Consequences from Website that copied our Content?

[LinkedUp]

Recently we had a look at our Backlink-Profile and saw, that there was a website, that copied a lot of content & our pictures. They link to us, which gives us lots of backlinks, but since they just copied our content without permission on their website, I was wondering if there are any negative consequences regarding SEO that we might have to fear.

We tried to contact them but there was no answer until this point. How would you deal with that situation?

[not2easy]

You can contact their host if they do not respond. BUT - there is not a global enforcement team that can force them to cease and desist so results may vary. IF there is no response from their host, you can ask Google where to report it.

[tangor]

The biggest consequence is site dilution and losing traffic. Their linking to you is not giving YOU any real benefit (might want to block them after all the forensics are done). Theft of intellectual properties is dealt with via DMCA, possibly attorneys, and certainly some expense down the line.

FAILURE to do anything will weaken any future case one might bring (a loss of the IP and content). If you need legal help get a lawyer. We aren't lawyers, just webmasters with some experience and opinions!

Be prepared to do this kind of thing forever, as there is no shortage of bad actors out there! Whew!

[JesterMagic]

Contact the host with a DMCA takedown request and also request removal from Google. I usually only submit to Google since that is where most of the traffic comes from. Unfortunately the tool makes per page requests only which makes it difficult when the site has copied many of your content pages. At this point I do take down requests for my major pages with the hopes Google realizes it in fact copied the entire site. Doing this always makes the site disappear from Google within a few weeks.

Legal Removal Requests

Google Legal Remove Requests Tool
[support.google.com...]

Google DMCA Request List
[google.com...]

[not2easy]

If you visit their website and view the source code, can you see whether they have manually copied your content or is it verbatim identical to your own? I mean are the image links your image links or have they downloaded your images and serving them from links on their domain? You can tell whether they have taken your content or are using an iframe to display your site. If it is just an iframe then it is simple to block their site's usage from your own site. DMCA would not help if they are 'embedding' your content but you can prevent it so there would be no need to file a DMCA.

[LinkedUp]

Thanks first of all for your help! We contacted them again for now and will also contact their host with a DMCA takedown request, just as you recommended. Lets see if that might seal the deal. I'll also have a look into the Google Tools and will put up some requests.

@not2easy (Sorry, I don't know yet how to quote certain parts of your answer): I had a look at their source code. Their text content is verbatim identical to ours. They also always directly link to the page where they copied the content from. For the pictures they use our links (<img src="example.jpg">). They also do not use an iframe to display our content.

[edited by: phranque at 8:39 pm (utc) on Jun 23, 2023]
[edit reason] disable graphic smile faces [/edit]

[Wilburforce]

They also always directly link to the page where they copied the content from.

If they're hotlinking to your images, you can always rename them in your own pages and on your own server.

This will just leave blanks on the hacked versions of your pages, but you could also think about creating images with the original names that display a warning and the URL of the original content. That way, anyone landing on their pages will see the message and where they can find the source.

Another thing worth doing is putting canonical tags on your pages, so SEs will treat the copied versions as not-to-be-indexed duplicates.

Finally, if you're not doing it already, make all your internal links absolute. Typically, scrapers like this are quite lazy, and often copy the links as well as the text, so anyone clicking on a link in the hacked version will arrive on your site.