Duplicate content - my website has been duplicated Recourse??

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davidjamalpur
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Duplicate content - my website has been duplicated Recourse??

Post by davidjamalpur » Tue Nov 28, 2017 11:32 am

Hello and thank you for your time .

A large portion (about 40 pages) of my website has been duplicated under a different domain name. Same url's (to the right of .com) but with different (thief) domain name:

http://www.mysite.com/aticle-xyz

http://www.duplicatesite.com/article- xyz

Not too long after the launch of this duplicate website, my traffic has decreased by almost 50%. I know this because I know approximately when the duplicate website was launched... obviously I can't know for sure but I'm assuming there's a direct correlation between the launch time of this duplicate website and my traffic decrease. Furthermore, the decrease in my traffic (90% google organic traffic is what I'm talking about) not only coincides with the launch time of this duplicate website, but also after a steady 10% monthly increase for the last 2+ years. Point being, this duplicate website has to have something to do with my traffic decrease.

The owner of this website is a competitor of mine and he duplicated my website and launched his shortly after a business meeting of ours. I checked the WHO IS and confirmed. Both my site and the thief website are both hosted with GoDaddy. Per godaddy instruction, I emailed [email protected] today and am waiting for a response. 3 day response time is what I was told over the phone with GoDaddy. Even if Godaddy takes the website down obviously he can just then host said duplicate website with a different hosting service / company.

Anyway, my question is what if any recourse do I have? Do I need to consult an attorney? Is there somewhere online to where I can learn more about this? Can I submit an abuse ticket/claim so to speak straight to Google perhaps via Google Console?

My objective is to get the duplicate website taken down.

I'm trying to determine what my viable options are before I contact this company.

Please respond with either suggestions or questions or both.

Thank you for your time and consideration. I look forward to hearing from you..
Last edited by imanickam on Wed Nov 29, 2017 3:31 am, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Moved the topic from the forum Search Engine Optimization (Joomla! SEO) in Joomla! 3.x to the forum The Lounge

sozzled
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Re: Duplicate content - my website has been duplicated Recourse??

Post by sozzled » Tue Dec 19, 2017 8:06 pm

Hmmm ... this is a tough one: violation of copyright.

Depending on what kinds of financial or reputational damage this "competitor" is causing, my advice would be to obtain professional legal advice. I would not be making any direct contact with the competitor. Allow the GoDaddy complaint resolution to take its course; if GoDaddy fails to reply within a week then contact a lawyer and seek an injunction against the webhosting provider to remove the offending website content.

As far as Google is concerned, you would need to provide some proof that the stolen content was, indeed, stolen.

As I say, it depends on how your business is experiencing financial or reputational damage as a consequence of this intellectual propery theft that determines what follow-up course of action you take. The mere drop in "traffic" is not sufficient reason to seek redress; it's how that drop in traffic actually eats into your company's bottom line that matters. That's what a good lawyer who specialises in intellectual property would advise you and, so, that's where you may need to go next.


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