I have an issue regarding my search ranking

Hi DigitalPoint,

I have recently, in the last two weeks infact, been dropped from page 1 on the search term "paypal fees calculator" for my website www.paypalfeescalculator.com and I'm not sure I understand why? My content is original, my SEO was 100% organic, and I never traded backlinks or any of those link farm rubbish. The worst part of it though is that another website has suddenly appeared on the first page of Google for my search query and is probably getting the traffic that I'm supposed to get. The website in question, paypalfeecalculator.com has stolen my content and is stealing my traffic using my content.


I have already filed a DMCA takedown request to the hosting provider, HostGator and they have subsequently given the webmaster 48 hours (as of about 16 hours ago) to remove the content or they'll disable his hosting. But there are others. My work has been serving the internet for over a year and was even recommended by a PayPal advisor: https://www.paypal-community.com/t5...al-charges/td-p/668709?profile.language=en-gb

I'm not here to advertise my website, I'm here to ask for advice on how to crack down on these thieves and, more to the point, how to somehow get Google to see that what they've done is seriously unfair. I don't care if they've spent lots of money on professional SEO. They have no right to steal my stuff!

 

Good to see the DMCA takedown has worked (since the website is currently offline). To answer your question, take a look at: https://ahrefs.com/site-explorer/overview/subdomains/?target=paypalfeescalculator.com

You dropped quite hard in backlinks and overall reffering domains. This could explain your SERP drops since (I guess) you didn't chance anything dramatically?

 

Wow, overnight you went from having 1,819 backlinks to just over 300 backlinks. Usually this only happens if you used automatic link generators to get your backlinks. Most of those links get deleted.

 

I never did any back link submissions. I simply added quality meta and uploaded. Seriously, that was all it took for my website to take off! I may have posted on a couple of forums when the site was brand new but they were all reputable relevant forums like this one. How I obtained over 1000 low quality back links is an absolute mystery to me. Maybe one of my silly friends trying to be helpful. Damn it! And yes @quiz the DMCA takedown was successful. Rightfully so the thieving little blighter!

 

Well however it happened, one thing's for sure, you're back at square one. I don't envy you! Best of luck with trying to get re-ranked. You can do it, it'll just take some work.

 

Yes, it'll be a lot easier if people don't keep stealing from me though. How the devil he managed to get on page one using stolen content is shocking to say the least. I'm satisfied his journey was short, not sweet. But he's not the only one and I'm sure he won't be the last. I'm sick of thieves. I work hard to create something unique and some sponging little vagabond comes along and tries to outpace me using my own work!