What can i do if i find a site that copied my home page text word for word?

both companies are in the UK. Is there anything i can do about it? Is there a way i can report this to Google?

 

The only thing you can do, is to enforce your copyrights to your content. You probably don't want to the court... but Google won't help you. If they qualify their pages as duplicate content, they will do it automatically. You can't request it from them - you can request to honour your rights directly from that company.

 

It would be wise to read http://www.google.com/dmca.html, this is the official way to contact Google regarding copyright issues, if you think it is worth your time, that page tells you how to contact Google to have the offending content removed from their index. Only do this if you can find the specific search term that shows the offending web sites in the Google results, as Google may already be filtering the duplicate content already.

 

Check out their Whois, go there and kick their a$$

 

and win a carrot

 

Hahaha

good idea r3born.

 

I had someone do this with the cd covers on my site. They were running google adsense, so I simply contacted them and told them if the content was not taken down I would first contact google's adsense team to have them banned for using someone else's content and then I would contact their host and have them shut down all together.

Thankfully he removed the content within 24 hours and applogized for using the content. The last thing these guys want is to lose their adsense account. Threating to have it taken away will usually put an end to this problem.

Good luck

http://www.lightscribecovers.com

 

Report it to their host for copyright infringement.

 

That's a good strategy....I'm going to try that on some scrapers

 

report it to the police 1st, google 2nd

 

Report it to their host, by doing a Whois. (If you can't find their host through that message me)
Their host should be more than happy to suspend their account and make them remove the content.
Or have you even tried e-Mailing them? hahaha.
Hope i've helped.

 

Police? lol that won't go very far, it's out of their control.

 

I've dealt with this problem many times. My entire business site has been copied more than once, and individual pages dozens of times. This type of thing is rampant!

(For those of you who think it hasn't happened to you yet, type the URLS of a few of your most-popular webpages into Copyscape.com and you may be surprised.)

Anyway, here's what to do.
First, list the URL(s) that have been infringed. Do a search on copyscape.com and archive.org to document the infringement.

Then, contact the website owner using the contact info on their site, or the whois info. Use their full name. Politely explain the situation, telling them you are the owner of http://www.example.com/yourpage.html and it's come to your attention that the content of their page, http://www.their site.html/theirpage.html contains your copyrighted text.

Ask them to remove it immediately and then notify you so you can close the matter. Tell them you will file a DMCA complaint with their webhost and with Google and the other major search engines if this matter is not quickly resolved, but that you would much prefer to not have to take that step.

Use the subject line: Urgent: Copyright infringement on your website.

This approach works for me 90% of the time. The other 10% I've had to go to the webhost and they are nearly always very responsive, either removing the page themselves or getting the site's owner to do it.

Following is an example of the letter I send; feel free to use the text if you'd like. It's quite effective. It isn't a formal cease & desist letter (you can Google the text for one of those) but a more informal approach like this works better for the initial contact, I think. http://www.quantawebdesign.com/b/copyrightletter.gif

Usually they will respond to your emailed letter with an apology and a note that the material has been removed from their site. Most folks will be civil, others will be assholes about it. Just stand your ground. Contact their webhost if necessary.

Oh, and the offender will nearly always blame it on someone else (webdesigner, friend, lover, hired hand) - someone who supposedly put the stolen material up on their website without their knowing. Ah, well. As long as they take it down they can blam it on whoever they like. ;-)

If they don't respond after the first attempt, send another email saying something like, "On July 12 we notified you that our copyrighted text appears without authorization on your website. The text of that letter is reprinted below for your convenience. Please correct this issue immediately and notify us when it has been done. Thank you for your attention to your prompt attention to this matter."

If they don't respond to that, then feel free to contact their webhost. But usually you won't need to.
Hope this helps!
best,
Denise

 

Thanks for mentioning Copyscape.com. It will sure come in handy when my sites grow older and more popular, hopefully soon.

 

shyboy,

I have this happen all the time. It's maddening. You can check out my post on dealing with content theft if you need resources: http://www.explodethenet.com/a-6-st...le-from-stealing-your-website-content-10.html

~Adam

 

Ditto! I had never heard of the site before. Has anyone subscribed to the service? Are the results that much better. The free version didn't have great results for me. Just brought back people that link to me.

 

The premium service is a little better. CopySentry is great if you have multiple sites - it checks all your pages each week and emails you a list of possible infringers.

 

Thanks emptymirror.

 

Thanks guys, but i am not certain those steps will work in the UK. I will give it a try though.

 

Have you tried calling them on the phone? Maybe the director isn't aware of whats going on. Tell them Google will give them a duplicate content penalty.