Copyscape and Content Duplication Levels for Google

[snickles121]

After reviewing my site in Copyscape, what do you guys think is a acceptable level at a percentage rate for duplicate content. I hate these people copying my info. Im showing some content at 75% and its my articles. I just wonder how far I need to reduce that percentage rate down. I dont want to do a full rewrite just to change some of articles to reduce the percentage rate. I already have content writers fixing other problems and I dont have the time and budget to fix this issue right now.

[Planet13]

I think there are other ways to deal with copying besides having the content rewritten.

People have recommended contacting adsense (assuming that those who are copying your site are using adsense to monetize it) and telling adsense that those sites have taken your material.

Other people file DMCA acts with google so that those pages will be deindexed.

If it is hard to contact the site owner, then some people have contacted the hosting company directly.

There is a well-known law firm (in Arizona, I believe) which buys up the rights to articles published on the web. Then when someone copies portions of those articles without permission, that law firm sues them.

I know none of these are easy fixes, but I hope this helps.

[snickles121]

Thanks, I know there is at least one domain name copying my content directly using some sort of rewrite code. But, what prevents them from recopying my new articles and why should I have to file a DMCA complaint every time? Im sure a lot of people have to deal with this problem. Oh by the way I notice a lot of people recopying my content on Yahoo answers and then posting a link to their site. Anyone else?

[FranticFish]

I've dipped my toe into this recently.

In quite a few cases the infringing domain / business owner was unaware that the content was copied because they'd paid a third party to provide it. They took it down right away after the initial contact. So unless you're SURE they're a content thief, initial politeness pays.

If they refuse to budge then my next move is to explain that if I were to contact their web host then their hosting contract may be terminated. Most hosts I contacted cared about infringement and forced a take down (I believe increasingly it's a breach of contract and I applaud this); if I get nowhere with the site owner or get ignored my next port of call is the host.

But just as some people ignore you / stonewall you, so do some web hosts. That's when I'd resort to notifying Google. Luckily so far I've not had to do too much of that.

[Planet13]

...why should I have to file a DMCA complaint every time?

Why? Because google isn't smart enough / doesn't care enough to ban the scrapers automatically. So you will have to do SOMETHING. I am guessing that filling out DMCAs, contacting hosts, contacting adsense would be cheaper and faster than hiring writers to rewrite content. And what is to stop them from scraping the content again AFTER you have re-written it?

I notice a lot of people recopying my content on Yahoo answers and then posting a link to their site. Anyone else?

Yes, I think that is somewhat common. It happened to me and I filed off a couple of DMCA requests with google, and within a week those pages were removed from the google index.

Having said that, there are some people who suggest that you DON'T do that IF the yahoo group site is linking back to your site, since having a link from a yahoo domain would have high page rank value.

That might be true; I would check to see whether that yahoo group page (which scraped your content) has lots of good, juicy inbound links, and would also check in analytics to make sure that you are getting good traffic that converts from that yahoo groups page. If so, you MIGHT want to leave it alone...

However, I did notice an increase in rankings and traffic to my page AFTER I filed the DMCA requests against the yahoo groups pages that were all linking to my (single) page. Whether the increase in traffic / rankings is related to filing the DMCA requests or not, I can't say.

Hope this helps.

[rlange]

Off-topic. Sorry...

Planet13 wrote:
There is a well-known law firm (in Arizona, I believe) which buys up the rights to articles published on the web. Then when someone copies portions of those articles without permission, that law firm sues them.

I think you're referring to Righthaven [en.wikipedia.org]. They had been given partial rights to their partner's content, specifically the right to sue. This was legally questionable and, in fact, they had been told by a number of judges that they have no standing to sue for infringement of another entity's copyright; the owner retains all rights, regardless of any deals. They are currently insolvent.

Their activities were generally viewed with disdain.

--
Ryan