What to do when some one steals your site?

[simonb]

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Someone alerted me last week to a copy of one of our sites that had gone up. When i say copy I mean take our site and put them up on another server with all the monetised links set to other affids. Now this happens fairly regularly to us and we try to take it as a compliment. Most people are sensible enough to change the content just enough to make it not obviously the same. These guys however were just blatent. The put a suite of sites up based on ours and they have been slowly moving up the rankings.

I have just noticed that the people who stole the site are a registered member and poster onthis board! Much as I would love to name and shame I don't feel I ought to otherwise this will bring the board down to a slanging match of claim and counter claim and it could do without it. If you want the info then PM me.

Instead I thought I would post my top tips for getting a thieving site removed as quickly as possible. Please add your comments if you know of any other useful ways.

1. Try and contact the site directly. They may have a contact us or do a WHOIS on the domain name and try to contact the named contacts. I wouldn't spend too long doing this as you normally get no reply or the run around. I have only once has success with this method.

2. The best method I have found is to do a tracert on the domain and look at who is hosting the web site. Look at the hosting companies AUP and normally you will find that they don't allow copyrighted work on their servers. Write to the hosting company with a strongly worded letter with all the details of offending site pages, your pages and evidence of who setup first if possible. I have had 3 sites closed down with this method.

3. Look at the offending sites monetisation links and complain to the partners. Most decent partners will take a dim look on the web site and at least temporarily remove their account which should reduce revenue to that site and make them think again.

4. If your site host 3rd party images on license to your site only then send the details of offending images to them. This has helped us on one occasion.

Finally if you have a strong and sucessful brand consider trademarking the name. It costs but can be really helpful in clearing up issues of ownership.

Hope this helps anyone in he same situation.

[Aquanuke]

It wasent me was it ? I dont want to know who it was as long as its not me

Ive got like xxx+ domains and I d/l lots of free templates of the web, knowing my luck someone would of stolen it and passed it on to me... umm maybe im just being paranoid

Maybe you could just PM the guy.

[Brains]

Anyone had content taken?

I have by a VERY well known search engine.

Do I accept the extra traffic and continue to employ it as a benefit (as I am currently doing)? Understand that they will be charging per click soon.

Just damn annoying that they think they can effectively steal content without asking!

David 'v' Goliath


BRAINS

[KGP]

how did you find out? is any service -best if free of charge- that you can check whether a site is a copy paste of another site?

i am very interested in this as lately i hear more and more regarding site being "duplicated" and even run same ads from the same network the original site run.

on abestweb was a similar topic with a chinese guy.....

[Kandevil]

Fair play to you Simon, you could have approached this so differently and personally I wouldn't have blamed you.

Whoever has done this, shame on them and I hope you get this resolved swifty.

[Dynamoo]

Anyone had content taken?

I have by a VERY well known search engine.

Lycos rips off my content regularly.

Yes, it happens rather often. If it's just a few pages I contact the site first, then the host, then Google (with a DMCA complaint). I also charge a hefty fee for the use of my intellectual property and post the fees schedule on the site.

For more blatant abuse by copiers in the UK, I use Royal Mail Special Delivery to send a cease and desist to the copier and host. This is great because you can track delivery of each item, and in effect you are legally service notice on them in a more meaningful way than with just an email.

Be polite but assertive and firm. Don't forget, that if you get penalised for duplicate content because someone has unlawfully used your intellectual property, then you will have ample grounds for legal action. In my view, 72 hours is sufficient notice.

btw, I use a service called Copysentry to protect my best earning revenue pages.

[SillyJokes]

My first response to copying is, "Kill kill kill," but usually a firm but polite email does the trick.

Sometimes it is not the site owners who did the copying, but the lazy sons of blotches who do the site for them.

I have recently contacted someone who copied images and when I looked into the site further I noticed that they had taken a successful party guide from my site and rewritten it just enough to say it wasn't ours - but it was a total rip of ours, even including the same cocktail recepe.

They claimed to have never seen our site before and didn't have time to surf their competitors so I surmised they were taking the pish. Anyone who is unaware of their online competitors are not serious competition.

I used to get very upset about being copied but am now more relaxed. That doesn't mean I don't come down on every single nicked image and ripped text I come across however. I always take action and it feels good.

[NetNeo]

how did you find out? is any service -best if free of charge- that you can check whether a site is a copy paste of another site?

Try http://www.copyscape.com/
I employ it on some of my sites

[KGP]

i have tried it :-( but most of the times it just give results of pages that SOME words match each other.....

it would be good if we knew a service where you can find copypasters and not just text that matches with your site.....

[simonb]

Ok so these are my sites (owned by the company I work for)

www.addeva.co.uk
www.fairinvestment.co.uk

and these are the site that have just recently appeared (you can check the date at the bottom as to when it happened on our server iti s dynamic). On the mortgage one they havn't even been bothered to remove the copyright addmomentum from the source code meta tags.

http://www.ezinedir.com/
http://www.my-mortgage-loans.co.uk/
http://www.my-casino-gambling.com/
http://www.myinternetinfo.com/united...ortgage+Advice

Any advice?

[eliteshops]

kin ell!!

