Forum Moderators: Robert Charlton & goodroi
While searching Google, I came across a result for a page that had the exact same title (which still had my domain name in it) and description/meta as one my sites. If you click the "cache" link you'll see a copy of my site, but if you click the regular link you go to a generic page full of what I assume might be PPC links.
When I used the "site:" feature at Google on this offending site's domain, the search returned 46,000 pages of basically the same thing. The "cache" button showed a page from other websites (usually their home page) but if you click the link they all went the same page I mentioned above.
In the case of me and probably other sites, this site not only ranked higher than mine on keywords, but even on a search for my actual domain name (ie. "mydomain.com" in the search box).
Is there a proper procedure to report such a site?
I read a couple informative posts here at Webmaster World regarding scrapper sites and the DMCA. Even though this site only shows the stolen pages/content to Google and not site visitors, does the information here on dealing with scrappers and the use of the DMCA still apply? Or are sites like this a different kind offense to be handled differently?
Finally, as of recently, if you search for my site by domain name the site is the very last result on the very last page while the offending site appears on the first page (even though the copied page is very outdated). And I can't even find my site with any of my keywords as it's probably buried very deep, if listed at all. Can anyone tell me if this is related or a separate issue?
I spend a lot of time gathering information via email interviews and writing original content for this site, so any help would be appreciated.
Thank you in advance for your time.
Justin =)
Even though this site only shows the stolen pages/content to Google and not site visitors, does the information here on dealing with scrappers and the use of the DMCA still apply? Or are sites like this a different kind offense to be handled differently?
From your description, it sounds like the site is scraping your content and then cloaking it, and then serving up ads pages to visitors.
It also sounds like they're not using the "noarchive" in the robots meta element. Using noarchive would have kept the cloaked content out of the Google cache, but it might have also flagged the site for manual review.
I suggest that, among other things, you make some screen captures of the caches showing your stolen content as soon as possible. You may well need them down the road, and they will disappear if the noarchive meta is added. You might also want to make screen captures of some of the displayed pages, to provide a complete demonstration of what's going on.
As for what to do about the stolen content, I recommend this thread as an excellent starting place...
Stolen Content: What To Do First
[webmasterworld.com...]
The thread is mentioned up in "Google Hot Topics" at the top of the Google Search News main page. It also comes up when you search WebmasterWorld on Google...
site:webmasterworld.com stolen content
If the scraper is displaying AdSense ads, reporting to them may well be your fastest course of action, as they have a direct line to Google's spam team.
Keep in mind that you have several other engines to be concerned about as well.
