Affiliate Competitor Stole My Content

Should I contact the affiliate company?

[dbar]

After one of the sites I’ve been running for several years was removed from the Google index (not sure yet why, it’s fairly white hat, but this thread is not about that) I began searching for content from my site. Of course I found tons of sites with snippets (some that link, some don’t, some very sneaky), but one set of sites (all owned by the same person) has stolen an entire page of a lengthy article with a bunch of related affiliate links at the top of their page (on all sites, which are all near duplicate spam).

I also promote the same affiliate program and have done well on Google (and others) for several years with many top key phrases. My site is niche and more content then affiliate links, his sites are spammed out affiliate links with stolen content for articles (not just mine).

I’m considering what to do and have been reading the other threads, but don’t really want to get into a legal battle even though I have been wronged. I would rather focus on building more.

I have not contacted the owner yet and may just start with DCMA, a spam report (all his sites are the same except for a keyword or two per page, and he has thousands of pages). However, should I also contact the affiliate company we both promote? What will, could, should they do? I assume he may be a big hitter for them. Although if he is I don’t see how he could be so stupid as to blatantly steal content. It appears as if he is in the US, but sites are in Canada.

[BigDave]

If the sites are hosted in Canada, then a DMCA complaint will do you no good. You would have to find out if there is a Canadian equivilent. Also look through their TOS and see if they are being violated.

You might even get somewhere by just informing them of the copyright violations and seeing what they do.

Invoking US law is likely to cause them to take a nationalistic stand.

On the other hand, a DMCA complaint will work wonders with Google, Yahoo! and MSN.

I would also contact the affiliate program. Reputable ones will care.

[doubledna]

I say name the affiliate and shame them! post the copy cat site on all affiliate forums and definately inform the programs you are both promoting, they should back you up. The affiliate is stealing yours and others revenue. Get tough send them a letter explaining they are in violation of copyright License and to remove the content immediately. You never know this may do the trick. You can also pay a small sum for solicitors to send on your behalf. Contact other affiliates that you know they have copied content from and join forces.

Good Luck