I've recently found a site that looked .. exactly like mine, well in fact it had absolutely the same code, content and evan the layout, the guy only changed few link and a logo. He didn't care to provide me a backlink. Absolutely no coinsidence is possible since my content was rare and unique. So what should I do? I emailed him few days ago, but didn't get any reply. He also put lots of adsense blocks and has a PR3 on my content alone... I've never been in this situation before, so do you think I should report about him to google and to adsense for violating my copyright and if I should how can I actually proove it was mine? I wouldn't like to give links here for known reasons, but if someone is interested I can PM it. thanks, _Mike_
One thing you can try is to write a letter on and make it look professional telling him to remove the content because he is in violation of copyright laws. Most people respond better to letters because they get scared.
Well, I tried to be scary, by telling him that after reporting to google, he will probably lose all his adsense earnings, but still no answer.. Just curious if anyone here been in such situation and what he did..?
Indeed honey, and don't tell him about Adsense and stuff like that. Write him/her an email asking cordially to remove the content that is copyrighted by you. If he doesn't reply (give 2 or 3 days only) write to his hosting company (find the nameservers). Normally at this point the account is closed. If nothing happen write to the domain registrar explaining the situation. Also, by this point you should already send a letter to him/her for the content removal. And believe me, they will be scared as hell!
I would contact google, but not tell him. He will find out eventually. I would then contact his hosting company. I would also look him up in the whois database and send him a letter myself asking for compensation or face civil litigation (mostly just a scare tactic to try to recover some of your lost revenue).
I had a guy copy my site design once. He called the site a different name, but used my exact same look and feel. He had the exact same sections, colors, everything! Sent him an email complimenting him on his creative abilities. Never heard back from him. I agree with the above advice. Either draft your own legal letter, or have a law firm do it for you. Even a simple email from a law firm will probably do the trick. Good luck!
Thanks to all you for advice. I think I'll wait another day or two and then I'll probably write a letter to his hosting company and if it doesn't help - to google. The only problem I can see here is how to prove the content is mine? All the site is built of simple html pages, which can easily be copied... The guy who copied it can easily say the same thing and he can even accuse me of stoling his content...
You might try www.archive.org - they maintain copies of websites going back a few years. There's yours with content from last year, there's his without it .
Hi Mike Have you had resolution to this yet? This has happened to me 3 THREE TIMES - A very big site - once in 2002 - I wrote a threatening mail, they removed it. Last year - SAME company, same site posted to a different domain name than in 2002 - wrote a letter, they removed it. 2 days ago I find it again, SAME company, different domain again, (still the 2002 version of the site they are using). I have written to them - they are not removing it! The ridiculous thing is that it has OUR contact telephone numbers etc. which they've missed because they are in a javascript pop-up, that opens from an obscure image link. It would be interesting to start a post about this and try to determine if it is the same company doing it to everyone who gets affected by this.