has similar experience?
P.S. Sorry I can not get it how to put one of the URLs on my profile, may be somebody will want a look at it. When I login and go to “control panel” and press “edit profile” the URL is there, but when I’m on the forum and pressing on my “user profile” I don’t see URL what I just put before. Any help?
I once received a complaint from another webmaster accusing me of using six photos from his site without permission. All six of these were photos that I took myself with my own camera, depicting a part of the country near where I lived at the time. They weren't even all that special.
How does one prove that he didn't do something?
I replied, telling him that if he truly believes that I have used photos without his permission, he should follow through with whatever steps he needs to take to protect his rights; but explaining that I had taken these photos myself. I never heard back from him.
I doubt that he had stolen the photos from my site. More likely, he had obtained them from someone else who had stolen them from my site, and believed that they were now his.
I would guess that most of us change our web content too often to bother copyrighting most of the text that we display online, so that is a very real problem - when duplicate content is found, whose is the original?
It's not necessarily the one who screams the loudest.
I would guess that most of us change our web content too often to bother copyrighting most of the text that we display online, so that is a very real problem - when duplicate content is found, whose is the original?
You don't need to copyright your text; in most countries, your text (or other content) is copyrighted automatically at the time of its creation. Registration has certain benefits--e.g., the possibility of statutory damages in case of an infringement, and easier proof of ownership--but it isn't required.
As for the question of "when duplicate content is found, whose is the original?" that's up to a court of law. But registration, good records, backup copies of your site, etc. can certainly help in proving ownership of the content.
The Copyright Website has many useful resources on copyright (with an emphasis on U.S. copyright). See:
[benedict.com...]
About your client's situation: If Google did remove the URLs because of a copyright-infringement complaint, it did so under a provision of the U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act. See:
[google.com...]
Note that Google says it "will make a good-faith attempt to contact the owner or administrator of each affected site so that they may make a counter notification." So, if copyright infringement is the reason why your client's site was removed from the index, your client should hear from Google.
Thanks for taking your time. Very long folder and file names can not create any problem with Google. When you mention crosslinking I believe you mean internal linking, it can not be a problem either. Site doesn’t cross linked with any other site.
Site(s) was (were) in data base for more than half a year between PR6 and PR5, ranking was very good also.
Kfander
I still believe it is the only reason that these sites have been manually deleted, because of the competitor copyright complaint. May be it is sad to believe, but this is a very effective and fast way to remove your competitors from Google. All you have to do is to write them letter.
europeforvisitors
““Note that Google says it "will make a good-faith attempt to contact the owner or administrator of each affected site so that they may make a counter notification." So, if copyright infringement is the reason why your client's site was removed from the index, your client should hear from Google.””
Should but don’t, none of them receive any e-mail.
Thanks for URL, I can give you another one [copyright.gov...]
What do I have to do now, clients don’t believe at least one of them already, that complaint against one of his affiliate, can lead to removal three sites from index. And secondly, what should I advise them to do:
- Call to Google (you can find phone in the URL above) or e-mail them and is it really a copyright issue?
- How I can give my client 100% prove that I have not created this problem?
P.S. Can anybody also advice, how to put one of the URLs on my profile? I tried without success.
And site review requests..:)
Transit,
I can see your url, and I'm almost 100% sure that you getting removed has nothing to do with a DMCA complaint.
Your best bet is to take it up directly with Google, but the one piece of advice I would give you is to remember that when a search engine makes an attempt to remove spam from their db, they look for common items that spammer sites tend to share. Very long hyphenated domain names stuffed full of keywords is one of those items.
Regardless of how squeaky clean my content was, I would never use a domain like that.
I doubt very much that Google cares about the potential copyright prob in your case.
I like you statements “I'm almost 100% sure that you getting removed has nothing to do with a DMCA complaint” and “when a search engine makes an attempt to remove spam from their db, they look for common items that spammer sites tend to share. Very long hyphenated domain names stuffed full of keywords is one of those items.”
I never ever heard or read from Google that long domain or hyphenated (even 20 times) will be or can be considered as a spam. I understand that a lot of webmasters hate long and hyphenated URLs that have all right to do so, but not search engines. And I also know that not less amount of webmasters love it, but it is not enough to call all of them “spamers”. By the way it wasn’t my choice but clients.
Did you find anything on this site that can create a penalty from Google except "URL style"?
I’m almost sure not and it is still possible to check Google cache to prove that I have not changed anything for this site.
“Regardless of how squeaky clean my content was, I would never use a domain like that.“
I appreciate you choice, but I don’t have that sometimes. I work with what I get and legally optimize it a little bit. Buy the way I am very grateful to you for your input and value your opinion.
I will ask client to call Google today and try to clarify the issue. But if anybody have some ideas or proposition I will be glad to read them.
..I never ever heard or read from Google that long domain or hyphenated (even 20 times) will be or can be considered as a spam. I understand that a lot of webmasters hate long and hyphenated URLs that have all right to do so, but not search engines.
I will have to respectfully disagree.
Just take a moment and look at the facts that relate to your situation.
1. When I did a search for your first hyphenated phrase, I found only two occurences (and they were both from the same site)in the Top 100 results that contained that phrase in the url. All the rest were informative sites that had chosen not to use keyword-phrase-stuffed-domain-names.
2. When I do the same search using the allinurl: command, I get over 1,800 pages containing the phrase in the URL.
3. Browsing through those results was like taking a course entitled "101 Ways to Spam Google" Hidden text, cloaking, JS redirects. You name it. I found it.
That being the case, one could draw the following conclusions:
1. The industry you are trying to compete in is one that is notorius for spamming.
2. Google is obviously aware of that fact and has made an attempt to clean up its SERPS for your industry.
Please understand that I am in know way trying to say that I think you are a spammer. I'm just trying to point out the fact that if you choose to develop a site that fits the profile of a spammer the odds of your site getting caught up in a spam filter increase dramatically.
Spam profiling might not be fair on an individual basis, but it is very effective from the search engine's point of view.
In fact, I'd be willing to bet Google could dump every site in its database that used more than 3 hyphens in the domain name and not receive a single complaint from an actual user about the quality of SERPS dropping.
There is just too much quality content on normal looking domains waiting to take over the spots and the overall percentage of spam coming from those domains is probably much less.
I never ever heard or read from Google that long domain or hyphenated (even 20 times) will be or can be considered as a spam. I understand that a lot of webmasters hate long and hyphenated URLs that have all right to do so, but not search engines.
I am sorry that you got those sites removed, and I hope that you can get them back up. However, I must disagree with the above referenced statement. I believe all search engines have the right to filter their database as they see fit. After all, it is their bandwith, their servers and their labor.
I don't think any search engine or directory outright bans super long hyphenated domains, but I'd be willing to bet they get more scrutiny at the major directories and are more likely to get thrown out with the bathwater when an engine wants to clean up the index.
I don't think a hyphenated domain alone is going to get you penalized. However, a long domain name with many hyphens has a high probability of being a spam site; that, and the presence of one or two other "likely spam" indicators on the site, might get one bounced. I must add that this is pure speculation, I have no inside scoop.
If a site is mainly designed to be found by search engines, Google might call that evidence of spam right there - they want to index user-oriented web sites. It seems like you are more or less admitting that users won't like to type in the name, but you hope it gets SE traffic. That's the wrong attitude to succeed in Google, IMO. If you design a site that works for users, it will succeed in Google in the long run.
