My posts got stolen
Hi everyone, I would like to hear your views before I take any actions.
I noticed a website that copied my entire posts and published it on their website.
At the end referenced (link) the post back to me.
Is that ok?
Or should I asked them to stop?
Thanks,
Fred
Recent Comments
41
Hi Fred,
That is not ok without your permission. Use a coy protection plugin. Others have said that there are workarounds if someone really wants to copy your stuff but disabling the copy, paste, and print functions makes it very inconvenient.
I’m on my phone right now but if you would like the one I use just let me know and I’ll get back to you.
Also, let this person know you would like your content removed.
Frank
Hi Fred,
The plugin I use is: WP Content Copy Protection & No Right Click.
Just install it and activate. I just use the default settings but it can easily be reconfigured to suit your needs.
Frank
I have not read all the comments here but I had the same issue of my posts getting published automatically by another website. They posted each and everyone of my articles and seemed to even have it indexed before I could index it.
Some of my articles did not get indexed and that is when I started investigating. I did a DMCA takedown request and within hours the content has been removed. And guess what, soon after my articles that did not get indexed got indexed.
Google must have seen them as the authority and owners of the content instead of me.
Plus duplicate content gets penalised by Google in terms of ranking.
So I would defo recommend a DMCA takedown.
Ps. I just read what Chrystopher said as well. I guess it depends on the circumstances. However, if your article is posted as is word for word whether you got some credit for it or not, in my opinion duplicate content is always a bad idea and this is taught here at WA too.
That is the reason why WA prohibits you from posting your own created WA article posts on your personal website too.
I completely agree about duplicate content. There is a difference between duplicate and syndicated content though. Content should only be syndicated with permission though, usually.
Thanks for clarifying. I may ask you more about this in the near future to make sure I understand the difference in regards to syndication and duplication in terms of SEO etc.
It's definitely word for word and 1 of my posts even ranked higher than me!
I am totally pissed.
Was not long ago I had the same issue. Don't even play games. Take robust action. This is what I have done. I first emailed the website owner and did not even wait for a reply to take further action.
I immediately did a search to see where the website owner is hosting. They were going through Cloudflare. I emailed Cloudflare telling them that my content was stolen. Cloudflare then contacted their host provider to inform them. Plus on top of that I managed to find their host anyways and emailed them too.
In a matter of hours all of my stolen posts were deleted off their website.
The way I even put it to their hosting company was like that it seems that the website owner is too lazy to put in the hard work to create his own original content and seems to be stealing other people's content to make money off stolen content via add revenue.
I did not even bother to write three different emails. I just did a generic message, copied and pasted and send it to the website owner, Cloudflare and the hosting company.
I understand and appreciate your concern, and there are definitely mixed views on this. However, this is known as Syndicated/Curated content, which isn’t a bad thing. When someone takes your content and links back to the original post, this actually gives you a very strong backlink and will help you with your SEO efforts. It also raises your exposure and is free advertising for your website. If you are not happy with this, then by all means, you can request that they remove it from their website, or if they don’t, you can file the DMCA take down request. Personally, I would leave it as it is, if you have been given the full credit, including a backlink.
That’s a great point, Chrystopher, but I would only do that if the site has some impressive traffic and the backlink compliments your site.
Hi Fred, thanks for bringing this up. Isn't that called curated content sourced from different sites; referring to when they link back to your posts.
Kyle, I'd like to hear your opinion on this as I've seen entire sites built with curated content and there are YouTube videos about it and it seems to be trendy. Not sure if its legal though. Thanks. Marisa
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So, someone copy your post here on the W.A. platform and paste it on their website. If that's so, that's bad and action need to taken. You work for yours and without permission, this is clearly a copyright violation. Sort it out first with the website owner and see what happens. If he/she doesn't comply, report it so that it doesn't happen to someone else. All the best!