not sure how to classify this... SEO Phishing/Hijacking Web Scraping/Google Duplicate FILTER Google Spam Report (carried out from inside webmaster tools) While conducting a regular check on our google rankings I discovered that a duplicate version of my website had appeared in the google SERP's above my website. Particularly concerning is that google's robot and my potential customers are being confused by this copycat website. The website appears to be almost a direct clone, except that, of course it is not possible to contact us via webforms on the duplicate website. The URL of the cloned version is our former URL which recently expired and was re-registered by a group of people who are impossible to contact via the WHOIS registry details, nor can i contact them via their Web Hosting provider. The ofrmer URL still has links to it from various sites and i guess thats why its appearing highr than us. it could also be the google sandbox effect i've read about? There is without a doubt some deceptive techniques being used by them to steal our SEO position, deceive our customers, use our company identity in a fraudulent manner and blatantly copy our content. As a result of this, my offical website has dropped drastically from its former high positions in google. My URL: http://www.icomexico.com/spanish/contact.php Cloned version: http://www.instculturaloax.com.mx/spanish/contact.html the uncontactable people who re-registered my former domain after it expired, are hosting the cloned version of my site via nameservers associated with: www.mexicored.com.mx (an obvious link farm with uncontactable owners) alos, based on the IP, it's hosted on servers run by www.softlayer.com in Dallas Texas (who havent responded to my enquiries, yet) so i'm guessing the "benefit" they get from doing all this might be an increased Page Rank? also wondering if its worthwhile filing a DMCA to cover the copyright infringement issues. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Mille...m_Copyright_Act or maybe anti-phishing measures? http://www.antiphishing.org/ Any help or advice you could provide in this matter would be of great assistance. As a final note, today we notcied that the index page (only) for the cloned version has changed to include a message and link to our domain. previously they had an exact copy of our homepage. i'm guessing our emails have perhaps had an effect? should google now decrease the position of the cloned version since the index page has no content and no internal links to the other pages? In general, is this a problem with the way GOOGLE index sites? Yahoo and MSN dont show any change at all.
I covered this kind of issue here: http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=290655 At the very least file the DMCA's with the SE's so you can get your rank back.
That looks like a clear case of duplication and if you can prove that they are using the site to phish data from your customers, you should also take anti-phishing measures.