The Disastrous Consequences Of Duplicate Content - A Warning

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As many of you probably know I wrote an ebook last year in partnership with Heidi which we are currently selling from our website.

As part of the marketing strategy for the book we decided to build out the site as per the WA training to include an SEO focused blog and other pages to help build an email list.

This process was going very well. We added content regularly to our site by following the system - researching keywords with Jaaxy and incorporating them into our posts while still keeping them interesting and informative.

All was going well. Indexing had started to happen, often before we even had a chance to request it through Google console. We were pleased to see our traffic increasing and organic clicks starting to come from the search engines.

Our blog posts were rising up nicely through the rankings. Remember we were in the very competitive digital marketing niche but some of our posts were already making it up as high as page 4 of search and continuing to climb.

Crash

Shortly after Christmas it all changed and our traffic started to tail off, our clicks from organic search tanked and the ranking of our posts nosedived too. We couldn't understand it.

I looked into it to see if I could figure out what the problem was. To cut a long story short, I discovered that another WA member had been copying and pasting our blog posts onto her own site - effectively creating that cardinal sin of SEO - duplicate content.

The problem here was that it affected not just her site - but our site was also penalised for duplicate content - even though the articles in question were our own original content.

I don't think this member intended to do this harm to us but this is a classic example of someone who hasn't taken the time to properly go through the training here and actually understand how to conduct an affiliate marketing business.

As a member of WA you have all the training you could ever ask for to show you how to build a profitable online business. It has been created by 2 guys who know what they are doing and are living proof that it works. All you need to do is follow the training and take action on what you learn.

If you aren't doing that then you are effectively wasting your time and your money - and potentially causing harm to others with your errors.

I challenged this member about her actions and she has now closed down the site in question. If you have ever been tempted to take the easy option of copying and pasting content from elsewhere into your site then beware of the consequences of your actions.

This has been a setback for us but we all have to accept that setbacks are going to occur in your business. You can either let the setback get you down and give up trying; or you can get back up and keep on fighting to achieve your business goals.

I think you can guess which option Heidi and I will be choosing!

New week, new opportunities.

Get that action plan written and start working it!

Cheers

Dave

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Recent Comments

195

That's really disgusting. I think there should be some way to report this and the offending members get kicked off WA. surely with 2 million members, this would not harm business for WA but really set a high standard in this regard.
I'm so sorry this happenrd to you guys. Having gone over your website in detail, I can see how much work you've put into it.
I would be livid if I found someone copying my content!

Hi Marketa
Thanks very much and we appreciate your support 😀
The matter has now been fully resolved and I can already see a gradual improvement in our traffic.
We also appreciate your feedback on our site and we will work to fix some of the issues you spotted.

Thanks
Dave

There is a way of dealing with it, Kudos tp Dave for dealing with it in a professional manner.

If refused (which has happened) you can go to Kyle, who will check out the offending site/content and deal with it there..

There have been case like that in the past, sadly.

If it is a non-WA hosted site you can file a DMCA complaint with google and have the duplicated content removed from the search results.

That's really helpful advice. Thanks for letting me know

Very concerning!

Did you have the Rel=Cannonical thing properly set up?.

Being a SEO'er I assume you did...which makes your duplicate content issue all the more obscure, worrying and strange! (Google should have caught the Rel=Cannonical tag and taken yours as the original.

(unless I am misunderstanding how the Rel=Cannonical thing works and what it is for).

I syndicate my content, all of it to a paid for service, getting it pulled from the RSS each time I publish effectively meaning all my content is duplicated, I've not had a problem with it

(the service I uses indicates where the original content is from as does my use of the Rel=Cannonical tag).

Duplicate content is fine as long as:

A) you have permission to reproduce it
B) that Rel=Cannonical tag thing is properly used by both parties. C) properly referenced and linked to (out of respect!).

Under those conditions, as I understand it google won't penalise the site copying the content and actually benefit the original site (by means of link juice) and they will know the source of the original content.

Although not debating the issue of duplicate content (without concent or knowledge is plain wrong!).

I appreciate any corrections on my "chain of thought" regarding the legitimate use of duplicated content and the Rel=Cannonical tag.

Does that particular tag "protect" your content by telling search engines "oi..original content is over here!".

This Rel thing as I understand is mainly about your own posts, not related to this issue here. The person who steals your text will use the same Rel.

Thank you kindly Jovo :-)

Most welcome.

This aside, I wonder how you rank with the mentioned syndicated content. I have seen a few people recently mentioning it. Can you say more about the concept? Which paid service are you using?

Content Syndication as explained by Moz

https://moz.com/blog/syndicating-content-whiteboard-friday.

I'm using Blog Engage

My Pleasure.

Thank you.

This sad. To all members who want to protect their content on WordPress. Install a plugin to block right-click copy.

There are many plugins that stop this. Simply type in the "Right Click"

You will get a few plugins. How do you know the ones that are good?

Look at the number of install and date the plugin was updated and if it is compatible with your version of WordPress.

Do this and your content is protected.

Here are two to look into;

1: WP Content Copy Protection & No Right Click
2: Disable Right Click For WP
3: RCD-Right Click Disabler

Check them out. You can also ask your mentor before you install any of them.

Hi Michael
This is a terrific piece of advice!
Thank you very much indeed - we will definitely be doing exactly that!
You should write a blog post on it here at WA and share this with everyone.

Cheers
Dave

I use the WP Content Copy Protection plugin. It works very well. Too well, as I am unable to right click or use hot keys to copy and paste while editing within the admin panel.

Rihanna (Rdulloo) has some training on that on her profile. the use of a Plugin to protect your site.

Doesn't work with Thrive so well though (works but makes Thrive editor annoying as.[expletive] to work with.

I will and a video showing how it's done

Fantastic! I look forward to seeing it!

Thanks
Dave

Thanks again for adding that post today Mike.
I'm heading to my site now to do exactly what you talked about!

Cheers
Dave

Wow! How sad! This kind of action won't take the person nowhere. We got to work, we got to sweat and we got to be very mindful of others work. Thank you so much for sharing your story. It's a good lesson.
But, how can I find out if someone is copting and pasting my content? I am not creating contents yet, still on training. But, I am very curious.

Hi Tsigemariam
Please don't be too concerned about it. The best thing to do is to keep working through the training and learning how to build your business correctly.
I discovered it by doing a deep google search for the exact keywords I was targeting in my articles.

Thanks
Dave

Really sorry to hear, the sad thing is that you now both lose.Atleast she`s decent enough to close down the site, still, such actions leave dents and I learned from a young age that no matter how well you patch up a dent that the eye can not see, it`s still there somewhere.

Hi Roamy
I don't really know what the longer term effects will be on rankings but Jay offered some great advice earlier on recovering from it so we will be doing that.
In the meantime we move on with other methods of building our traffic and business.
The only way is forward!

Cheers
Dave

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