Someone plagiarizing my ENTIRE website & ideas: what to do?

I've recently run into a really annoying issue and I'd appreciate any advice or feedback. I'm not sure if I have any valid recourse through the DMCA system or otherwise.

I have a successful website that gets lots of google traffic and has been growing consistently.

I recently came across another copycat website who is 100% copying my site and ideas. If you compare the two sites, theirs looks like a cheap Chinese knockoff of mine and it's disgusting. I unfortunately don't feel comfortable linking to either of the sites.

They made a theme that looks very similar to mine, branded the site very similarly with a similar name, logo and tagline. They also rewrote ALL of my articles, not copy-pasted but any human would instantly see that it's rewritten and a high school teacher would dismiss it as plagiarism. For example, if I have a "Top 10 list", they copied each point and rewrote what I said about it. Their goal seems to be to completely replicate my successful website.

An example would be like this:

Mine:

Theirs:

Obviously not completely copy-pasted but blatantly rewritten, in many cases on a sentence by sentence basis. They'll also copy all of the subheadings and sections. It's obvious to me they just opened my articles in one browser and a word processor in another and lazily copied what I wrote.

They also, in many cases, used the exact same images (which are stock photos, not my original works). It's really sickening to see someone with absolutely zero original ideas, just blatantly copying my original site.

What's worse is that I see they're even guest posting on the same sites I do and collaborating with many of the same people. In some cases, even using the same subjects for guest posts I've written but giving them to other sites.

As you can imagine this has me pretty angry and frustrated, but I'm not sure if there's a single thing I can do about this. I'm not sure if this is even violating any copyright laws because nothing is (as far as I can tell) copy-pasted and the images they're copying are stock photos.

Their site seems to be gaining traction in Google so I'm really frustrated and don't want someone following my business and copying every single thing I do, taking money away from me by just being a copycat.

Does anyone know if I have any legal foothold here to do anything about it? Nothing is, as far as I can tell, infringing on copyright, but outside of that, they're 100% obviously trying to replicate my business and ideas.

 

Welcome to the internet...
This is what people do...
If they think there is money in it, then
they will just simply replicate the process...
and they will ride on your coat-tail....

Even if he was 100% using your content, or the images was 100% yours, then
I still think it would be a challenge. You could try DMCA, however, if that does not
not work, then expect to pay 100's per hour for an attorney, and hope the other
side is loaded so that you can recoup damages, and if he is out of state, then it
just maybe that much more harder, but since everything is not word for word, and
he only took stock images. It is what it is. He is following you all the way to the bank....
maybe hope he is not making as much as you, and hope he will just give up one day....
however, if there is money in it, then he will continue to follow you until no-end....

You can make it more difficult. If you are using WP, then there are plugins
you can use that will discourage him from taking your content.

1: Use a copy protect plugin...He may not be able to copy the content
in a snap, he would have to write out the content word for word, which
in itself can be time-consuming, however, if he is that determined, then he will.

2: Even though they are stock images, embed your url on the images. If the images
are taken, then at the very least, he will be using your stock images with your url....

3: If you can track down and follow his IP address, then block his IP. This could be a
challenge in itself. You could be chasing down the wrong IP, and blocking the wrong person.

It is difficult when you have someone following you around like a little puppy
because they are simply unable to come up with their own work, and as long
as he thinks there is money in it, then he will continue to do so, even if it hurts
both of your rankings, as he would have higher rankings if it was his own work, but
since he cant not do his own work, then he will just continue to follow you....

Ultimately, google may not know who the real author is, google just sees the
content is plagiarized, and obviously copied from one site to the next, and google
does not care, and just assume to penalize both sites because google doesnt know any better.

I am not saying both sites will get a penalty, instead, you could receive lower rankings
due to the fact you have another site pretty much copying your content....

By looking at your content examples, then I think it would be safe to say
neither one of you are making any money, both look fairly bland, and provide
zero info that I would want to stand up and start buying a "toothbrush" which
i can get rather cheaply at any local store, any time that I choose....

 

Their site is hosted on Bluehost, so I would assume USA and yes their whois is private.

 

Don't waste your time taking legal action - getting lawyers involved. It's expensive, time consuming and the future outcome uncertain.
Don't even waste your time trying to get hold of the hosting company.

In the first instance, make a note of the URLs of the site and the offending pages of that site (you'll need it to complete a DMCA form). Also make a note of the URLs of your site and the pages on which the articles are allegedly taken.

Then click on https://support.google.com/legal/answer/3110420?hl=en and scroll down to 'Submit A Legal Request' and click on that. The 'tool' is like a wizard which will guide you through the process of requesting Google to take down content that infringing on your copyright.

It will take you just a few minutes to complete this form.

Recently, I came across four sites that had my product, content (images, description, etc) on their site but in .pdf format. Even though the links on a couple of the sites were fake and the 'free downloads' were probably fake, too, I had Google take down those sites, all within 30 hours from completion of the form to the take down.

I tried searching for those sites with every variation of the keywords used previously but the sites were gone!

I don't know how successful you'll be with your request, but it's worth a try and it costs nothing other than a few minutes of your time. You do have to provide sufficient info for Google to judge your claim of infringement of copyright to be just.

If you know of a good programmer, you could get them to insert a code into various section of your text so that you can copy/paste back the offender's version to check for evidence of that code. If you have that, then future claims of infringement will be that much easier to prove.

You cold also write your article and get Google to index it (the date will be registered) and then watch to see if the offending site then posts an almost identical article on their site. Check regularly for plagiarism and issue the 'Take Down Content' as and when necessary. The offending site owners will soon tire of having to set up another site with another domain in the hope of regaining ground.

Good luck.

 

You can nothing to do with this issue, it's the WWW...

 

He is not copying 100%. But you can try DMCA for the images.

 

once you put content out there, it really no longer belongs to you. With spinner that spin better than humans can't write you are pretty much screwed. if the article for instance is put through Grammarly and it comes back with no plagiarism it's original.

What you need to make sure you do is get the bots to index your article before theirs and you would need to gooogle this. the first person to write the article gets indexed if you do not have a search engine pinger you best get one.

 

Don't get worked up over this, just focus on keeping your site ranked higher and it shouldn't change a thing. Anyone can copy someone's website idea and rewrite everything if they want, you can't stop them. Take it as a compliment and keep your website #1.