Thats taking the piss

Notice none of the contact details work either

I would get some legal advice

[storebuilder]

This isn't a catchall solution by any means but it will make it harder for people using httrack etc to copy your site. Just drop the following code in your .htaccess:

#The next lines check for Email Spammers Robots and redirect them to a fake page
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Alexibot [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^asterias [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^BackDoorBot [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Black.Hole [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^BlackWidow [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^BlowFish [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^BotALot [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^BuiltBotTough [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Bullseye [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^BunnySlippers [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Cegbfeieh [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^CheeseBot [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^CherryPicker [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^ChinaClaw [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^CopyRightCheck [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^cosmos [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Crescent [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Custo [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^DISCo [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^DittoSpyder [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Download\ Demon [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^eCatch [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^EirGrabber [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^EmailCollector [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^EmailSiphon [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^EmailWolf [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^EroCrawler [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Express\ WebPictures [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^ExtractorPro [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^EyeNetIE [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^FlashGet [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Foobot [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^FrontPage [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^GetRight [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^GetWeb! [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Go-Ahead-Got-It [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Googlebot-Image [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Go!Zilla [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^GrabNet [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Grafula [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Harvest [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^hloader [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^HMView [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^httplib [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^HTTrack [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^humanlinks [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^ia_archiver [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Image\ Stripper [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Image\ Sucker [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Indy\ Library [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^InfoNaviRobot [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^InterGET [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Internet\ Ninja [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^JennyBot [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^JetCar [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^JOC\ Web\ Spider [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Kenjin.Spider [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Keyword.Density [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^larbin [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^LeechFTP [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^LexiBot [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^libWeb/clsHTTP [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^LinkextractorPro [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^LinkScan/8.1a.Unix [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^LinkWalker [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^lwp-trivial [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Mass\ Downloader [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Mata.Hari [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Microsoft.URL [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^MIDown\ tool [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^MIIxpc [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Mister.PiX [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Mister\ PiX [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^moget [OR]
#RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Mozilla/2 [OR]
#RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Mozilla/3.Mozilla/2.01 [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Mozilla.*NEWT [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Navroad [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^NearSite [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^NetAnts [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^NetMechanic [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^NetSpider [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Net\ Vampire [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^NetZIP [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^NICErsPRO [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^NPBot [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Octopus [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Offline.Explorer [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Offline\ Explorer [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Offline\ Navigator [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Openfind [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^PageGrabber [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Papa\ Foto [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^pavuk [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^pcBrowser [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^ProPowerBot/2.14 [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^ProWebWalker [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^ProWebWalker [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^QueryN.Metasearch [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^ReGet [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^RepoMonkey [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^RMA [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^SiteSnagger [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^SlySearch [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^SmartDownload [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^SpankBot [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^spanner [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^SuperBot [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^SuperHTTP [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Surfbot [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^suzuran [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Szukacz/1.4 [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^tAkeOut [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Teleport [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Teleport\ Pro [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Telesoft [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^The.Intraformant [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^TheNomad [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^TightTwatBot [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Titan [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^toCrawl/UrlDispatcher [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^toCrawl/UrlDispatcher [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^True_Robot [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^turingos [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^TurnitinBot/1.5 [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^URLy.Warning [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^VCI [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^VoidEYE [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^WebAuto [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^WebBandit [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^WebCopier [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^WebEMailExtrac.* [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^WebEnhancer [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^WebFetch [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^WebGo\ IS [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Web.Image.Collector [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Web\ Image\ Collector [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^WebLeacher [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^WebmasterWorldForumBot [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^WebReaper [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^WebSauger [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Website\ eXtractor [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Website.Quester [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Website\ Quester [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Webster.Pro [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^WebStripper [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Web\ Sucker [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^WebWhacker [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^WebZip [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Wget [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Widow [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^[Ww]eb[Bb]andit [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^WWW-Collector-E [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^WWWOFFLE [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Xaldon\ WebSpider [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Xenu's [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Zeus
RewriteRule ^.*$ emailsforyou.php [L]

Tony

[aus]

I started one of the first personally reviewed online shopping directories in the UK back in 1997 with 1000's of shop reviews (not affiliate shop sites) and it takes me only seconds to find dozens of affiliate sites (plus one very large US funded directory) that has taken my categories and reviews verbatim and put them on their own sites. The fact is that whilst highly irritating that others are taking advantage of your work I have found that it is just a fact of life in this business.

[Matthew Wood]

how did you find out? is any service -best if free of charge- that you can check whether a site is a copy paste of another site?

I know it's not a great way, but you could just put a section of your content in quote marks and search in google for an exact match.

I.e. "my original content here"

should return pages which match exactly.

[KGP]

Ok so these are my sites (owned by the company I work for)

www.addeva.co.uk
www.fairinvestment.co.uk

and these are the site that have just recently appeared (you can check the date at the bottom as to when it happened on our server iti s dynamic). On the mortgage one they havn't even been bothered to remove the copyright addmomentum from the source code meta tags.

http://www.ezinedir.com/
http://www.my-mortgage-loans.co.uk/
http://www.my-casino-gambling.com/
http://www.myinternetinfo.com/united...ortgage+Advice

Any advice?

come one....give us a break...they have at least the logo changed!!!!!
-just teasing you-

well best is to contact their ISP and let them know that if they dont cease the site you will pursuit them legally.

secondly the ISP should be asked to provide you with information of identity and pursue it as well legally against the person.

beware that the person might change ISP so try to find where their domain is register and act appropriatelly against them as well.

hopefully this will give you a start and a short end to the whole process. but when i mean short end i am not talking about the legal process....try to take printscreens taged with date.

i know some will laugh but if you have a camera try to take live pics using a newspaper as well -in terms of date- this will give you appropriate prove -hopefully-

if you want an eye witness you have one


TO MAT -and anyone who knows-: thanks mat do you think if the text is not "shown" -ie hidden/"camouflaged"- will be easy for someone to check via google? and do you have any ideas regarding how implemment a more secure way of doing something like that -within the code i mean but showing on google-