Do you have a blog? Blogs have become an important part of every website as it helps to give a boost to ranking. Apart from it textual content of the website, online magazines is also important when it comes to the quality of the website. If you have content for the website you must have faced the issue of your content being stolen or at least have heard about such scenarios. The stolen content is then turned into a modified version of yours and then posted on other blogs, articles, or websites without giving proper attribution.
Hold on till the last as we have shared an interesting case of how a website stole content and later removed it from the web.
There are also multiple nuances when the articles are copied directly to other websites. One can find multiple tools which spun or modify the content with just a click of a button. However, the final results replicate your content.
Another classic example of stealing of content is witnessed where the party which copies data give attribution however it is done without your permission. Although it doesn’t create any threat to your website it is not considered an ethical practice.
However, there are various ways to check if your content is used without your concern. You can use methods to get the content removed from the offender’s website. There are also numerous ways by which you can prevent the content from being copied.
How to Find Out If Someone Copied Your Content
✓ Google Alerts
Google Alert is perhaps the best and free tool for this purpose. It is also one of the simplest tools of the lot. Put the portion of the article into the Google Alert Website. Choose the types of website you think your content could have been searched. After all these processes you need to put your email address for Google to contact you. One can also manage how many intervals you need the mail.
visit here : Google Alert
✓ copyscape
Do you publish tons of content over the web? Then Copyscape is the best suit for you. Although it is not free you can expect quality results out of it. Just punch in your website URL. Copyscape will scan the web and will help you get the websites that have copied your content.
Another amazing tool is trackback notifications. It helps you to automatically know what are the websites which generated links to your post.
Guide : Copyscape
How to Remove the Copied Content
There is always a contact page associated with the website. One can directly mail them asking to remove the content. However, there are chances it goes unattended but some website owners might take it into consideration and take down the content.
Who Is Hosting This
Most people go to Google Search Console when in need of taking down the content. However, website hosting services are usually more effective when it comes to removing copied content. The hosting companies often take down the entire website which has copied the content without your permission.
In case your content is copied and shared over article sharing platforms such as HubPages, Ezine, etc the best option is to contact the site administrator related to duplicate content. You can expect quick action once the appropriate information is given to the article submission sites. You can easily check
Example: whois
✓ Google Webmaster Tools – DMCA Complaint
There is one more way out to ensure the copied content is removed. One can file a complaint on DMCA against the site which has stolen your data. This is done using Google Webmaster Tools. It is one of the most effective options if someone has stolen your content or misusing it.
If Google identifies the theft of your content, the site gets banned from Google’s Search Engine. If the copied content is being used for making money the Google Ads account gets suspended and will be banned from opening a new account.
Click here : https://support.google.com/legal/troubleshooter/1114905
A recent case:
Lumen Database is one of the best platforms where one can check if the website has got any Copyright Infringement-related issues.
Just visit the website and punching in the URL of the website will help you get the complete detail related to DMCA strike and violation ( if any).
As a part of our regular practice, we checked for DMCA Strike for our website. We witnessed our clone website was created by a company. They copied text, video as well as images without our permission for instance www.companyname.com/our-home (here is our website home page copy). Still, they didn’t stop there, they file a complaint against us on.
https://support.google.com/legal/troubleshooter/1114905.
The main concern was they had charged us for violation of DMCA act even being us the original creator.
Visit here : https://www.lumendatabase.org
What to do to stop this from happening?
Although there are no foolproof options available that can prevent the content from being copied. However one can create a clear copyright notice and Term of Use Pages. You can clearly mention in what circumstances your content can be used and what are the conditions for it.
✓ Google Search Authorship
In such cases, you can use Google Search Authorship. It helps to prove you as the original content creator. In case someone steals your content Google will ensure your domain ranks higher over the stolen content.
While the above-mentioned tips are the most effective ways we have also researched some more methods which can help you to save your image and text from getting copied.
One can
- Disable the right button
- In the case of images uses watermark the images.
- Register the website and add DMCA badge to the website.
However, the best part of DMCA is you can also claim the content through Google Webmaster Tool. Our team submitted the issue to Google Webmaster Tool as Synram is the original content holder of our own website and this can be proved from the Google indexing database they have, which website submitted when. However, our website was removed from Google’s search results by then but our request was accepted for an illegal DMCA strike.
Within a span of 3 days, Google charged the website which copied our entire content and as a result, the website was bounded to take down the copied pages.
In this process, our Google My Business also suffered as the website link was being removed.
But within a span of 4 days our ranking, visibility on SERP, as well as the website button in Google My Business, were restored.
Another major question arises will this tactic work for those who copied just a small part of the content?
The answer is yes.
[Blog Writer intention here is to keep you aware and as a precautionary measure to protect you from such unethical practices but please don’t follow this unethical practice by any means]
In this digital world where data privacy is often hindered the theft of content is very common. However, we are confident if you use the methods mentioned in the article you will be in a better position to save your creation.
