Could this be the reason I lost my PR

[simon03]

I sell wood blue widgets and today I noticed that a spam type of domain, example.com has mirrored my homepage for one of the only Keywords I have left. #1 for the KW is my site woodbluewidgets.com and #2 is example.com/woodbluewidgets. In the past 2 weeks I have gone from a PR of 6 to 4 and I am not even listed in the first 1000 for 95% of my keywords.

The only two KW's that I am currently indexed for are, when "wood blue widgets" is searched and when "certificate green widgets" is searched. I can't figure out why I'm #1 for "certificate green widgets”, but when "green widgets" is searched I am now nowhere to be found.

Could this mirror site, which I have nothing to do with, be hurting my ranking? Does anyone have a copy of a cease and desist letter I can use.

Thanks

[edited by: pageoneresults at 4:38 am (utc) on Feb. 6, 2004]
[edit reason] Examplified References [/edit]

[simon03]

anyone:)

[Macro]

simon03, welcome to ww.

Your PR is based on sites that link to you. Somebody using your same content/keywords may show up higher in SERPS but won't be the cause of your PR dropping. It dropped because incoming links have deteriorated in value or quantity.

[steveb]

Your PR won't be effected by this, but your pages could be being ignored as duplicate content. PR is just about links.

[The Subtle Knife]

I've never seen an sensible answer to duplicate content. If someone rips off your site, which I'm happens a lot.
If it's really obvious legal recourse is probably a good option, if not so obvious, I assume google will treat your page as the duplicate and de-rank you,
as the new pages are "newer"

[kaled]

Of course, what Google should do is ignore the newer copy altogether (unless there is a direct link to it from the original). However, life then gets rather more interesting because of the problem of how to identify which page is newer. Also what happens when the old page is updated - does it become newer?

It is a tricky problem but if Google keep records of the date/time when a page is first spidered, then a solution to this problem is possible.

It seems likely that Google keep such data, but if they do not, then the problem won't be fixed in the near future.

Of course, some people would say that it isn't Google's problem - they are simply providing information to searchers. However, by not addressing the problem, they are signalling that black-hat dirty tricks are ok.

Kaled.

[SyntheticUpper]

Google is poor at spotting dupes. I can't understand your complaint. You're at No 1, and he/she is at No 2 with same content - clearly no dupe penalty here!

You have automatic copyright over your content - email them and threaten them with legal action. Download / make a copy of the page, and if it is a clear cut case of copyright theft you have a strong case. It's just the dupe element I don't understand.

[Troppo]

SyntheticUpper, I can empathize with the complaint. The same thing has been happening here with a local pest who thinks (correctly) he's above the law. Anytime a business in our industry gains a good market image he 1) copies their website and 2) Registers a domain in the same name as their's with the .net or .org suffix.

The purpose is to always show up high in a search for that business name, to confuse the customer and then to purport to offer a massive discount. The objective is to bait and switch anybody who inquires. It also devalues what are emerging quality brands.

In Western countries you have good legal systems to protect against this at the source; others of us are not as fortunate. Having found local legal enforcement completely useless, I'm looking for some way to get this under US jurisdiction. For that to be effective the SEs would have to be involved as the guy here would just ignore a US judgement in the same way he does a local one.